Judging Freedom - Max Blumenthal: Will the Killing Stop?

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Max Blumenthal: Will the Killing Stop?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, January 25th, 2024. Max Blumenthal joins us now. Max, always a pleasure. Before we start, I want to reiterate to all of our viewers that Max yet again offers to debate RFK Jr. on the issue of Israel. We're smiling because RFK has not responded to any of our emails and texts to him. I will moderate the debate and we will do it here on Judging Freedom or we'll do it in any neutral forum to which Max and Bobby, if he agrees to do this, can agree. Max, it's a pleasure. Welcome back. Good to be back. Thank you. Prime Minister Netanyahu says he has two goals, one of defeating Hamas and the other of getting the hostages back. Those are his stated goals.

Are those his true goals by the slaughter and genocide in Gaza? Well, Netanyahu is kind of in a political quagmire. He can't allow the war to end. And this is something that is being acknowledged openly in the Israeli press. Haaretz, the kind of voice of the center left, published an editorial stating that as soon as Netanyahu's, as soon as a ceasefire is imposed, which is the only way to get the hostages out of Gaza and the prisoners of war who are captured Israeli soldiers, Netanyahu faces not just a political catastrophe, but a personal catastrophe. He will become Exhibit A in the failure of the Israeli state on October 7th and fall under an

intense investigation, and he faces four corruption trials so he could potentially go to prison. So he has to keep this war going for as long as possible. And he's openly saying, we need another year of war. Well, another year of war means all of the captives in Gaza will be dead because they're suffering from the same conditions other people in Gaza are, Israeli airstrikes and famine. And Israel keeps killing the captives. Now you have members of the captives' families coming out on Israeli media, one named Naomi Dan, who is the cousin of a captive in Gaza, on Israel's national broadcaster, Khan News, stating Israel is enacting the Hannibal directive and deliberately killing the captives so it can avoid this deal, which will destroy Netanyahu's career and possibly his life. if he was a hostage from October 7th or captured during the IDF's presence in Gaza. He was gassed

to death by the IDF, and his mother obviously screamed and ranted and raved at Netanyahu. How can that possibly be defended? Poison gas, of all things. Yeah, this appears to be the case, and the Israeli army is refusing to state whether or not his mother's allegations are true. His mother's name is Mayan Sherman. The soldier's name is Ron Sherman, in case anyone wants to look this up. It's a major scandal in Israel. Basically, for the past few weeks, family members and former abductees, family members of those who are captive in Gaza and former abductees have been meeting with the Israeli war cabinet, and they have been begging them openly not to carry out plans to flood the tunnels in Gaza or fill them with poison gas, because that will kill their loved

ones. And now it appears that they have ignored the families, gone ahead and done this and killed not just Ron Sherman, but two other soldiers who were captured on October 7th. Ron Sherman's mother accused the Israeli government of abandoning her son in Gaza by refusing to carry out a swap deal, prisoner swap deal, and then killing him like Auschwitz in her words, gassing him to death, along with two other Israeli soldiers. And she stated this also on his gravestone. The gravestone accused Israel's government directly of killing her son. So what did the Israeli authorities do? They went and removed the gravestone.

A literal cover-up of her son's body. A recently retired Brigadier General by the name of the IDF, by the name of Jonathan Shimshoni, has made a very interesting statement to Prime Minister Netanyahu about the need for a long-term ceasefire. This is cut number four, Chris. To actually pursue this diplomatic path, we know from reports that it is willing

or considering a longer pause for the release of hostages. The more we apply force, they will be in a last-stand type of mindset. And if they get into a last-stand kind of mindset, they will probably kill all the hostages in the last stand. The other option is that they would be willing to seek a secure exit of some kind. And in that case, they would use the hostages. And the logic of that situation suggests that we should go for a deal as quickly as we can.

And if it requires a diplomatic ceasefire, whatever it is, do it now, because the logic of this situation says either there's a deal or we lose all the hostages. Does that fall on deaf ears to the War Cabinet? It falls on deaf ears to Netanyahu's governing coalition. but just to address this retired general's comments, they could have done a ceasefire months ago and saved the lives of some 60 captives who've been killed in Israeli airstrikes. Like Jake Tapper at CNN did a propaganda special on a child who was taken into Gaza named Khafir Bibas. His whole family was taken captive on October 7th.

And while it's horrible, it's horrible that a child was taken captive, but it appears that this child was dead. And Jake Tapper did this whole special on CNN about how it's his 100th birthday. This shows the barbarity of Hamas. The child was killed by Israeli airstrikes, according to his father, Yardan Bibas, who has been pleading with Netanyahu in hostage videos since December to let him, to cut a deal so he can bury his family in Israel. That's the only thing he wants to do. And that falls on deaf ears with Netanyahu. The pleadings of the families fall on deaf ears with Netanyahu because Netanyahu himself is a prisoner to the most powerful, I would say right now, the most potent political camp in Israel, the Jewish nationalist camp, which is represented most directly by two of his coalition partners who are the linchpins in his very narrow coalition,

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gavir, who's a security minister. They are the most fanatical figures to ever serve in the Israeli government. What they want out of the Gaza operation is revenge, genocide, total slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and the movement of as much of the population as possible to Sinai. And they consider the hostages to be stumbling blocks and they would like them to be sacrificed, which is why they actually have protesters out there on the border in Israel at the Karim Shalom checkpoint where aid trucks are checked before going into Gaza. They have supporters of this coalition are blocking the aid trucks. And where are the aid trucks are checked before going into Gaza. They have supporters of this coalition are blocking the aid trucks. And where are the aid trucks going? They're not just going to

civilians in Gaza. They're going in there on the condition that they deliver medical equipment to be used for the hostages to keep them alive. So they're actually blocking aid for Israeli hostages because they want to see them dead. Earlier this week, 21 or 24 IDF soldiers died in an instant when they had been packing a building with explosives for some sort of a controlled demolition, and a tank outside the building was attacked, and the conflagration from attacking the tank caused the building to explode. And then I think another four or five or six Israeli soldiers died collaterally from that collapse. What conceivable military benefit is there to these controlled explosions? Nobody's there. Nobody's in the neighborhood. The human beings are gone.

They can't claim they're trying to kill Hamas leaders. And how can you elaborate, if at all, on what happened? Yeah, there are so many layers of insanity and sickness to the military operation that got them killed. There are, there's a plethora of videos circulating on social media showing Israeli soldiers blowing up entire neighborhoods across the Gaza Strip. These neighborhoods are located in the frontier region between Gaza and Israel's 1948 borders. So this took place east of the Maghazi refugee camp, which has been a site of terrible Israeli atrocities. And on the other side

is a community, an exclusively Jewish community called Kisufim in Israel, which is depopulated now. So the idea is the Israelis will send in heavy airstrikes, drive everyone out of there, send in some infantry units, special forces. And then once they feel like they've cleansed the area, causing tons of civilian casualties, then they bring in their engineering unit and then they blow up all the structures there. And the goal is to create a larger buffer zone so that the Jewish Israelis can go back to their kibbutzim and the so-called Gaza envelope that was cleared out on October 7th. So they're committing heinous atrocities just to maintain the borders of this exclusivist Jewish state. And that's how these guys got killed.

A Qasem team from the armed wing of Hamas waded through the airstrikes. They waded through the infantry assault until the engineering team came. Then when they laid the explosives, they attacked that team and their tank with rocket propelled grenades, homemade RPGs, and triggered this massive explosion, which led to at least 21 deaths. And this also highlights the complete failure of the Israeli military in its critical stated objectives. Number one, to eradicate Hamas. It's been over three months. Hamas's military wing is still taking Israeli bodies back home in pieces or in a badly injured state. And number two, to free the hostages, they've completely failed. In fact, they're killing the hostages. So how much longer will this go? How many more bodies will be thrown into the meat

grinder by Netanyahu before they finally declare the ceasefire, which is the only way to achieve at least one of those goals. Here's the scene in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu's house two nights ago, as reported by one of the networks. This demonstration held near the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night. His spokesperson says Netanyahu met with some hostage families yesterday after he rebuffed a Hamas hostage proposal over the weekend. Just hours after that meeting, the news outlet Axios reported the Israeli ceasefire offer. Now, that report says Israel's war cabinet approved the proposal 10 days ago. A CNN report today adds that Israel is offering senior Hamas leaders a chance to leave Gaza as part of the offer. Axios says Israel is waiting for a response from Hamas.

There is no Israeli government comment on the reports officially. Do you know if this Axios report is true, that the Netanyahu government has offered Hamas leaders free passage out of Gaza? Yeah, that is true because Hamas rejected it and they will continue to reject it. In many ways, they're in the driver's seat. Israeli society was unified for a few weeks after October 7th. The unity is cracked. The people who have concern for human life, who are possibly a minority in Jewish-Israeli society at this point, are escalating their tactics and are determined to see the hostages and the captives come out, they want a ceasefire now. They want the same thing that the so-called pro-Hamas protesters, who are just people who are concerned about Palestinian life in US and European streets want.

They all want a ceasefire. Netanyahu is refusing to do it and he's offering all of these untenable deals through the Qataris to Hamas. He's offered, it does show that they're caving though, that they're beginning to crack within Netanyahu's coalition in the war cabinet, but they're offering a two month pause, which means they can go back to war again after two months, which is something Gaza could not accept because it makes a rebuilding process impossible, leaves the population living in tents. Hamas is never going to go to Egypt and accept that level of defeat. Their leadership went into October 7th knowing that it was a last stand, a kind of Alamo, to save, in their minds, to save the Palestinian nation from eternal demise.

Chris, let's play the clip of the Associated Press reporter grilling the State Department spokesperson. You'll see from this, and it's accompanied by one of these demolitions, the Associated Press reporter, you've been in this very room, we ran a clip of you in this very room last week, was trying to get the U.S. State Department spokesman to acknowledge what's happening. He can't answer anything in a straightforward way. This is a particularly aggressive, almost Max Blumenthal style of interrogation. Watch this. Based on Saeed's question about the demolition of the university, I don't know if you've seen the video. It's pretty widely available. I have seen the video.

I mean, it looks like a controlled demolition. It looks like what we do here in this country when we're taking down an old hotel or a stadium. And you have nothing to say? You have nothing to say about this? I mean, to do that kind of an explosion, you need to be in there. You have to put the explosives down, and it takes a lot of planning and preparation to do. And if there was a threat from this particular facility, they wouldn't have been able to do it. So I have seen the video. I can tell you that it is something we are raising with the governor of Israel, as we do often do when we see...

Raising as what? When we see to ask questions and find out what the underlying situation is, as we often do when we see reports of this nature. But I'm not able to characterize the actual facts on the ground before hearing that response. But you saw the video. I did see the video. I don't know. It looks like a bridge being imploded.

I don't know what was under that building. I don't know what was inside the building. It doesn't matter what was under the building because they obviously got in there to put the explosives down to do it in a way that they did. Again, I'm glad you have factual certainty about it. I just don't. All I have is what I saw in the video. I just don't.

