Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi : How Washington Protects Israel.

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Phil Giraldi : How Washington Protects Israel.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 Wednesday, May 15th, 2024. Phil Giraldi joins us now. Phil, always a pleasure, my dear friend. We have a lot to talk about. You have an incredibly powerful and detailed article at the UN's review on the unique and even bizarre relationship between the government of Israel and the government of the United States. But before we get there, just to address the hot news of the moment, the prime minister of Slovakia is the moment, the prime minister of Slovakia is the victim of an assassination attempt of just a few hours ago. He was apparently shot three times in the abdomen and is in a life-threatening situation, but is undergoing

surgery at whatever is the best medical center available to him. President Biden, of course, is condemned, and a lot of people have condemned it. He is one of the few leaders in Europe refusing to provide aid to Ukraine and publicly, more or less, allied with President Putin of Russia. The alleged killer has supposedly told the police this was a political assassination, that the killer or the attempted killer is a member of the opposition party. As much as we know, and as you can digest, are you surprised by any of this? Yeah, well, this is one of those situations where it gets a little, as you know, I did a trip down to Danube last year. And I was quite surprised at some of the conversations I had with Eastern Europeans. My mother is, in fact, a Slovak. And I inherited a lot of history of the region from her and from my grandmother as I was growing up.

And it's very complicated because, of course, the Second World War was a memory that was very recent for people like them. And of course, they recall the Germans as being the attackers, the aggressors, the victimizers. And the Russians, of course, were to a certain extent perceived as their saviors. So there is a very mixed feeling towards Russia, Germany, and Eastern Europe within Eastern Europe. And so I believe this is a case from what I've read, what I understand, where the Slovakian people, and certainly the ones I spoke to, were very mixed about how they viewed Russia, and how they viewed viewed Germany and how they viewed the whole situation. Some of them were very fond of Russia, and some of them really felt that Russia did them a bad favor by bringing in communism under which they suffered for the next 40 plus years. So it's

kind of a mixed view. And this guy, the politician, it is my understanding, is one of those, as you pointed out, who is reluctant to get too involved in the fighting and in the war in Ukraine and is reluctant to provide too much in the way of aid. And he's running against some people in his own country, opposition parties that are really more eager to get into it he also has uh as a profound enemy the military-industrial complex in that country which of course wants uh to produce um their lethal uh equipment and ammunition and have the government to buy it and it and then give it away to Ukraine. He has agreed, apparently, as somewhat of a concession to give away to Ukraine humanitarian aid, food and construction equipment, but he's not going to give away anything lethal. Does it surprise you? I don't know if the alleged killer is crazy or not, but does it surprise you that somebody would do this? Well, given the kind of passions that are being aroused by what is going on in the region. I'm not surprised at that. I think the passions are very close to

the surface in terms of how the people and their representative parties see these situations developing. And so I'm not terribly surprised. It is kind of uncommon in Eastern Europe, at least in the last 20 years or so, to resort to violence, to resort to anything like an assassination. But again, I am not surprised that it would come to that because certainly the Western media and the Russian media have been stirring up arguments from their two sides, and people get very passionate about it. Switching over to Israel, the House of Representatives, and you got to call it that loosely. It's hard for me to believe they represent the people. I think they represent the moneyed interests that get them there, whether it's the military-industrial complex or the donor class, the Jewish lobby. But the House of Representatives is their official name in the Constitution, recently enacted legislation purporting to define anti-Semitism and to punish schools and universities that receive federal aid who permit what the House

claims is anti-Semitic remarks to be made. Some of this legislation is bizarre. For example, if you criticize the state of Israel, the government of Israel, as you and I and almost everybody in this show has done, if we were students, we would have to criticize another government at the same time. If you criticize Zionism, you would have to criticize another racial and religious movement, whether violent or not, at the same time. How dangerous is something like this? Well, it's incredibly dangerous because it's not only that you have to criticize Israel in a context with another nation, it has to be 50-50. Like you can't say, for example, that Israel in certain respects is worse than what's going on in Egypt or something like that uh it has to be 50 50. this whole thing

