Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi: How Wedded are DC and Israel?

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Phil Giraldi: How Wedded are DC and 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 22nd, 2024. Phil Giraldi joins us now at his usual day and time. Phil, thank you very much, as always, my dear friend. What do you think, if any, is the effect politically, either geopolitically, in Israel or in the United States, or all three, of the proposal by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to ask a panel of three judges to accept indictments of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant and three Hamas leaders and to authorize their arrest warrants? Well, it depends on how you look at it. There are a lot of different directions this is coming from. And I think uh you the one thing you have to recognize

at the same time is that uh also three Palestinians uh were were part of the indictment that uh uh the head of Hamas and two other senior officials in Hamas and uh they uh the two Israelis of course are are Netanyahu and his secretary his secretary minister of defense so they're very senior it's got to be bad news for israel yet again because it's increasing the perception that israel is the mad dog in the world today and it's just going around killing people and this is becoming observable and this has become even legally indictable so it's got to be bad from that perspective the biggest question mark i think at this point uh is what are the responses going to be. Obviously, Israel can just ignore this, because the only way the warrants are servable is if Netanyahu shows up in a country that is

willing to enforce it. And there are some that are and some that aren't. And the United States, of course, is drafting legislation in Congress, obviously working also with the White House to attack the ICC based on the fact that they claim that there's no jurisdiction there, and they will use the usual tools to punish the jurors who are on the court, as well as whoever else in a secondary fashion who supports this action. So there's going to be a lot of action coming from the United States to get into this fight, which it didn't have to get into. And so that's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. That was in the news a good deal already today about the legislation that is currently being considered.

Well, what are they threatening to do? What can they do to an international court that doesn't violate international law? Well, they said, for example, that anybody affiliated with the court will not be allowed to travel to the United States. One of those judges is an American, but all right. Right. Yeah. The only one that would obviously be excluded from that would be the American. But the other members of the court and other people that are sent by the court to carry out investigations and that sort of thing would not be allowed into the united states so that's that's one thing and

and then there will be you know the usual uh going after assets and and that kind of thing of of people who are seen who are seen by the us as having been the ones who are pushing this. And so there's going to be a lot of playing around that's going to be going on, and the U.S. will be a major player in this. And, of course, Biden will be looking over his shoulder to see how this is playing out with the voters. So that's another factor. Well, Biden needs to look over both shoulders because the definition of genocide under international law includes paying for it. So whatever the prosecutor, we'll run a clip from him in a moment. He's a very articulate man, Karim Khan. accused Netanyahu of is relevant to the same accusation against Biden and Blinken and Sullivan

and Secretary Austin. Cut number nine. Here's the ICC prosecutor announcing what he's doing and why he's doing it. On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my office that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Galant bear criminal responsibility for the following international crimes committed on the territory of the State of Palestine from at least the 8th of October 2023. The crimes include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment, willful killing or murder and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, as well as crimes against humanity of extermination and or murder,

persecution, and allegations of crimes of committing other inhuman acts. Did you notice that he referred to the victim of the crime or the location of the victims of these crimes as the state of Palestine. We learned from Professor Mearsheimer that's because Palestine, as a state, signed the Treaty of Rome. Now, the United States signed the Treaty of Rome, but the Senate never ratified it. So the United States is not a part of the Treaty of Rome. It's the treaty that, among other things, established this court. The United States and Israel are not parties to it. initiator who spends his time traveling between Doha and Cairo. I guess he won't be able to do that if he's indicted and there's an arrest warrant issued for him. If they choose to enforce it, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that he did refer to the state of Palestine, which makes sense in

terms of Palestine being a signatory to the treaty, which the United States is not. But I think from what I've been reading, there seems to be a consensus growing that the indictment of the Palestinians, of the Gazans, is essentially maybe a trick to get more broadly based support of what's going on at all. The fact is that the United States has repeatedly over and over been hitting the issue of saying, there's there's no equity here and what's going on with these courts and with these that they're they're going after israel and they're not uh going after the hamas which started this thing off so i mean that's been the argument made so i think this was a way of diffusing that argument and seeing if, by some miracle, they could actually get the teeth into this and do things that will make the Israelis think twice about what they're up to.

