Judging Freedom - Matthew Hoh: The Ongoing Tragedy in Gaza - Examining Israel's Actions and the Role of the US

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

ABOUT: Associate Director EMN, Matthew Hoh had nearly twelve years of experience with the US military and the wars overseas with the United States Marine Corps, Department of Defense, and State Department.He has been a Senior Fellow with the Center For International Policy since 2010. In 2009, Matthew Hoh resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the American escalation of the war. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew took part in the American occupation of Iraq; first in 2004-2005 in Salah ad Din Province with a State Department reconstruction and governance team and then in 2006-2007 in Anbar Province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matthew worked on Afghanistan and Iraq war policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and State Department from 2002-2008.Matthew’s writings have appeared in online and print periodicals such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Defense News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He has been a guest on hundreds of news programs on radio and television networks including the BBC, CBS, CNN, CSPAN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, and Pacifica The Council on Foreign Relations has cited Matthew’s resignation letter from his post in Afghanistan as an Essential Document. In 2010, Matthew was named the Ridenhour Prize Recipient for Truth Telling, and, in 2021, he was awarded as a Defender of Liberty by the Committee for the Republic.Matthew Hoh is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Public Accuracy, an Advisory Board Member for the Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties, Expose Facts, North Carolina Committee to Investigate Torture, The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, and World Beyond War, and he is an Associate Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a 100% disabled veteran and has been certified by North Carolina as a Peer Support Specialist for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 21st, 2023, Thanksgiving week here in America. Matt Ho joins us now for his regular weekly session with us. Matt, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Are you satisfied from your sources and from your observation of what we all see in the public, that not so much the extrication of hostages or even the decimation of Hamas as it is the utter and total removal of the Palestinian people from Gaza. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, Judge. Absolutely, I think that's the case. That's what we're witnessing. We're witnessing ethnic cleansing. We're witnessing genocidal policies being put into place. Anyone who's denying that is just denying the obvious of what's occurring here. You're seeing the deliberate eradication

of a people, the deliberate eradication of any infrastructure that would allow for people to live, the forced displacement of people. I mean, so all war crimes on top of war crimes, that is bolstered by genocidal rhetoric. And it's just not one or two statements we can point to. We could do a couple of different episodes where you and I just read various statements, op-eds, YouTube video quotes, whatever, of prominent Israelis. Again, not people who don't have power, but people in power, people who are significant, who are saying genocidal intent. There was just another one the other day, just yesterday in an Israeli newspaper, an opinion piece by a retired Israeli general. So a person of prominence, a person who still carries weight, talking about the need for genocide, the need in this opinion, the piece

that he wrote, to kill the women of Palestine, to kill the women of Gaza. I mean, so the rhetoric here is substantial. It's clear. It's overt. They're not even utilizing dog whistles anymore or coded or hidden or secret language. It's clear what they are saying. And it's matched up with what Israel is doing in Gaza in terms of its deliberate campaign of massacres, of destruction of infrastructure, and of forced migration. The general of whom you speak, retired Major General Giora, G-I-O-R-A, Eiland, E-I-L-A-N-D. Major General Eiland is the former head of the National Security Council of Israel and is a current advisor to Defense Minister Gallant and to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Here's what he said, quote, behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women without whom he

could not engage in terrorism. Now, this also includes the mothers of the martyrs who send them off to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons. Nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes. This is the point you just made, Matt, in which they raise the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there. And then when he said this, and I've just read one paragraph, it's a difficult op-ed piece to read if you have any sense of decency. The finance minister, I think his name is Smotrich, posted it on X, on YouTube, and on Facebook. So it is clear that this is influencing or this is a view shared by members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet. It's also clear, Matt, that people have begun to say of the United States, I want to explore this with you in a minute,

that the United States government is complicit in genocide. Where do the weapons come from that the Israeli defense forces are using? Where does the ammo come from? It comes from the U.S. That's quite right. And according to our Pentagon, which refuses to say what it's sending to Israel, although we've seen some leaks and there have been some slips, U.S. Transportation Command said that they sent some things and showed some aircraft delivering supplies before they were told, hey, we're not doing PR on this. We're keeping this secret because we're ashamed of it. And because I think there are a lot of lawyers in the Pentagon who are saying, look, this violates a number of treaties, a number of international laws, a number of federal laws,