is loaded in favor of keeping you from saying anything naughty about Israel the definition comes from the International Holocaust Association and basically it is it is geared to keep people from criticizing Israel. And the other thing that, see, this is going to be this law. It hasn't been signed yet by Biden. It hasn't been passed by the Senate yet. The same powers that control, you correct me if I'm wrong, control the House, control the Senate. Right. And they control Biden. Right. They they control Biden. Right. Well, they absolutely

control Biden. Yeah. So the point is that when this is, if it becomes law, this will be executed by the Department of Education, which everybody used to make fun of. And the Department of Education is empowered to send monitors to high schools, to colleges, and basically to watch things going on to see what their definition of anti-Semitism is occurring. And since they control a considerable part of the purse strings for many colleges and universities, and even down to lower levels in some cases. The lethality of this is, if you're not doing what we want you to do, we'll take your money away. Just reprehensible that the government can do this. By the way, Phil, the last time you read the Constitution, did you see anything in there about

delegating to Congress the power to regulate education? Well, being a little sarcastic, it's absolutely not there at all. This was dreamed up by Republicans in the past 25 years. Yeah. Well, the founding fathers must have forgotten it or ignored it as an issue but yeah it's it's ridiculous we have uh we have created a monster in the post-world war ii america which uh used to be a place where there was considerable freedom and considerable opportunity for people. All right, Phil, you're frozen. You're still there. Yeah, and government is into everything now.

Yeah, so the Department of Education can send a monitor, really a cop, into a grammar school, a high school, a college, a university, a law school, a medical school, a high school, a college, a university, a law school, a medical school, a business school, without a warrant, to investigate whether or not there are anti-Semitic statements under this broad definition of anti-Semitism. And if he finds it, then bureaucrats can decide whether or not a financial aid should be held back from the school. This is a direct violation of something called the Doctrine Against Unconstitutional Conditions, which the Supreme Court has reaffirmed many times. The government cannot condition the acceptance of a benefit, cash, on the non-assertion of a fundamental liberty, free speech by the people receiving the cash. It's absolutely prohibited to say nothing of the free speech aspects of it.

I was about to say, the real target of this is free speech. Is the Jewish lobby in America, I guess this is a silly question because the answer is so obvious, against free speech. Well, I think the evidence would have to be yes. I mean, they basically want this definition of anti-Semitism to become something as an implement to be able to charge people with hate crimes. And so that's part of it. And the story recently about TikTok, how did that come about? Well, TikTok has a lot of news coverage, not like the news coverage in

the mainstream in the United States, that is highly critical of what Israel is doing in Gaza. And it was the head of the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, Greenblatt, who was complaining publicly that something had to be done about TikTok because TikTok was putting information out there that they didn't want to be put out there. So this is where it came from. So I would have to say, you know, Jewish groups that are very passionate about Israel. And this is not every Jew by any means. This is this is mostly the groups that are behind this. And these groups are pushing to basically control what was passed for free speech in this country. We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement.

I'm not going to run a clip that I know will raise your blood pressure from Tony Blinken. But before we do, I see Rupert behind you. Is that Rupert on your shirt? Yeah, I got this shirt from a company in England, which it's an English Bulldog, of course. And they had various color variations on the bulldog. And this one was almost exactly like the real Rupert. Wow. Chris, not Chris Leonard, my producer, but my Chris is jealous. He's right here.

Rupert's on Uncle Phil's shirt. All right. We're going to take a break when we come back more on the attitude of Secretary Blinken, who claims that the United States treats all foreign governments equally. 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 $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less.

Inflation has reduced all of your savings, all of your buying power and mine by 24 percent. And gold is largely immune from that. 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.

Here's that clip of Tony Blinken that I promised. 3A, Chris. The accusations about IDF's military conduct in Gaza have piled up. They include using food as a weapon, targeting civilian infrastructure, indiscriminate bombing, something even the President has said is taking place. So I'm wondering – we know you've got ongoing processes about this, but could you tell us why is it taking so long to make a definitive assessment about these?

And the fact that it's taking so long triggers – like, leads a lot of people suggesting that U.S. has a double standard when it comes to applying the law with Israel. Does the U.S. have a double standard? Thank you. SECRETARY POMPEO, Great. Thanks, Amira. Let me start with the last part of the question. Do we have a double standard?