And I think you guys saw it too. We did see it. And I can say that we have raised it with the government of Israel. And it's not troubling to you? We are always troubled by any degradation of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, but without knowing the actual underlying circumstances, I'm a little hesitant, I think for reasons that should be understandable,

to pass definitive judgment on it from this podium. Does the Netanyahu government defend the destruction of university buildings, empty university buildings, nobody anywhere near them? Destroyed every major university in Gaza, Al-Azhar University, Islamic University. They killed my friend who teaches at Islamic University, was the first professor to teach Hebrew literature at a university in Gaza, Rifat Al-Arir. Targeted him at home. They're killing doctors, physicians, intellectuals, notable people across the Gaza Strip deliberately. And this was the destruction of Israel University, the army took out thousandsman, two days ago, refused to acknowledge that an on-camera execution by the Israeli military of a man

waving a white flag in a so-called safe zone in Gaza City, right after giving an interview to ITV, refused to even acknowledge that that was a war crime. They can't do it. They can't do it because Tony Blinken won't let them do it. Because Tony Blinken is sitting in with the Israeli war cabinet. Tony Blinken is refusing to allow a ceasefire. Tony Blinken is keeping this war going on behalf of Netanyahu. The U.S. is inking one of the biggest military deals, one of the biggest arms deals with Israel or already has and is going to transfer F-35s, F-16s and tank shells to Israel after Netanyahu specifically, explicitly denounced Tony Blinken's call for a two-state solution after he showed just total disrespect to his

main patron. So who's in control here? Who's actually speaking at the State Department? Is it even our own government speaking there? One thing we can say for sure is the State Department briefing room is where U.S. soft power has gone to die since October 7th. I mean, some of your colleagues on this show have argued that it is Netanyahu and APEC that control the American government, not the American government having an ability to control Netanyahu. We've been playing this all day, but I need for you to see it. This is Secretary Blinken at Davos last week being questioned by Tom Friedman. This is the most artificial crocodile tears you've ever seen. Chris, Blinken on Gaza. One of the things you hear so often from people, given the high civilian casualties in Gaza,

is does the United States, do Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives, Palestinian Christian lives, given the incredible asymmetry in casualties? And I've been asked that. I want to give you a chance to respond to that. No. Period. Period. For me, I think for so many of us, what we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart.

The question is, what is to be done? We've made judgments about how we thought we could be most effective in trying to shape this in ways to get more humanitarian assistance to people, to get better protections and minimize civilian casualties. And at every step along the way, not only have we impressed upon Israel's responsibilities to do that, we've seen some progress in areas where absent our engagement, I don't believe it would have happened. Well, this is such a fraud. You know, you have articulated more forcefully than anybody on this show how he and his boss could stop all this with a phone call. Who believes the nonsense we just

saw? And why does he say this? Does he need to curry favor with Netanyahu? Don't people see through this? I mean, it's amazing that someone as wooden as Tony Blinken even attempts to emote at all in public and thinks that that will be convincing. It's as convincing as OJ Simpson expressing shock to find his wife and her friend's head laying on the ground at his residence, as though Tony Blinken has no part in this slaughter. It demonstrates actually not only a level of sociopathy, that Blinken can actually go

out in public and not take any responsibility for the most obvious genocide of our time. When tomorrow, as we speak, the ICJ is going to issue its initial ruling on South Africa's filing under the Genocide Convention. It's gotten that serious and Tony Blinken refuses to take any responsibility for it. It demonstrates not only sociopathy, but also a total contempt for the public that is out there, especially the Democratic Party base raging against the US-Israeli war machine. And he's not exactly sitting there in Davos under harsh questioning by a tough interviewer. It's Thomas Friedman, who himself is a supporter of Israel. Tony Blinken is not convincing anyone in the US or anywhere else in the world of his own sincerity to do

anything good for people in Gaza. He has endless tolerance for Arab suffering and the whole Arab world sees it. Joe Biden can't give a speech. He can't give a speech at a black church in the South. He can't give a speech at a pro-abortion rally in Virginia. He can't seem to give a speech anywhere without these persistent, articulate interruptions about genocide joke. We had a big fan and colleague of yours on earlier today, Medea Benjamin. She has enough courage for 10 guys. She's absolutely terrific. But Joe doesn't know how to deal with this. And every time he does give a speech, I submit, and every time he is interrupted, his base is shrinking. Yeah, I mean, these protests that are

dogging Biden everywhere he goes are so much more effective than the ones where people interrupt working class people's commutes. And they really need to continue in order to get the message across. And I think they're having an impact. to launch his campaign at a historically significant Black church in South Carolina, where he has the most reliable base of voters who are shepherded to the polls to support him, no matter what, by paid off, co-opted church leadership. And he's sitting there next to Jim Clyburn, who's a complete tool of the party machine. And he's interrupted by people who point out that in a civil rights church, Biden is supporting an ethno-supremacist regime, carrying out a genocide against people who are in a human warehouse because they are of the wrong ethnicity and religion. So the contradiction explodes there. Then he goes to rally on the

other issue that the Democrats hold as a strong point going up against Trump, which is abortion. The polls are in their favor on that. So they try to have a big abortion rally and Biden gets interrupted not once, not twice, but 13 times by people who are protesting the Joe Biden policy of administering massive amounts of post-birth abortions to the babies and children of the Gaza Strip through Israeli airstrikes. Again, exploding the concern that Biden supposedly has for women who are being killed at a much higher rate than men in the Gaza Strip. And the whole thing, the whole story became about Biden being protested by his own base. This will continue until a ceasefire is imposed. And once there's a ceasefire, the protests end. Biden's campaign, as crappy as it will be, will begin. Hezbollah will go north of the Litani River. The Ansar Allah movement or the Houthis will stop the naval blockade.

But Biden refuses to do it. So who's in charge? You're right. I know I ask you this every week and the answer, I guess, is unknowable. Where do you see this going in the next few weeks? I would have to assume we're just going to see the intensification of everything we've talked about, especially political fracturing inside Israel, which may government to crack even further and offer terms that might be acceptable through Qatari intervention to the Hamas leadership. I think Israel needs to accept defeat here. They've been defeated militarily to this point and politically, and they need to accept it but that doesn't mean they

will listen to reason. One would think Israel will accept defeat before Netanyahu will because he knows what's coming to him personally. Exactly so it's a question of what kind of forces can be brought to bear on Netanyahu from within the Israeli military intelligence elite, the warlords who are sort of waiting in the wings. Right. One last observation. As we speak, the director of the CIA and the head of Mossad are meeting in Paris with the prime minister of Qatar, and I think somebody from Egypt. What do you think that is all about? Well, it's about Qatar speaking on behalf of Hamas, trying to carve out a prisoner

swap. And the Egyptians are there because they're terrified about what Israel's going to do next. They want to occupy the Philadelphia Corridor, which essentially includes Egyptian land between Gaza and Egypt, which would just be an absolute catastrophe. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the head of this military junta that runs Egypt, his outrage that he's being accused of obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza. is increasing on Israel to offer more, but Israel has certain red lines about what Palestinian prisoners it will release. And their red line is security prisoners, prisoners who are in jail for resistance operations, and the bigwigs who could actually run a functional unified Palestinian government. I'm thinking about people like Marwan Barghouti that would include Fatah and Hamas, which would actually be a working point for real resolution to the conflict, which is something that Hamas wants. That's off the table for Israel. So the pressure is building for something. I mean, look, I think that if you didn't have all

of these meddlesome forces like AIPAC in the US, there would have been a ceasefire. October 7th would have never happened. But right now, everyone seems to want some kind of arrangement. They just can't agree on the terms. And the U.S. is, I would say, the weakest party there in Paris. If anything, they're an obstacle. If you could get Russia and China to come in there, it would be settled. Then there'll be some real talking. Max Blumenthal, always great. It's a treasure to have you on, my dear friend. If we hear from the Kennedy campaign, we'll let you know, but don't hold your breath. He'd be terrified of you and probably crazy to take you on. Thanks very much for joining us. I hope you can come back next week.

Thanks a lot, Judge. the iron fist to Aaron Maté's velvet glove. Coming up at 4.30 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Is the American government even capable of being involved in a war in the Middle East? You don't want to miss that. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. freedom.