but it's also, most importantly to our discussion here, in contravention of the Genocide Convention. And so the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed suit against the President of the United States. They also, importantly, a week or two ago, the Center for Constitutional Rights sent letters to members of Congress warning them that if you vote for, if you approve more weapons to Israel, you know, this tranche of, well, the overall package is $105 billion. Though, as I learned reading antiwar.com today, there are now Republicans in Congress who want to add an extra $12 billion to that $105 billion for more money to go to fight China in the future. But the Center for Constitutional Rights was warning our

lawmakers, you will be complicit. Under the Genocide Convention, to which we are a party, you will be complicit in genocide if you go along with sending these weapons to Israel that are being used specifically for that purpose. But this is a moral complicity, Matt, because international law is not enforced. What is the value of international law? What is the value of these treaties if there's no enforcement mechanism? When I asked that to our friend, Professor Saxs, who's the expert on the UN, he goes, UN, the ideas behind it, the aspirations behind it would prevent these things. And these are treaties we've spoke about before. These are treaties that are presidents like Truman and Eisenhower signed on to. This wasn't, there weren't things that that wishy-washy, limp-wristed men who avoided

the war signed on to. These were very serious men who had come out of, along with our allies, winning the Second World War, along with the Soviets and the British and others, winning the Second World War. These were the men who put these, who signed our name to these treaties. These were the people, the men who fought and won that war, the ones who wrote these treaties. And so this idea that somehow these are treaties that are of a bygone era, that shouldn't matter anymore because those people really didn't know what they're talking

about. This is a different circumstance. It's just completely undone by understanding who they were. And so our great shame to not follow through on those, not honor those, but then to allow the United Nations system to become what it is now, which is just really an extension in many ways for the United States to enforce what it wants and to protect who it wants. And so it's a very broken system that needs to be revamped, needs to be reformed, needs to be rebuilt, because otherwise you can't prevent these things. And that's what we're seeing happen right here. As we're witnessing this genocide unfold, and many of us feel so powerless. How badly is the Israeli government losing the PR war? Because four weeks ago, if you and I had

used the word genocide five times in three paragraphs, people would be all over us for it. Now it's used in presidential news conferences. We'll play the news conference or White House news conferences. We'll play the portion of the news conference for you in a minute. But to the first part of my question, and my apologies, it's so long winded. You know, Roger Ailes used to say the best questions have five words in them, Judge. All right. So how badly is the Israeli government losing the PR war? Ten words.

It is quite remarkable how corrupted the Israeli propaganda machine is. And I think this has to do with the fact that the Israelis know that they have the United States Congress and the White House in their pocket. And we've seen this where in the last week or two, AIPAC, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most prominent Israeli lobby in the United States, although there are several, announced that it was going to spend $100 million to unseat members of the House of Representatives who have been calling for a ceasefire. So this $100 million dump of cash in the next year into House races on the behalf of a government committing genocide, that should cause a constitutional crisis in this country. And so this is, I think, why their propaganda is so inept, why it's working against them, why they have just been so foolish and unwise and how pathetic and how comical it has been, like they're trying to prove their assertions. It's almost like we're watching silent live skits many times with the Israeli Defense

Forces putting out in terms of their justification for why they attacked this hospital. I mean, the fact that when they attacked the children's hospital and then they pointed to diapers and a bottle of milk as being justification for their assertion that terrorists were hiding out there in a children's hospital. I mean, those types of things are just ludicrous, a type of, again, silent live type satire or a spoof. And that's what we're seeing here. But I think why they're so bad at it is because it is so corrupted, because what they rely upon is the strength of the American Congress and the Oval Office, which they have in their

pockets so they don't have to be good at because they can always fall back on that. We talked about the currency with which the word genocide is used, and apparently somebody has referred to the president as Genocide Joe and sprayed it somewhere near the White House. Here's Admiral Kirby, a rather animated Admiral Kirby, attempting to refute the Genocide Joe. And listen to what he says at the very end, because in my view, it refutes much of what he said before that. I said this the other day. Again, people can say what they want on the sidewalk, and we respect that. That's what the First Amendment's about. But this word genocide's getting thrown around. They've said so publicly more than one occasion. In fact, just recently. And they've said that they're not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October?

