Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi : Cease Fire Negotiations: Is Peace Possible with Netanyahu’s Government?

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Phil Giraldi : Cease Fire Negotiations: Is Peace Possible with Netanyahu’s Government?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Audible CA contains over 890,000 total titles within its current library, including audiobooks, podcasts, and exclusive Audible Originals that'll inspire and motivate you. Tap into your well-being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. If you're looking to encourage positive change in your life one day and challenge at a time, look no further than Tabitha Brown's I Did a New Thing, 30 Days to Living Free. In the audiobook, Tab shares her own stories and those of others alongside

gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, May 6, 2024. In a moment, Phil Giraldi on is peace even possible in the Middle East with Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm of Israel's government? And what's with American officials threatening like thugs the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. If you have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100, but you can only buy $76 worth of goods with it. Why is that?

Inflation has reduced all of your savings, all of your buying power and mine by 24%. And gold is largely immune from that. Gold keeps its value and goes up. If you want to learn how gold will soon hit $3,200 an ounce, call Lear Capital, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. Get your free gold report. Same experts who predicted the 23% rise that I've enjoyed have predicted this $3,200 an ounce gold. Learn about how to transfer this to an IRA. Protect your savings. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Phil Giraldi, welcome here. So a group of 12 thugs wrote a letter to a prosecutor basically saying, target our friend and we will target you. If you move forward with what we think you're going to do, we will sanction you and your employees and your associates. You have been warned. Sort of like

the mob threatening somebody, except the mob has the good sense not to put it in writing. What do you think? Well, it's, you know, in the midst of all the horrific things that have been happening, this is one of the probably most sublimely crazy, stupid things that I've seen in many months. I mean, this is a letter from 12 Republican congressmen, and you recognize the names of some of them. They're collective idiots from the Republican Party. There's Blackburn, there's Rubio, there's McConnell, there's Cruz, and two Scots. And anyway, these people basically have written a threatening letter to the international court, criminal court, based on the stories that have been surfacing, that the court has been looking into war crimes committed by Israel and might well indict Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense minister,

and one other unnamed senior official for war crimes. And so these guys are basically taking this as an affront to Americans, to American dignity, as sovereignty as a country. I copied down some of the lines from the this or not even not involved in this. So you have been warned. They say the threat to Israeli sovereignty is a threat to the sovereignty of the United States. Well, now that is a real, real head scratcher, how they could even conceivably make these arguments. One of these guys, Ted Cruz, Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law School, clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and now he makes a statement like that? Yeah. And some of the others are well-known idiots, like McConnell and Rubio and Cruz and Blackburn. And another thing they line from the thing that I love is target Israel and we will target you they are committing the united states and so far as they think they can

uh to go to war with a an international court that's highly respected uh on the basis of protecting israel uh and this is all done without any kind of uh uh you know referral to the to the american people or declaring war in the constitutional fashion or anything like this. This is just threats being thrown around. But these threats are quite scary. I thought it was really one of the lowest blows that I have seen that they would purport to speak for the government of the United States.

I would defy any of them, no matter where he went to law school or for whom he clerked, Ted Cruz, to explain to me how the indictment of Bibi Netanyahu is a threat to the sovereignty, the sovereignty, meaning the independent existence of the United States of America. This is really over the top. You forgot one of the thugs in there, Tom Cotton, Senator Cotton. Senator Cotton actually encouraged students to fight those on campus, fist fight them, who were demonstrating against the policies of Netanyahu and for peace. Anya Parampil pointed out the hypocrisy the other day of the media and this class of government officials condemning the free speech of the students, but defending the free speech of the January 6th crowd.

So it's speech that they agree with that they defend and speech that irritates them that they condemn. They have no understanding of the values of the First Amendment. Yeah, several senior officials of the Israeli government have made it very clear, very clear, I'm saying, that they are out to exterminate the Palestinians. And where is our government responding to that? That doesn't seem to bother Mr. Cotton, or sorry, Senator Cotton, or Senator Cruz, or that real clown McConnell. And this is frightening stuff. It is frightening stuff. And you roll it in today with some of this other stuff about French soldiers on their way to Ukraine. When is this going to end? It's going to end with World War III. Now, Ray McGovern insists that his sources are accurate and that 1,500 members of the French Foreign Legion are on their way to Ukraine.