The answer is no. As this report makes clear, in general, as we're looking at human rights and the condition of human rights around the world, We apply the same standard to everyone, and that doesn't change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend, or an ally. That's really hogwash from the mouth of a man who approached Prime Minister Netanyahu after October 7th, and instead of saying, I am here as the Secretary of State of the United States, said, I'm here as a Jew. Do I have that right?

Yeah, you do. That was the first words out of his mouth. He basically is a liar and he lies about everything. This is probably the biggest lie he's ever come out with. And he repeated it. He repeated it, I think, two days ago. More or less the same question, more or less the same answer. And the fact is that the United States is essentially in business. Business number one, Joe Biden should have stamped on his forehead, is to protect Israel. because virtually everything that has gone on in foreign policy over the past year

or so can be attributed to that objective. And I don't see how anybody could joke about it. We treat everybody differently. We treat everybody based on, first of all, what our perception and needs might be. But in some cases, like in the case of Israel, it's a totally irrational process. Israel is not a democracy. It is not an ally. It contributes absolutely nothing to the U.S. economy or to U.S. national security. And it is essentially a freebie that is given to a very powerful domestic lobby uh to do whatever they want and to get away with whatever they want and we will give you cover we will give you money we will give you weapons you would have noticed two weeks ago biden got

tough with israel when it was announced that by netanyahu that they were going to be attacking Raha in Gaza, no matter what happened. And he said, well, then we will withhold this arms shipment. Well, yesterday he turned around and he's given them another arms shipment worth a billion dollars. The guy has no spine. He has no moral integrity. And it's something we're stuck with. Does the Israeli government control the American government? It controls the American government on certain issues. issues um and certainly the issues are the issues that are regionally related to israel or uh are things like uh money uh israel has received more money a country of what seven million has received more money than any other country in the rest of the world ever since the Second World War. And this is by a huge

margin. It's something like $280 billion. And a lot of that money is in pre-dollars that are worth sometimes twice as much as the dollars that you and I are seeing right now. Right. It's a vast discrepancy. Israel controls the shots. They're powerful in the media. And virtually everyone in Congress and in the government is afraid of them. I want to ask you about the virulent reaction of certain American officials to the leaking by the Israelis, by the Israelis, that they expect to be the subject of indictments and arrest warrants at the International Criminal Court. But before I do that, let's clarify, if we can, this Joe Biden

statement about he's not sending the 2,000-pound bombs over there. He's still sending everything else, is he not? Yes. The money is still going, and the second shipment, which is almost as big as the first shipment, is going, as of yesterday. According to Ritter, three flights, Scott Ritter, three flights a day arrived from the United States, and that has not stopped. They've just held back a couple of 2,000, I don't know, a couple, I don't know how many, 2,000-pound bombs from some of those flights.

So Joe is, I guess, trying to have it both ways. He wants the Democrats in Michigan to think he's really getting tough with Netanyahu, but he wants the donor class in America to realize he's still going to give Netanyahu all that he needs. Yeah, absolutely. It's a con job by Joe, and he's not very good at a con job. The U.S. reaction to the Israeli leak that the International Criminal Court is contemplating indictments and arrest warrants for senior Israeli leaders, which would include Prime Minister Netanyahu. What does the U.S. have to gain by threatening the court, as 12 Republican senators did in writing? They wrote a letter that sounded like a mafia Don had written it. The mafia was smart enough not to put this in writing.

Well, it was Tom Cotton that wrote it, and he went to Harvard, didn't he? Yes. Yeah, so, you know, no, it was a threat letter. That's what it was. And the United States has absolutely nothing to gain from it, except this weird perception that, oh, well, if we let them get away with it with the Israelis and go after their leadership, they'll do the same thing to us. Well, if we do what the Israelis are currently doing, carrying out a genocide and killing maybe eventually something like 100,000 people, then maybe we deserve it. What happens if the arrest warrants are issued? What can the United States do? I mean, did the United States once go after this court because it was investigating what Julian Assange

revealed, namely American war crimes in Afghanistan? I'm not sure about that one. I think that was a bit ambiguous. But the fact is that it has gone after the court on occasion, where it felt that the court was not doing what it should be doing. But it also supported the court when they got the court to go after the Russians after they invaded Ukraine. So it cuts two ways. And what these senators are threatening is to actually in the letter, they threatened to go after the Chief Justice of the court and his family with sanctions, and to go after employees of the court with sanctions. So they were making actual physical threats on the things that they would do and punish these people. If they tried to travel anywhere, they would possibly arrange to arrest

them, that sort of thing. So you have a Harvard-trained lawyer threatening a prosecutor. That's called obstruction of justice. I doubt that he'll ever be prosecuted for it, but that's what you have, and you have the proof right there, right there in the letter. The United States is not a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, or at least the part of the Treaty of Rome that establishes the court. But the United States, as you pointed out, Phil, will cheer the court on and even provide it with evidence when it goes after an American adversary, as it did President Putin and somebody in the Putin administration,

a woman, I don't remember who. Right. Yeah, that's exactly correct. I mean, they will do that. But, you know, the interesting thing is the United States is a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, but it never ratified it. So it's like it's sitting there, but it's not active. And so that's another funny aspect to it. I guess it may have been under Clinton that we actually got into the court and we were signatory. But it was when George Bush was president, he decided not to ratify it in the Senate. So it's not legally admissible in terms of United States procedures. Right. It's not enforceable as law. That still doesn't mean you can threaten the prosecutors by using official government force to interfere with their lives if they fail to do as you wish them to do. And of course, we all know why George Bush didn't want to ratify

the treaty, because he was worried about a prosecution of himself, which as we also know, was initiated in another court in Europe. And as a result, he can't travel to Europe. Another story for another time. But the viewers should know, there are no statutes of limitations on war crimes. So any kind of war crime, torture, genocide, directly targeting civilians, there's no statute of limitations. These people can be prosecuted at any time, no matter how the political winds might blow. How much longer, just to jump over into Ukraine, do you think that's going to go on? How much longer can Ukraine survive? Before we came on air, Colonel McGregor sent me a clip of Russian soldiers just walking into a village with no resistance whatsoever. And they keep moving eastward. Well, I would go with, yeah, I certainly would go with McGregor.

And I think Larry Johnson has provided some interesting insights. And I think they're both kind of saying this is going to be over by the end of the summer. That sounds realistic to me. It seems that way. Last question. You have told us many times that the type of raw intelligence that you gathered in the years you were in the CIA and that others gathered by the time it made its way to the president had been spun and sliced and diced so that the presenters to the president looked like heroes by telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. Do you think that is still the case with Ukraine? Does Joe Biden honestly still believe that Putin is lost? Or does he understand how desperate things are, and he just wants to hang on until after election day? And what is

Intel telling him these days? Well, I would suspect that he's probably looking at it in a more realistic way now, particularly as also opposition to continuation of Ukraine is growing in the United States, and he's got an election coming up. So I think we're going to see some tap dancing coming out of the president also on this issue. And he's probably getting better information now because I think the people he's talking to realize that it's push come to shove time and we have to get a realistic agenda if we're going to stay in office. And that may be driving all of it. But this is a guy that basically, whether it's just a question of senility or something like that, or a question of lack of interest in actually what he's what he's talking about. I don't know what it is, but it's just he's so disconnected and it's hard to say, well, what are people telling him?

And once he leaves the room room does he remember what they said i just don't know it's a it's an interesting question and an important question as we approach elections it's um fascinating and sad to see this in your grandfather it's terrifying to see this in the most powerful person nominally the most powerful person nominally, the most powerful person on the planet. Thank you, Phil. Always a pleasure, my dear man. Look for you same time next week as always. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Coming up for you tomorrow, Thursday, May 16th at eight in the morning Eastern, Tony Schaefer, who now comes to us once a month or so with fascinating attitudes about all of this. At two in the afternoon, Aaron Maté. At three in the afternoon, Kyle Ancelone. And at four in the afternoon, the inimitable Max Blumenthal.

Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!