Murder, slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That's genocidal intentions. Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza. Yes, the numbers are too high. Yes, too many families are grieving. And yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. That's not going to stop from the president right on down. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel's not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel's trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we're going to start using that word, fine, let's use it appropriately. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map? Israel is not trying to wipe the

Palestinian off the map? What sources is he relying on? This is the White House. This is the National Security Council chief spokesman and a retired admiral from the U.S. Navy. I think the reason why you alluded to him, Judge, about how upset he was getting is, and I think you've seen this throughout your career, right? Throughout your career interviewing people, being in the media, when you hit at something that is true, when you hit at something that is not just an inconvenient truth or an uncomfortable truth, but exposes the complete mendacity of your position, people get upset, people get emotional, right? And so I think that's what you're seeing there with Admiral Kirby, his beginning to lose his composure

because what he's being asked is something that he knows to be true and he has to deny it. And so this farcical recitation of how Israel, how the White House is doing everything it can to make sure Israel is obeying international law and trying to protect civilians at the same time as we are shipping them C-17s full of bombs and Hellfire missiles to kill those people, to speak about this mass slaughter of families in their homes, as Israel is doing it at the very moment he is speaking, is just the ability to perform like that. It's psychopathic. And it reminds me of the op-ed

piece that Joe Biden had in the Washington Post this past week, which was, which just as, as Kirby's comments were completely devoid of reason and accountability and signal that, you know, that op-ed piece important to read, because this is what the White House puts out via the Washington Post, which is, you know, as most people recognize, particularly for foreign policy and issues of war and peace, the state mouthpiece for the United States very often. You know, that what Biden's op-ed signaled was the continuation of death by the tens of thousands for the Palestinians and for the Ukrainians. And you see Kirby there trying to scramble to justify that continuation of those slaughters of those of these wars without a purpose in the sense of what are the vital interests of the United States. And so often their comments are just incredibly vacuous and vapid, right? You'll hear them say things like, well, you know,

Israel or Ukraine are vital to the United States. And then when they're asked, why are they vital? The answer is, well, because we share the same interests and you can never get an answer out of them as to what are those interests. I mean, what you're seeing here is people just scrambling, treading water, trying to survive. And of course, what's coming, you know, this notion of genocide Joe, the White House is hoping that in 12 months, people forget. And that 12 months or less than 12 months from now at the election, people are going to be voting on something else. But there are millions of people in this country who will not forget. And that's just not going to be a catastrophe for the White House. It's going to be a catastrophe for the whole Democratic Party because people are simply not going to vote.

They're not going to vote for Trump or Kennedy or Manchin or whoever. They're going to vote. They're just going to choose not to vote. And that's going to affect the entire down ballot for the Democratic Party. And so as the Democrats look at their at their party at 80 percent of their party is saying, stop this war. We want to cease fire. And they say, no, we're too afraid to do that. We're too afraid AIPAC is going to spend money to kick us out of office, whatever their different reasons are, they hear this type of just imbecilic and completely untrue, false lies coming from the White House that we're not supposed to believe are lying eyes. We're seeing every day we are witnessing things that we wish we had never seen.

And tomorrow we will see more of it. And the day after we will see more of it. On Thanksgiving, what do you think you're going to see if you turn on your television, you open your computer, you look at your phone about news from Palestine? You're going to see more slaughtered families. As we are all sitting with our families on Thanksgiving, the slaughter of families in Gaza will be continuing with American supply bombs, even though our leaders protest that they are doing everything they can to protest civilians. And people are sick of it. They're angry and they're disgusted. Let's switch briefly in the little time remaining to Ukraine. Over the weekend,

the Secretary of Defense made an unannounced visit to Ukraine. It was there for two days, and that was preceded by an unannounced visit by David Cameron, the new Foreign Minister of Great Britain, who was a former Prime Minister of Great Britain, only in office for five days, and his first official trip was to Kiev. Do you think they, and they each were photographed with President Zelensky, do you think they said, don't worry, the aid is coming? Or do you think they said, look, this is the end of the line. The Republicans in the House are not going to go for this. They may have their faults, but they're not going to give us a nickel on Ukraine. You better find your aid somewhere else.