Some are there. Larry Johnson says seven have been killed by the Russians already. The Russian Foreign Ministry says we don't have boots on the ground. Now, both statements can be true because the foreign ministry may not consider the French Foreign Legion, which notoriously has non-French soldiers in it with French commanders, as I understand it. They may consider this not to be boots on the ground. This is ridiculous. This is like Matt Gaetz interrogating Secretary Austin the other day who said, we don't have boots on the ground in Gaza. Okay, but we have a thousand Marines on the dock that we're building, and they have boots on, and they have weapons in their hands, and they can shoot if they've been shoot at. Apple, we don't consider that boots on the

ground. This is absurd. And the same with Joe Biden. We have soldiers out of uniform wearing boots, but out of uniform in Ukraine. We don't consider that boots on the ground. How stupid do these government officials think we are, Phil? Well, it's not just that they think we're stupid. They're stupid. They don't seem to realize that they are playing with fire i mean this is no longer fun and games uh the russians for their part of course have over the last two days been warning that you know all weapons are on the table now that the british are supplying the ukrainians with long-range missiles the only function which is to hit cities like Moscow. And, you know, they said, you start playing these games and you're providing the weapons that are

being used against us, you are in the fight. And that means that what we do in response is what we consider appropriate and we will consider everything. So this is just going crazy. The British foreign minister, who is, of course, the former prime minister, Lord David Cameron, said which the Russian foreign ministry responded in a lashing out at the British ambassador. And we have the right to destroy those weapons and the places from whence they came. Is Cameron out of his mind? Yeah, Cameron is out of his mind. He always has been.

But the fact is, it's actually gotten worse. And of course, he's got that that phony prime minister that he answers to that doesn't know what he's saying from one day to the next. It's just that this is a this is a I don't know. Do you want to? Does one want to consider this like how the First World War happened or how the Second World War happened. I mean, this is just a comedy of errors that's going on. And there is no adult in the room in the White House. And seemingly, there is no adult in the room anywhere else in Western Europe or certainly in Israel. What did you think? I know you wrote about this recently. I'm not sure if the piece is out yet, of Tony Blinken when he said, it's hard to say this with a straight face,

Bill, we apply the same standards to everyone. Yeah. He was asked by a journalist at a press meeting, and she asked him, do you favor certain countries in the way you shape our policies and that sort of thing? Or is it you try to be fair to everyone? And Blinken then went through this monologue claiming how, oh, we judge everyone by the same standards and we are fair to everyone and adversaries, friends and everything all get treated the same standards and we are fair to everyone and uh adversaries uh friends and everything all get treated the same uh I I wonder if he talks that way to Benjamin Netanyahu

is the uh U.S Congress for all practical purposes an extension of the Israeli government? Well, I would say certainly the Republican Party is. That seems to be the one thing that's driving them right at the moment. Everything is about Israel. And certainly enough Democrats are too. And that would, of course, unfortunately, include those who are in the White House and who are in the cabinet. So, you know, sure, they all defer to Israel. I mean, what is... I hate to want to say it, but I have to say, Israel owns the U.S. government in many aspects.

And this is getting very old, and it's getting very dangerous. Can there be peace while Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime minister of Israel? Well, let me make it a little easier for you. Can there be a ceasefire with Neters that form the majority in his government, and his fear that once he loses power, he loses freedom? Yeah, well, that's part of it, of course, because obviously he is in trouble for his corruption. And when the war ends, his reign will probably end too. But the fact is, I mean, Netanyahu has contradicted himself in some ways. He's indicated that under the right circumstances, he's interested in a ceasefire. Now, those circumstances are a temporary ceasefire, which means as soon as he gets his hostages back, which is the one card that Hamas and the Gazans actually hold, he's going to attack them and

destroy them. He said repeatedly, he said, even if there is a ceasefire, even if there is an agreement, we are going to attack Rafah. And he's not going to stop in Rafah. He's going to go all the way north. They've constructed a road that's divided Gaza in half already, which will link up to the bridge that the United States is so politely building, and which Netanyahu has said, gee, we can use that bridge to export our excess Palestinians. So, you know, there we go. This is the bridge to the dock? Yeah. Chris, do we have Matt Gaetz interrogating Secretary Austin on boots on the ground? Watch this, Phil. This is a very telling moment, Mr. Secretary, because you've said something that's quite possible

that could happen, right? Shots from Gaza on our service members, and then the response, our armed service members shooting live fire into Gaza. That is a possible outcome here so that we can become the port authority and run this pier. Right?

That's correct. I expect that we will always have the ability to protect ourselves. Don't you think that counts as boots on the ground? President Biden told the country that we weren't going to have boots on the ground in Gaza. And we won't. Okay, but you guys parse the distinction between, like when Americans think boots on the ground, they think Americans in harm's way or engaged actively in a conflict. You guys seem to be sort of saying that boots on a pier connected to the ground, connected to service members shooting into Gaza, doesn't count as boots on the ground?

It does not. I think you're going to find the American people have a different perspective on that. And if we're going to have people shooting into Gaza, we probably should have a vote on that. I mean, that's one of the more telling things. Of course, we know how the vote would go, but there has been no vote. The presidents don't recognize Congress's obligation that the declaration of war is the linchpin for sending troops out. The president sent troops wherever they want. How many troops do we have in Gaza or in Israel now? Is it even known?

I've never seen a number for it. But one thing, going back to the bridge and everything and the boots on the ground, I would have to remind you of the possibility. Now, if I were Benjamin Netanyahu and I were Israel and I were psychotic, I would want to get the United States fully engaged with troops on the ground in his little war. And what is a better way to do it than to arrange for what we call a false flag, where the Israelis would fire on our troops, but contrive it and make it look like it was the Gazans who did it. And then all of a sudden we have an idiot like Joe Biden proclaiming how we have been attacked by Hamas and we are going to war on the side of our allies, greatest allies in the world, incidentally, Israel, to defend them. Well, we know Israel is not an ally of the United States. It's bought and sold the United States government. We know that.

And I guess Trump is not going to be much better because of Sheldon Adelson. Do I have that right? Right. Trump will play exactly the same game when it comes to Israel. He's owned by them just as much as Biden and his crew are owned by them. And the Republican Party, as I said earlier, for whatever reason, is more in love with them, it seems, than there are certainly some dissident Democrats. There are very few dissident Republicans when it comes to the Israel issue. Is there a chance that Biden says to Netanyahu

that's it because he's worried about not getting reelected and he wants to avoid Chicago in 1968 at the Chicago convention this summer? Well, see, he's got two ways to go. The one way is to continue his slavery to Israel and Israeli interests, because that keeps him safe in terms of donors. It keeps him safe in terms of the media writing good things about them, as they continue to do every day. And so he's safe on that side. But the dangerous side for him is the fact that a lot of young voters in particular and many voters in general are disenchanted with what's going on in Gaza and may just vote for that reason. Well, that's not Gaza. That's the University of Michigan graduation yesterday. There's 100,000 people in that stadium on their relatively peaceful demonstrators.

Well, I guess it's time for violence because there are the police. Yeah, well, that's the way the game is going. Why is the crackdown on students so ferocious, Phil? Is it because of Netanyahu? Do the Bidens and the Blinkens and the Sullivans and the Netanyahus worry that American public opinion might move once the horror in Gaza is exposed to them? The last poll i saw said 72 percent of americans were opposed to what's going on in gaza now the thing is that's well how it's playing out with the protesters the protesters are being depicted as the enemies uh you know they're what used to be communists uh they are the enemies they are pro-terrorist this is all how they're being portrayed in the media.

This is how the politicians are playing them. And, of course, the real terrorists are the people that were at UCLA who were paid by a couple of Hollywood bigwigs to go in there and wreck the peaceful demonstration that was taking place, which they did. And the police stood by and watched. So that's the real enemies, at least in my mind. And I hope a lot of Americans start to realize that. Here's a senator in his own unique voice, very powerful, that I bet you never thought you'd agree with. They are out there not because they are pro-Khomas.

They are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is now doing in Gaza, which is bringing unbelievable harm, not just to the terrorist organization of Khomas, but to the entire Palestinian people. And that's why these anti-war demonstrators are out there. They do not want to see a situation continue where 110,000 Palestinians out of, you know, 5% of the population have been killed or wounded,

where children now face starvation. Hundreds of thousands of children face starvation because Israel is refusing to allow humanitarian aid to get to where it has to go. Demonstrations is what—and the right to dissent, the right to protest, that is what the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is all about. That's what in fact makes you a free country. Being a free country means that somebody goes out and demonstrates—you don't have to agree with them, they have the right. That's the difference between autocracy and dictatorship in a free country. But for anybody to suggest that we cannot be critical

of the government of Israel or the government of Italy or the government of Ireland, you know, for whatever reason, is not what democracy is about. So I happen to believe, not everybody agrees with me, that the war policies of the Netanyahu government are a disaster. They are causing unprecedented harm. They are in violation of international law, and absolutely in violation of American law, by the way. But I think people who are critical,

the idea that people who are critical of what Netanyahu's doing are anti-Semitic, that is nonsense, and that is a very, very dangerous line to cross in terms of freedom of expression in this country. I am thinking back, and other people are making this reference, that this may be Biden's Vietnam. Maybe Biden's Vietnam. I didn't agree with everything he said. I agreed with about 95% of it. It is too little, too late. But nobody else in the Senate is speaking that way. And it is a

far cry from those 12 who wrote that letter threatening that prosecutor that we talked about at the outset of the show. It's 180 degrees from that. Well, I mean, I love you, Bernie, and I hope that he's correct in that it will be Biden's Vietnam, and I really would like to see Biden taken off the roof of the White House by a helicopter and dropped into the, you know, somewhere maybe in the Potomac. But maybe that's asking too much. Well, will there be any difference in the policy towards Israel if Donald Trump is president? Phil, no. No.

No. The nuance will be different and the rhetoric will be different, but no. Right. And is there any chance that Biden changes 180 degrees in order to salvage his reelection campaign? There is a chance of that. I would say if the negative feeling grows among the electorate and it becomes palpable and it becomes clear that there are a number of swing states that are going to swing as a result of it, Biden is enough of a spineless coward to do whatever it takes to get reelected. Is there any chance that Netanyahu cuts a deal for a ceasefire?

Or does he not want a ceasefire? And his pretenses to want one are profoundly untruthful. I think that Blinken crafted a ceasefire or an agreement, a truce or whatever you want to call it, which benefits Israel more than it does anyone else. As I suggested before, I fully expect Netanyahu to follow through on his promise to invade Gaza, Rafah, no matter what happens in terms of the negotiations. He said that several times now, and it's one of the few times that he's not lying. Let me take you back to your intelligence community days.

What role, if any, is the CIA playing in Rafah, Gaza, and Israel? I would say that they're probably hampered by the fact that Israel is keeping such tight control over what is going on. And I have heard of, I recall situations like this in my agency days. When you're in that kind of situation, you're heavily reliant on information that's being passed to you by the Israelis. Now, of course, these days, there are technical resources that enable you to find out a lot of things. But I would bet that the Israelis are not exactly sharing anything that's useful. Let's go over to Ukraine before we leave. Is the CIA truthfully telling old Joe how bad things are, or is Bill Burns still putting a spin on it?

I would suspect that they are probably being frank, but I don't know at which level they are being frank. Explain, please. whether this is going to the president level uh that's a difficult call even back in the old days with uh with uh ronald reagan and others it was always kind of uh clear that you know you had to be a little bit careful what you said at that level so i don't i'm not quite sure what they're what they're but i would probably believe that 90 of the people in the field, like I was, working on this issue, see it just the way you and I do. Is there any rational argument to be made that Ukraine can be saved by the $61 billion? Or is it too little, too late, too far gone? I don't think it can be saved. I think there's a consensus on that

pretty broadly among anyone who's thinking about the issue. Except for the Republicans in the Congress. Yeah, but they're lying. It's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. Thank you for coming on today. I'm traveling the rest of the week. And you are number seven of nine hits today. Yeah, I noticed. You are deeply and profoundly appreciated, not just by me, but by the thousands that watch you and comment on you. Thank you, my dear friend.

Okay. And have a good trip to Europe tomorrow. Yep, we'll see you next week. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Scott Ritter at 4.30 Eastern. Professor Jeff

Sachs at 5.30 Eastern. John Napolitano, for judging Freedom. Thank you.