Judging Freedom - MAX Blumenthal: US Official MOCKS Lebanese Murders.

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

MAX Blumenthal: US Official MOCKS Lebanese Murders.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 Thursday, September 26th, 2024. Max Blumenthal from The Gray Zone joins us now. Max, a pleasure, my dear friend. Max, I recently learned that you and Anya visited with the president of Iran at the United Nations in New York. Can you tell us what happened, what you learned, what you saw? We were invited to a press briefing with Massoud Pazeshkian, who is the new reformist president of Iran, was elected with a promise to relieve U.S. sanctions on Iran, urges negotiations with the U.S.

His right-hand man is his vice president for strategic affairs, who is the person who, as foreign minister in the past administration, negotiated the P5 plus one nuclear deal with the U.S. That's Javad Zarif. And he was seated by Pozeshkin's side when Pozeshkin entered the room at the Hilton Millennium Hotel right next to the U.N. building at the tail end of the U.N UN General Assembly a day before Joe Biden was scheduled to appear. And Pozeshkin invited a who's who of the mainstream media, people like Andrea Mitchell and Lester Holt, Robin Wright from the New Yorker were there. We were among a very small handful of independent alternative media outlets that were invited as well.

And I was able to get in a question to Pazeshkin. But what I think the key takeaway was, was that he did have the backing of some sectors of Iran's clerical and security establishment, even though he's a critic of the morality police and comes under attack from the conservative principalist camp. And the blessing was to go to the US and try to prevent a regional war, try to reach the Americans in some way and transmit to them the disastrous consequences that would come for the entire region and not just Iran if the U.S. continues to exert no leverage on Israel, enforce no red lines, and allow it to escalate in Lebanon and beyond. His message was, we want peace.

Do not force us to do something that is not in line with our values. That's almost a direct quote and a warning by Pozeshkin to the Americans. And really the only Americans he was able to meet in the open were people like us and a generally suspicious, if not outright hostile corporate media. So it was accompanied by over 40 meetings with other foreign ministers, mostly from the global south, from emerging countries that are aligned with BRICS. Pazeshkin, who said that after the assassination by Israel, the brazen assassination right after his inauguration in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's politburo, in his hotel room, when he was a personal guest of the Iranian state, Iran was prepared to retaliate, but the Biden administration approached them and promised that within a week they would be able to bring about a ceasefire and that Iran should just be patient and allow diplomacy to work.

And he said, of course, there was no ceasefire from day one, given the likely political consequences to him if one were agreed to? The Biden administration, specifically Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines' claim that Iran had actually been paying protesters in the U.S. to protest against Israel's genocide in Gaza. That would be you that Netanyahu claimed attacked us, one of the protesters. Go ahead. Yeah, and this was something Hillary Clinton repeated last weekend in her interview with Fareed Zakaria at CNN. The New York Times has reported unquestioningly and Pozeshkin kind of joked that we're barely able to meet our domestic payroll in Iran. How can we pay thousands of students inside the US? at the accusation and said, why can't you see that these people protesting are actually people of conscience who are horrified by the bloodshed that they see every day in this live stream genocide? How can you insult your own students that way? If I have this right, he's a cardiologist, not a professional politician. What was your impression of him, Max? That he was not a professional politician, but that he was someone who was committed to his country and also to repairing ties between the middle-class diaspora in the U.S. and the Iranian government that they tend to reject or see as too conservative. And he did meet with many elite, he had a meeting with

several elite figures from the Iranian diaspora. He's someone who is determined to save his country from sanctions and war. And he may not be a master politician. He's prone to gaffes. He made a serious gaffe during the meeting for which he came under criticism back home. But it's clear that he has a, I would say, a patriotic mission to stop this careening death train towards regional war and he's stepping into a very dangerous role. So I think there's an element of courage there when the last president, your predecessor, has died in a strange helicopter crash. And when the most consequential figure, other than the Ayatollah, Qasem Soleimani, was assassinated by the U.S. along with scientists and so many other key figures inside Iran

associated with its security apparatus. You're stepping into that role at a time when Israel is carrying out assassinations all across the region. So he's clearly on a mission to try to change the course of history here. Here's somebody who's trying to disturb that mission and encourage the American government to attack the great Satan. Cut number 23. This is a dream scenario for Iran. They're trying to suck Bibi and Israel into a fight. October the 7th was designed to stop normalization. Trump did the Abraham Accords. Biden's been working to get Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel. That's a nightmare for Iran.

So October the 7th was designed to stop that. It was so horrific. Now you see a front opening in the north. So here's what I would tell my friends in Israel. Do not give up on normalization with Saudi Arabia. I know you've got to deal with Hezbollah. There was an imminent attack. But two things, one of two things have to change in the Mideast. We need to make game changing peace, which is reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, our game changing

military strategy. Go into Lebanon to establish a buffer zone. Won't work unless you hit Iran. To my friends in Israel, you're fighting the proxies. Fight the source, the great Satan, Iran. From the same man who advised President Biden to assassinate President Putin. Psychopath who declared that we should be fighting war with Russia to the last Ukrainian. And his logic is completely upside down. It's clear that it's Netanyahu who seeks endless escalation. It contravenes all the messaging we're hearing out of Iran. If Iran had wanted to escalate, it would have immediately responded to the killing of Hania, but it understood that it was playing into Netanyahu's hands. Now there are reports in Israeli media that Netanyahu had initially responded favorably

to a US and French proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon and that he was cowed into deepening the escalation in Lebanon, which could lead to at least a limited ground incursion, if not something more to establish the buffer zone Lindsey Graham's referring to, because the most extreme faction of his coalition, Otzma Yehudit, Jewish power, the Kahanist, theocratic fascist party of Itamar Ben-Gavir threatened to bolt the coalition if any ceasefire took hold. So what Netanyahu is preparing to do is to abandon permanently the hostages, captives, and prisoners of war in Gaza and move into a deeper abyss in Lebanon. And we can talk about potential consequences of a ground incursion for Israel

in Lebanon, but it's really unclear what the strategy is here, because even as Israel has delivered some heavy blows to Hezbollah through the Pager terror attack and several assassinations in the past several days, more and more residents of the north, further south than before, have had to flee, which brings Israel further and further away from one of its objectives, which is to return all of its citizens home. So it's looking increasingly like Netanyahu and his fanatical supporters in Washington, like Lindsey Graham, see the real goal as endless war for its own sake because they are culturally degenerate and lust for war and killing and all the profits and political privileges that come with it. Can the Israelis possibly sustain a land invasion of Lebanon without American troops?

If it comes to a point where Israel is appealing for American troops in southern Lebanon, it means Israel is in a very, very bad place. And if that comes before January, that will be a very politically difficult decision for, sorry, before November, that'll be a really difficult decision for Biden to make on Kamala Harris's behalf, because it will be extremely unpopular in the US, especially with the Democratic Party. What Israel's doing right now is what it did in 2006. And it's boasting that it has much stronger technological capability than it did at that time to win a war against Hezbollah with aerial power alone. It has put out propaganda videos boasting that it has elaborate detail and data on the location of every rocket launching and missile launching device, including down to the ground level of apartments in southern Beirut. effective at carrying out assassinations of high-level Hezbollah officials. But it's unclear that they've been able to degrade the rockets and missiles and munition

supply of Hezbollah. In fact, about 48 hours ago, we saw Hezbollah fire the first ballistic missile into the Tel Aviv municipality in history. So what happened in 2006 was Israel's air force, despite carpet bombing the Dahia neighborhood, which is heavily Shia in Southern Beirut and Southern Lebanon, which is heavily populated by poor Shia, who often support Hezbollah, despite doing that, they could not suppress the missile fire. And so they had to send in ground troops and the ground troops got a bloody nose. And as we all know, Israeli society is incapable of sustaining large numbers of casualties,

which is why they initially pulled out of Lebanon in 2000 under unrelenting pressure from Hezbollah. Southern Lebanon is very different from the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip is a flat, mostly urban, built-up environment with a militarily besieged foe for Israel that is weaker. Hezbollah has not only cornet missiles that can take out tanks, but it has the advantage of the terrain where tanks, it's just very difficult to roll tanks through Southern Lebanon. These are rocky areas with valleys, easy to conceal yourself and hit the tanks. So if Israel attempts a limited insurgency, it could be entering into a long-term bloodletting. And this is something that I'm not saying. It's something that Yediot Aranot, Ynet, one of Israel's most popular mainstream publications, said just yesterday. So Israel's

trying to pulverize Lebanon as much as possible without a ground invasion. But it may happen. It could happen in the next 72 hours that they go for it. What was the reaction amongst the Israeli public, but American Zionists and supporters of Israel, declaring that it was the greatest, most precise anti-terror operation in history, just simply laughing and joking about consumer devices blowing up in the hands, not just of Hezbollah operatives, but of children who heard a pager ringing and said, dad, you have a call. And the pager would blow up in the child's face and kill them. Healthcare workers in hospitals across Lebanon were killed by pagers. Average people were killed in shops. I mean, this wasn't just targeting top leaders of some military organization. These were

thousands and thousands of pagers and then walkie-talkies blowing up everywhere. And the demonic cult of Zionism taking this guffawing at the whole spectacle of human carnage with hospitals overwhelmed and people blinded for life. It really shows how addicted to death and violence supporters of Israel are. And at the same time, I think it's important to point out that the targets that Hezbollah has chosen so far have been military targets almost exclusively in Israel. The ballistic missile I mentioned heading towards Tel Aviv was targeting the Mossad headquarters. The Ramat David air base is being targeted heavily in the north. Look at what they're targeting with their rockets.

They're not playing the same game as Israel and they're not trying to play into Netanyahu's hands because he seeks endless escalation. The whole point of the Pager attacks was to deliver such a serious psychological blow through grisly Texas chainsaw massacre style violence that Hezbollah's leadership would react in an emotional and rash way. But it's obviously very revealing for us to see the reaction of Israel's supporters. Here's the only known public statement by an official of the American government. I'm sure you know of this. This woman, Deborah Lipschott, who is the State Department envoy to combat anti-Semitism, cut number six. After October 7th, there was a feeling around the world that Israel is weaker. You want a beeper? I can give you a few. Truly despicable, Max. who has smeared so many people simply because they believe that Palestinians should be treated equally under international law.

And here she is celebrating a grisly terror attack with no consequences from the Biden administration. Now, the State Department's been on leave, so no one has been able to ask their smirking spokespeople. What do you mean the State Department has been on leave? Well, I'm sorry, the State Department spokespeople have been at the United Nations General Assembly with Tony Blinken. So they haven't been in the briefing room. So no one's been able to ask for their response about this.

But I hope someone does. Maybe I'll try to get in there. Not that they ever call on me anymore. But this really speaks to the sickness inside the Biden administration. And one quick side note is that a Norwegian citizen named Rincon Jose, I want to make sure i get this right uh has been identified he's on the run now and he's been identified as one of the key figures arranging a transfer of those pagers from a hungarian shell company under the auspices of this apollo gold taiwanese company that claimed they had no knowledge of the sale.

He's the man who's been alleged to have been the middleman. And he disappeared into the United States a week before the pager attacks. And this is a really interesting detail here, because the United States claims it had no knowledge of these attacks and had no operational involvement in it at all. And Lloyd Austin and the Pentagon was only told just hours before that there would be a general operation inside Lebanon. So I think this figure needs to be discovered. He needs to be found and interrogated, and we need to know how he got away inside the U.S. Well, Scott Ritter on this program earlier today recounted all the steps through which the Israelis had to go in order to get the explosive materials into the pages. It took a couple of years. Licenses and employees and buildings and front companies and phony checking accounts. It couldn't possibly have been done without CIA knowing about it.

If they didn't know about it, they are not doing their job. I saw an ad. I believe it was for Al Jazeera. I'm not sure. And either today or yesterday's New York Times with a startling number in there. And this is something I know you've been covering. More journalists have been killed in Gaza in 12 months than were killed in Vietnam in 20 years. Is that true? And is it because journalists have been targeted in Gaza? Well, look at what happened to Al Jazeera's main correspondent in Gaza City, Ismail Al Ghul. After Israel's brazen assassination

of Ismail Al Ghul and his cameraman went to the home of Al Ghh in Gaza, sorry, in the Shati refugee camp on the beach just west of Gaza City, and just simply tried to take some B-roll of people coming out to pay homage to Haniyeh. And an Israeli drone attacked his car and literally blew his head off. His predecessor, Wael al-Dadu, who was the correspondent for Al Jazeera, was not only attacked once in which his cameraman was killed, wounding him in the leg, he was attacked twice, wounding him in the arm, and almost his entire family, including his son, who was also a correspondent, and his younger children, who wanted to be journalists, were murdered in targeted strikes by Israel. We can just go down the line with major journalists who have been slaughtered just going out in the field in targeted attacks. Israel is targeting them with the word press and TV written on top of their cars. And it killed an American citizen, Shireen Abu Akleh,

who was Al Jazeera's correspondent in the West Bank with a sniper. And just last week when Israel raided the offices of Al Jazeera to shut it down in Ramallah, it ripped down a poster outside honoring the life of Shireen Abu Akleh in one final insult. So this is the biggest, most malicious attack on the press, on press freedom, on the safety of the press that we've seen in not just in my lifetime, but in the lifetime of Tony Blinken and Joe Biden's generation. And Tony Blinken is constantly on his high horse preaching about how the U.S. defends press freedom while he has given Israel all the means it could possibly get from the bullets and the munitions

to the diplomatic support to carry out this journalicide, a slaughter of hundreds of journalists across Palestine. Here's Tony Blinken at his worst at the UN Security Council two days ago. He's condemning Iran and North Korea for giving weapons to Russia. But if you blink your eyes twice, every word he says applies to the United States and the Israelis and the slaughter in Gaza. Cut number two. Iran has been providing armed drones to the Kremlin since 2022. It built a drone factory in Russia just a few weeks ago. It transferred hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.

And Tehran has trained Russian military personnel in Iran how to operate these weapons. Meanwhile, the DPRK has delivered trainloads of weapons and ammunition to Russia, including ballistic missiles, launchers, and millions of artillery rounds. Support from Tehran and Pyongyang is helping Putin inflict carnage, suffering, and ruin on innocent Ukrainian men, women, and children. Can he say that with a straight face? Frenchman and scion of Israel lobbyists for generations who sits in that chair at the UN as the US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, just authorized an $8.7 billion shipment of new weapons to Israel. This is after authorizing a $20 billion sale of weapons to Israel while he and his boss, Joe Biden, complain that there's no peace deal. Well, I wonder why that is. I wonder why that is and who benefits from those sales.

The State Department actually has a page on its website dedicated to the sales that it has generated of US weapons to countries around the world. They're very vague about the sales to Israel, but they're very proud of this because they believe it's responsible for US jobs. It's what Joe Biden has called the arsenal of democracy. The arsenal of democracy that Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro hailed when he went to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania with Vladimir Zelensky, international welfare queen, to sign munitions that are going to be fired into the Donbass region

where thousands of citizens of the Donbass have been killed by the Ukrainian army. These people are obsessed with pumping countries around the world full of US weapons, flooding the zone with US weapons, fueling conflict and profiting in the process. exporting weapons to Russia. When he returns, walks through the revolving door and returns to his consulting firm, West Exec Advisors, which advises the arms industry and tech on getting contracts with the Pentagon and State Department. I don't know what Governor Shapiro wrote. I remember when Nikki Haley signed similar munitions going to the Israelis. She wrote, finish them. Disgusting. It is disgusting. Max, what are you and Anya doing Saturday?

Well, I think we're going to be linking up with you in Kingston, New York at an anti-war rally. I don't know why we need an anti-war rally. The U.S. isn't at war. But we're going to be speaking in Kingston, New York, I guess at the corner of Freedom and three other streets. Gerald Salenti is hosting us. Scott Ritter will be there. Joe Loria from Consortium News. Roger Waters will be delivering a message and we'll be doing a panel beforehand. And as I said, it's a rally against the war machine that is pushing for long range US guided missile strikes into Moscow, escalation in Lebanon that has left 1000,000 people dead in a week,

and possibly a regional war. So I actually think it needs to happen and it needs to grow. So I'm looking forward to seeing you there. I'm looking forward to seeing you and Anya, and I'm especially looking forward to your new assignment of introducing me as soon as you finish bringing the house down. I have to try and I have to come on. I have the misfortune of coming on after you, but looking forward to it. Travel safely. Look forward to seeing you Saturday. Thanks. Me too. Thanks for your time today. A great man and a dear friend. And of course, we are having that rally for peace and freedom on Saturday in Kingston, New York. It's about two hours north of New York City.

Scott Ritter, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parenthold, Gerald Salenti, Joe Lauria, Roger Waters by Zoom. Should be a fabulous, fabulous afternoon. We have one show remaining today in our marathon at 4.45 Eastern from midnight, nearly so, in Moscow. The inimitable and always worth waiting for Pepe Escobar. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.