Well, even if they do get the money, the munitions, the weapons aren't there to give them. Israel is now at the, I mean, excuse me, Ukraine is at the back of the line. Israel is at the front of the line. Zelensky was complaining about this over the weekend, about the fact that shipments of artillery rounds to Ukraine have dropped because they're going to Israel. So, you know, even if the money comes, there just isn't, there isn't weapons, munitions, equipment, tanks, aircraft, whatever you were talking about here to give to Ukraine. And it's too late. It's too late. They've run through their manpower because they chose to, to, to these operations, whether it was in, in the late winter, spring of defending

Bakhmut and losing tens of thousands of their young men that way, or losing tens of thousands of their young men in a, just, I'm struggling to find the right words to describe just how mad and irresponsible that offensive they launched this past summer was into the teeth of the Russian defenses. I mean, this was World War I General Hague level type of criminality in terms of what they did. But now they have run through all their young men. And so we've seen this before. They have said this before. The Time Magazine piece we talked about that came out several weeks ago, we've spoken about this. What President Zelensky needs, and we just saw a picture of him with Foreign Minister Cameron, what President Zelensky needs, David Cameron and Lloyd Austin can't give

him unless we're going to send troops on the ground. He needs human beings. He doesn't have them. I think what you'll see is they'll try and find a way to get this into the frozen conflict that they've speculated on for a while that they've wanted. Get the guns to go silent. Keep it off, of course, the front page. Keep it out of CNN and off of Fox and those kinds of things, you know, and just hopefully it goes away. I think they have to be encouraged because even though the Russian public is still very much behind this war, still very much behind Vladimir Putin, saw some polling out of Russia that showed about half of Russians are interested in a peace deal, in ending the war. I mean, that's going to come, of course, because they've had thousands upon thousands of the year, their boys coming

home in coffins. They are going to get a bit tired of this. They're going to want to see an end to it, even if they are supportive of it. So I think that's the hope. But again, here we are talking about Ukraine, where we're analyzing what is the US government, the British government, those in Brussels, what's their strategy? It comes back to hope. Again, we're seeing this mass slaughter continue in Ukraine, again, for no real vital interest of the United States other than, you know, the neoconservative ideology, maintaining or expanding the empire, making sure that we're the ones who are selling liquid natural gas. Matt, remember Genocide Joe's favorite phrase, we are the indispensable nation. Right. And very prominent in that op-ed he wrote this past weekend that was in the Post, right?

It's hard for me to believe that with the advisors he has around him, they let him continue with that nonsense because his foreign policy has demonstrated the opposite. That's exactly right. I think that's, you know, Judge, that's I think one of the most significant, one of the most important things I've heard said in these last couple of years is that by promulgating, by pushing this idea that we are the indispensable nation, the exceptional nation, God wants America to rule the world, basically what it comes down to. We have shown that we are not. We are not. And that op-ed by Biden, it reminded me of like a Mad Libs column, if people remember what I'm talking about, where you kind of have this form and then you fill in the various adjectives and nouns and verbs that are appropriate for the situation at hand. Because what Biden was basically saying was regurgitating

what we have heard from previous presidents, both Democratic and Republican, that have just been catastrophes in terms of their foreign policy that has done nothing but, of course, make things ruinous for people all across the world. I mean, the global war on terror killed between four and six million people, created mass instability, but also, too, made the United States safer. And at the same time, as we've invested all this into war, all this into a militarized foreign policy, we've ignored our own country. And so we have a hollow economy where 150 million people are living paycheck to paycheck. And people are wondering why is the electorate so angry? Why are so many people interested in a Donald Trump and a Robert Kennedy, possibly in a

Joe Manchin? You know, why is this? And, you know, the fact that these people can't understand that and that they cling to it, you know, it is, to say it's very worrisome about where we're going, I think is quite an understatement. It's an understatement. Matt, thank you for your insight. Notwithstanding what's going on in the world, a happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Thanks for coming on today and we'll see you again next week. All right. Thanks judge. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and to everybody watching and listening. This is my mother's she's going to kill me. 99th Thanksgiving.

Oh, that is fantastic. Well, that is, well, that's what we'll have a wonderful time. Have a wonderful time. She's looking forward to it as are the rest of my family. Oh, yeah. I know a lot of folks watching and listening are happy that you shared that. We appreciate hearing that and knowing about that kind of joy in your family. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. We'll see you next week. You bet. And we, of course, have a full schedule for you tomorrow. Professor Mearsheimer and a couple of others as well. And Tony Schaefer,

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm