Judging Freedom - Max Blumenthal Power Networks Behind U.S.–Israel Policy

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Max Blumenthal  Power Networks Behind U.S.–Israel PolicySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Fragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least?

What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 5th, 2006, Max Blumenthal joins us now. I want to talk to you at some length about the U.S.-Iran negotiations and also about what PayPal has done and is attempting to do to your work at the Grayson. But before we do, does Netanyahu want Trump in the U.S. to attack Iran? Well, that's Netanyahu's agenda, and it's not Trump. It's any U.S. president.

It's why he went before Congress and essentially accused Barack Obama of enabling a Holocaust of Jews, I think back in 2011, and held up maps, satellite maps, not of Iran, but of Poland, showing that FDR refused to bomb, asserting that FDR refused to bomb the railways to Auschwitz, and then essentially insinuating that Obama was refusing to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, making him another Nazi enabler. I mean, it was a massive insult to American leadership, but that's Netanyahu's agenda. It always has been his agenda. And before Iran was considered a threat to Israel, he was pushing the U.S. to attack Iraq.

Netanyahu said in his own books that Saddam Hussein was essentially a Soviet, asset and that if the U.S. wanted to win the Cold War in his early books that they had to attack Iraq. And then once he gets that out of the way, he moves on to Iran. So everything that's happening right now with respect to Iran, the only reason that the U.S. is seated in these tense negotiations in Oman with the Iranian government, the only reason that there's this carrier strike group that's been in or close to the Persian Gulf. and one may be in the Indian Ocean.

The only reason why there's all this tension is because Israel is driving Trump's agenda. And I think the Epstein file that was released from a confidential human source of the FBI, I think I know who that source might be alleging that Trump has been co-opted by Israel is fundamentally correct. All right. Before we get to Epstein, one or two more questions about Netanyan. Is he ignorant or is he indifferent about the likely catastrophic damage to Israel if the U.S. attacks Iran? Well, it's not just Netanyahu. This is the entire Israeli military intelligence apparatus. If Netanyahu's opponents who are equally bloodthirsty, if not more bloodthirsty, were in power,

they would be pushing the United States to attack Iran on their behalf. It's just that Netanyahu is a more talented manipulative. which helps explain why he's been in power for so long and is someone who comes from the United States. He, he who is someone who essentially comes from the Epstein class, which gives him this very close proximity to Trump and his own people. That's why we are where we are. But Israel's military intelligence apparatus believes that it will benefit from the U.S. getting involved with Iran in a regional war and that it needs the U.S. to be intimately and grotesquely involved in warfare in the region in order to prevent the U.S.

from, for example, pivoting to Asia and moving away from providing Israel with its main source of deterrence. So nothing would benefit Israel more than the U.S. losing 500 or so soldiers in a massive conflict with Iran aimed at regime change because it would mean that the U.S., and especially Trump, would have to continually up the ante against Iran's military, just as it did when it was bogged down in the quagmire of Iraq. That was another conflict that benefited Israel. The difference is that Israel was able to conceal its fingerprints on the U.S. drive-to-war and the U.S. campaign in Iraq, whereas this time it's very clear to a segment of the American public that, we're doing this essentially on behalf of these.

But the anti, the demands that Trump is making are so absurd, it's hard to believe that these negotiations are real. I mean, it's one thing to say, okay, reduce the nuclear enrichment so it can't become a weapon. It's another thing to say, reduce the nuclear enrichment so you can't use it for medical and hospital purposes. That's absurd. Get rid of your offensive weapon. What are you crazy?

Israel wants to destroy you. That's absurd. Stop funding your allies in the area. Is Israel going to stop with the people it funds? That's absurd. Are these real negotiations or not? Well, it looks like, based on the leaks that I'm seeing, which can be questioned, that the U.S. is seeking a declaration of surrender from Iran. Because once Iran gives up its long-range ballistic missiles, and once Iran retreats from being a breakout nuclear power, from being sort of a latent nuclear power that could break out into weaponized capacity, then Iran loses its deterrence, and it starts to look like the deal that the Syrian government signed with Russian

mediation with the U.S. under Obama to give up chemical weapons that may or may not have existed, but which comprised deterrence. Gaddafi did the same thing under the mediation of Tony Blair and the Brits. And one of Gaddafi's final phone calls was with Tony Blair, where Blair essentially hung up the phone on him and left him to be slaughtered by al-Qaeda assets that the British and French were arming. So the lesson is very clear. If you give up your deterrence, you are signing your own.

death warrant because the U.S. cannot adhere to a deal, especially when Israel is involved. And even if the U.S. were to adhere to the terms of this deal, which would mean a non-aggression pact between the U.S. and Iran, Israel would take advantage of it immediately and then lead the U.S. back into a conflict. Iran's ballistic missiles exist at the heart, they have, they demonstrated during the 12-day war that Iran could deter an Israeli unprovoked attack. They put Israel on the back foot. They forced Israel to sue for peace. And the ballistic missile program continues to advance.

We've seen new hypersonic missiles being introduced into Iran's arsenal. Since the 12-day war, Iran is also developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. And this gives it weight at the negotiating table that would be suicidal for, to negotiate away, but this is what Trump has demanded. And I don't know if he's demanding it now. There are separate reports that all the Trump administration is seeking is for Iran to basically evacuate its uranium stockpiles to a third country and essentially give up its nuclear program, which I think, you know, in this current environment would also be suicidal. But the reason, I mean, another point I want to make is the reason that these negotiations are taking place at all

in Oman is because Iran has not met the U.S. with its tail between its legs. It is actually threatened an all-out regional war if the U.S. attacks, if the U.S. attempts a decapitation strike against its leader. The only language that Trump or Israel understands is the language of strength and force. And Donald Trump now understands that if he attacks Iran, It's not going to be another Venezuela situation where he can just eliminate the top leader as if he's picking up someone in an Uber ride. It's going to be bloody. And Trump is not willing to pay a cost in terms of material and men and get bogged down.

So that's why these negotiations are taking place. I expect them to fail. And if they don't fail, and there is a deal. between the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. will not be able to adhere to its terms, and we will see more attempts to destabilize Iran from within, as well as to destroy its economy through sanctions. Is it probable that the negotiations are just a delaying technique for more U.S. Navy assets to arrive? The naval assets are there.

Everything's pretty much in place. Okay. Here's Trump's latest rant and Ray. Of course, he changes his mind daily. This is yesterday, quote, Iran should be worried. Chris, number 14. Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now? I would say he should be very worried, yeah.

He should be. As you know, they're negotiating with us. I know they are, but the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans? You promised them we would have their back. Do we still have their back? Well, we've had their back. And look, that country's a mess right now because of us.

We went in, we wiped out their nuclear. If we didn't take out that nuclear, we wouldn't have peace in the Middle East because the Arab countries could have never done that. They were very, very afraid of Iran. They're not afraid of Iran anymore. Those beautiful B2 bombers went in and they hit their target every single bomb and obliterated it. And within one month, they were going to have a nuclear weapon. That was a big threat that they're not going to have it anymore. But if we obliterated, what's the deal about?

I mean, if there's no more, are they trying to restart the nuclear program? heard that they are. And if they do, and I let them know, if they do, we're going to send them right back and do their job again. So you're understanding that they tried to restart it, and that's why you're threatening force. They tried to go back to the site. They weren't even able to get near it. There was total obliteration. But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country. We found out about it. I said, you do that. We're going to do very bad things to you. I think he understands what he's talking about, Max. yeah, he kind of got caught there.

You can't restart a nuclear program without enriched uranium stockpiles. And Trump claimed many times that the stockpile had been eliminated completely by the U.S. strikes. And I'd said on this show, I'm happy for everyone to just believe that and move on so that the conflict is not reignited at a later time. But I know that the U.S. is going to be called on by a. It's Israeli masters, the Trump will be called on by Adelson and Netanyahu to go back for more because the uranium stockpile was not destroyed and it was essentially a kind of symbolic strike. I mean, they might have done a lot of damage to Fordo. And another point, Trump invokes the Arab countries.

Trump has been under pressure from Egypt, from Turkey, from Saudi Arabia, the major regional players to not go to war with Iran because they understand how destabilizing and economically devastating a regional war would be. And it's these, these powers are, these regional powers are not grateful to Trump for following Israeli orders to attack Iran. They're actually deeply concerned and these are not countries that are all very historically friendly to Iran. Wow.

So you mentioned Saudi Arabia. We're going to play a clip from Vice President Vance, who's just becoming, in my view, an ill-informed PR person for the administration. And then we're going to play a clip from a now deceased, but obviously at the time very much in the game, senior CIA official about Saudi Arabia and nuclear weapons. Watch this. The first part of this is an interview by Megan Kelly with Vice President Vance.

The second part is an interview by David Asman 11 years ago on Fox Business Network with this CIA senior official. Chris, number 17. What happens when the same people who are shooting up a mall or driving airplanes into buildings have a nuclear weapon? That is unacceptable. And it's not just them, because if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, You know who gets a nuclear weapon like the next day? The Saudi Arabians. People, Mr. Clarege, have talked about Saudi Arabia.

They certainly have more money than anybody in the Middle East. Are you concerned about the possibility they may get a nuclear bomb? Saudis already have the bomb. But people failed to remember. Hold on a second, Mr. Clare. Let me just emphasize that point, because that's an important point. You say Saudi Arabia already has a nuclear bomb? or several, people forget that it was the Saudis who financed the Pakistani bomb.

They put billions of dollars into that effort to create that nuclear capability. And in return, of course, they got something. Now, people can argue whether it was dibs on four nuclear devices or seven. That's the argument. But no one who really in the know argues that they do have access to nuclear weapons. You read that, Max. Okay. Let's section that out, separate that out a little bit.

Sure. To address J.D. Vance's ridiculous, ignorant comments that I think will come back to haunt him if he tries to run for president. He is conflating Iran with. Takfiri and Wahhabi Sunni groups that have carried out terrorist attacks around the globe under the banner of al-Qaeda and ISIS. Iran and specifically the IRGC and its broader network of popular mobilization units in Iraq, as well as the Yemeni Houthi group that it supports in Yemen, have battled on the front lines, ISIS and al-Qaeda, and played a seminal role in wiping out ISIS inside Syria and inside Iraq.

So it's a historically illiterate, politically ignorant comment for J.D. Vance that is trading on the ignorance of or attempting to trade on the ignorance of the Maga base in order to justify a potential war with Iran when we were told that J.D. Vance, would be a restrainer and that there was this Vance group within the White House that would hold back the neocons. And now he's become sort of the chief spokesman. And I can't say what's taking place in private and whether Vance is playing the role of restrainer in private. You know, I've heard different rumors that he is. But this is going to be damaging to him in the future, have to have have served as a hype man for the neocon project of attacking Iran. And what Vance gets wrong

and also goes back to Claridge's remarks about Saudi Arabia potentially having a nuclear weapon or having nuclear capacity is that the nuclear arms race in the Middle East and throughout the region is not being driven by Iran having breakout capacity and enriching uranium. It's being driven by Israel having a secret nuclear program at DeMona, which had an earthquake three weeks ago, which should have been a story of global significance that should have been on the front page of every Western newspaper, but was completely buried. Israel's been testing nuclear weapons at this secret facility. And if Israel has threatened the way they were in the 12-day war, let's say the 12-day war had gone on for 21 days or for a month or for even longer.

Iran kept the ballistic missile volleys, breaking through Israel's multi-layered missile defense system and smashing into Tel Aviv and finally hit Mossad headquarters and hit Hakirya, North Tel Aviv. What would Israel have done? Israeli society would have been destabilized. Netanyahu would have, he already had fled. He wouldn't have come back. And then they would have threatened the United States and the world with a nuclear weapon, on Iran, that they would have hit Tehran with a nuclear weapon unless the U.S. stepped in and totally

destroyed Iran. Because they were, according to many reports, they did that before in order to force Nixon and Kissinger to resupply it when Israel was facing an existential catastrophe during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. So it's Israel that is driving the nuclear arms. arms race across the region, including in Saudi Arabia, because the Saudis know that they need to protect itself from this mad dog in Tel Aviv. Wow. Let's transition to the latest on Epstein. What is British media, of all things?

I realize that Epstein may bring down Sir Kier-Stormer's government because of the former a British ambassador of the United States. But what is British media saying about Epstein? Well, they're saying MI6 adjacent media is saying that Epstein was actually a Russian asset. He was working for Russian intelligence. And the funniest report was in Sky News, the British intelligence bulletin board corporate outlet, which said that Epstein was speaking to an anonymous. anonymous person and coaching them on how to approach Putin as the Russian asset he was.

Well, Putin never agreed to any meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. He's one of the global leaders who Epstein couldn't get to. None of his people could. But who is that anonymous person? Well, we all know who the anonymous person was. Sky News just won't tell us because then it exposes the whole charade and fraud that they're involved in. The anonymous person was former Israeli prime minister, former defense.

Defense Minister, former head of military intelligence for Israel, Ehud Barak, who was Jeffrey Epstein's, one of his closest friends and closest confederates in his final years before he died somehow. Ehud Barak was being coached by Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was surrounded by Israeli figures, by pro-Israel figures like Ron Lauder and Les Wexner, who were part of the so-called mega group of early-Nobstyn. Netanyahu donors. Jeffrey Epstein set up a meeting for Jamie Diamond at J.P. Morgan with Netanyahu. Jeffrey Epstein's partner, Elaine Maxwell is the daughter of an Israeli intelligence asset,

Robert Maxwell, who reportedly sold on the global market technology that had been bugged by Israel called Promise Software to infiltrate sensitive locations around the world as well as international intelligence agencies, including Sendia and Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico, Robert Maxwell. Jeffrey Epstein was in touch until his last days with Leah Pissar. Who is Leah Pissar? She is the half-sister of Tony Blinken. Tony Blinken is, stepson of Samuel Pissar. Samuel Pissar was the key fixer for Robert Maxwell, who received a de facto state burial in Israel.

So Jeffrey Epstein was engaged in a very revealing 2018 text message exchange with Steve Bannon, his close friend. And Bannon said at one point, all roads lead to Beijing. And Jeffrey Epstein countered actually to Tel Aviv. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein was saying it himself. If you look at Jeffrey Epstein's network, it's a transatlantic network, but one that does indeed run through Tel Aviv. And I believe that the state of Israel had not been created on the backs of Palestinians, Jeffrey Epstein's network would have been much less coherent or, as he would put it, fractionalized. Does the Mossad have information from the Epstein files about Donald Trump, which it used as leverage with Trump?

Well, according to Daniel Halper, who was a neo-conservative journalist, the Mossad obtained dirt on Bill Clinton and attempted to blackmail him as Clinton was pushing Netanyahu to abide by the Y River Accords. that was the Monica Lewinsky tapes. There's Ehud Barak's a very unflattering picture, but there he is. I'm not looking at it, but yeah. Well, at least it's not the picture of him in the bathroom at Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse. Oh, good Lord. But they involved, you know, Epstein and Ehud Barak were involved in so many schemes together. We won't even have time to list them.

There are lots of, there are many, three million files were released. Yeah. One of the most significant ones is a three-hour conversation between Barack and Epstein, and they talk about Tony Blair and his consulting fees and how corrupt he is. Epstein advises Ehud Barak to invest. This was like well before these companies were well known. In Palantir, he can't even spell Palantir. Today Palantir is the backbone of the national security state.

And Andreessen Horowitz, Ron. by two ultra-Zionist hedge funders or venture capitalists, Mark Andresen and Ben Horowitz, the son of the late anti-Palestinian agitator, David Horowitz, who put up the money for the purchase of TikTok essentially to suppress any criticism of Israel on that massive global social media network. So these were companies that Epstein was aware of early on, which have been heavily involved with Israel. And he's advising Ehud Barak about that. I think the significance can't be understated,

but now we're witnessing an attempt to cover it up. And it started in British media. It's obviously being planted by British intelligence and other forces. And they're claiming that Jeffrey Epstein actually worked for Moscow and did not have this vast network of Zionist movement bigwigs, surrounding him. And it's like, who are you going to believe? You're your two lying eyes.

Yeah. You can't make this up. Before we go, you mentioned Palantir brings to mine, Peter Thiel. I mean, I know he created PayPal. I don't know if he still owns it or not. But what has PayPal done to attempt to damage your work at the gray zone? Well, they suspended us. We had an account there.

And we used it to raise money to sustain our operations since we launched as the gray zone in early 2019. And they've suspended us on political grounds, go to our YouTube channel, our substack, my Twitter account, and you'll find an eight-minute explainer in which I actually got to the bottom of it and confirmed that we have been suspended on political grounds. PayPal has asked me in the gray zone to provide all kinds of documentation in order to access the funds that we've already raised. Otherwise, they're just taking people's money, taking thousands of dollars from people and not allowing us to access it. And they've asked me to explain two small donations from a private citizen who lives in Australia, who I was able to track down an interview. and I found that he is a retired Australian citizen who originally lived in Iran, left his country in the early 80s, and he donated $40 to us.

And the only thing that we could determine about him that was abnormal, wasn't that he was some kind of IRGC operative or a bad actor. He's an extremely nice older gentleman who has a very strong moral compass based on my extensive interview with him. But his wife was detained leaving a Shia mosque by Australian police who harassed her and photographed her. His wife, who he says is completely apolitical and was just going for her weekly prayers. And this is in Australia.

This is the country where we have seen very shady anti-Semitic arson attacks, which were traced by Australia's own intelligence services to some kind of foreign entity, which was paying for these attacks, paying these criminal elements carrying out these attacks in crypto. We also saw after the Bondi Beach massacre, the Israel lobby inside Australia, including Israel's own forces, call for a massive crackdown on Palestine's solidarity activity, massive speech crackdown, even though the Bondi beach attack was carried out by ISIS sympathizers who have nothing to do with Palestine. So I think Australia is this kind of Five Eyes colony where all sorts of intrigues and spooky

activities are being carried out through Five Eyes and Israel, in this case, in order to attack and suppress an independent media outlet that's been exposing those very actions. So this is political persecution. We're not at PayPal anymore. If you want to support the gray zone, just go to the support tab at the top of our site at the gray zone.com or we explain how you can support in the YouTube video about our PayPal suspension. And this will allow us to continue to tell you what you're not supposed to know. And that's our simple mission at the gray zone. And I think it should be the mission of all independent media outlets facing this kind of pressure today. Thank you, Max. I'm sorry for what you're going through. I suppose it's going to hit the rest of us one of these days.

Well, it's no surprise from PayPal, I got to say. Does Peter Thiel still own it? Well, he still has a stake in it. The PayPal Mafia is him. Reid Hoffman, who I believe was an Epstein associate, Elon Musk, who's named in a lot of the Epstein emails. And of course, Peter Thiel, who was speaking to Epstein. and Epstein introduced himself to Peter Thiel as a representative of the Rothschilds. It's like, you read these emails and you're like, is this the protocols of the elders of Zion or something? You know, we're up against the Epstein class and we've hopefully moved on to a better place to raise money for our humble journalistic network.

and we can't thank you enough, Judge, for all the support you've given us over these years, and everyone should absolutely support you too. Thank you. I love what you do, and you and your wife and I have become good friends as well as professional collaborators. I've got to play one more clip for you.

I know you know him well, but you're not going to invite him over to dinner. This is Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL revealing the Israeli spy network in the United States reporting to the FBI on free speech.

Watch this. Cut number 21. We have a whole apparatus. I have 40 analysts working full-time, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, monitoring extremists. We monitor them online, social media, messaging apps, video games, cryptocurrency,

podcasts, short-form video, Wikipedia, LLMs. We monitor these people and we share the intelligence with the FBI. You saw last month, you heard about the thing that happened at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Our analysts investigated what happened. They said they were Koreatown for Palestine, this group people. They weren't. We were able to ascertain they were from a group called the Turtle Island Liberation Front. Turtle Island is how left-wing activists refer to the United States.

On Monday, December the 15th, this is going to ring a bell. Cash Patel announced they cracked a terror ring where they arrested four people who were playing New Year's Eve bombings, Turtle Island Liberation Front. So we're monitoring left-wing radicals like the DSA and the anti-war crazies and the pro-Palestine crazies. We're monitoring right-wing extremists, like white supremacists, our militia groups. We're monitoring political Islamists and Christian nationals, all of them.

And then we train. We're the largest trainer of law enforcement in America, extremism hate. We train 20,000 officers every year. What do you make of this? I don't know if we have enough time, but it's a confession that the ADL is a private arm of U.S. federal law enforcement, carrying out a kind of co-intel pro operation, infiltrating left-wing groups, including social democratic groups that work inside the Democratic Party, like the Democratic Socialists of America, and taking credit for what by all accounts was a kind of phony, manufactured plot by the FBI

against a group that didn't actually exist, the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The entire bust was based on a confidential human informant that the FBI had planted among a small network of very goofy activists inside LA. The confidential human informant created the plot for these activists, took them out into the desert, into like the Mojave Desert, where the FBI then arrested them. And they were caught with materials that I don't think you could actually make a bomb with, but, which were said to be bomb-making materials. Essentially, the FBI created the plot, as they always do, and the ADL is taking credit for that. Is Jonathan Greenblatt a foreign agent?

Well, he should be. He should be. The ADL is representing Israel, and when it trains officers, they're training them by connecting them with Israeli security forces, and by training them in Israeli tactics, and by lobbying them on behalf of Israel. And the only reason Jonathan Greenblatt is doing any of this activity, which is potentially illegal and violates the First Amendment, is on behalf of Israel.

And remember, in the 1980s, the ADL was caught infiltrating groups that were organizing against apartheid in South Africa, possibly working with Israeli intelligence. their informant was a possible Israeli intelligence agent as well, and they were attempting to destroy the lives of people for fighting the apartheid regime in South Africa. Now they're doing the same thing in order to defend the apartheid regime of Israel. It is one of the most malicious assaults on free speech in the U.S. today. And as I said, it replicates the Cointel program Jay Edgar Hoover enacted to neutralize anti-war and socialist organizing and any activity, any anti-establishment activity during the

1960s and 70s, except it's being carried out by a private organization, which is substantially, if not totally funded by pro-Israel donors who are sympathetic to another country. Hi. Max, I know you have to go, and so do I. Thank you very much for this. And I apologize for being all over the place. There's just so many hot button points that you are the most appropriate person in all the media to address for us. And I'm deeply grateful for all this.

Go to the gray zone, everybody, where you can OD on Matt. Max Blumenthal, and you'll see some of the most intellectually honest, personally courageous reporting anywhere. Thank you, Max. All the best. Thanks a lot, Judge. Of course. Coming up, if you're watching us live in just 20 minutes, at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.