I have not heard from Senator Cotton, Senator Cruz, Senator Graham, and the ringleaders of that gang of 12 that wrote that mafia-sounding letter that threatened this very prosecutor since he made his announcement, perhaps for the reasons you've just articulated, Phil, because the two political leaders of Hamas, again, why they did this to the negotiator, I don't know. By the way, this is the second chief Hamas negotiator. The Israelis assassinated the first one during his travels from Doha to Cairo. Another story for another time. This is ridiculous and not easy to watch, but I want your thoughts on it. The Department of State spokesperson, Matt Miller, a real goofball, gets into, I know, we know who he is.

You even have to see the face to shake your head. But this is him at his worst. However, he is being aggressively, aggressively grilled by his beast in the night, this wonderful, articulate Associated Press reporter. Watch this and then comment on it. Cut number 10. So let's just focus on jurisdiction for a second. Who does have jurisdiction here? So the governor of Israel has jurisdiction. Over the occupied territory. Over Gaza, which is not entirely occupied. They have jurisdiction into looking at the actions by their military personnel.

So the Palestinians, if they have a complaint, they have to bring it to Israeli court. We have jurisdiction with the use of our equipment. I'm sorry. How do you have jurisdiction? With the use of our military equipment that we have provided. How do you have jurisdiction? If you look at the Leahy law, if you look at – That's not jurisdiction in a criminal process.

Not in a criminal process, but it has to do with the determinations that we make and the policies that flow from it. But that's not jurisdiction. But, Matt, long term, you were right that we want to see – You used the word for DOJ, Matt. Come on. The US does not have jurisdiction. There are different, I wasn't referring to criminal jurisdiction, Matt. There are different ways to look at this. Long term, we agree with you that the Palestinian people should be a state and have the ability to make these determinations, but that's not where we are today. That's where we're trying to get to. Do you think they mean it when they

say the Palestinian people should be a state? The president says it. Tony Blinken says it. Jacob Sullivan says it. This fellow, Matt Miller, for all of his goofiness, says it and just said it. Don't they know that a Palestinian state is impossible under the present leadership of Israel, which we bankrupted to the tune of $20 billion? Yeah. In fact, they frequently qualify the process involved in Palestine becoming a state

by saying Israel has to approve of the process. And it's pretty clear from comments by Netanyahu and the thugs that he has working for him uh that what we're seeing here is a an attempt to create a palestine that's free of palestinians that is a jewish state and uh only jews will have the rights so this is the kind of thing we're up against and uh and this uh miller guy is just a total liar mean, he's saying, among other things, he's been touting what he claims is the reality that Israel has a first-class judicial system that will look into all these issues of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But this is nonsense. None of this takes place. There have been 500 Palestinians oninians on the west bank

that have gotten killed since all this started and they've gotten killed by settlers shooting them by israeli soldiers shooting them and nobody has been held to account for killing these 500 palestinians plus the 5 000 more that are in detention without any charges being filed. I don't see the Israeli courts, you know, taking up their human rights type issues. This is ludicrous. The United States is owned by Israel. And, you know, you and I have been talking about this and how it's come about. I mean, it's been a process and these these guys are working for israel in the state department and in the white house and then congress uh two things i said we bankrupted them i meant to say we bankrolled them we gave them 20 billion and secondly $120 billion. And secondly, Ben-Gavir, Yitzhak Ben-Gavir, the hard right member of Netanyahu's

cabinet, who's in charge of national security, roughly the head of the FBI, has said that there's too many Palestinians in the Israeli jails. And you can imagine what his solution is. Take them out and shoot them. So you free up beds, or they don't even have beds, free up room for more Palestinians to be arrested. This is crazy. On top of this, two members of Congress, one of whom, Chris will put some stills up, Brian, I don't know if it's Nass or Mast. There he is. He wears an IDF uniform on Capitol Hill, in his office, in the hallways, and on the floor of Congress. We don't have a photo on the floor of Congress, although that might be it there. Anyway, he and another member of Congress have introduced legislation to provide identical benefits to Americans fighting in the IDF, as we do for American reservists when they're called into active duty. So it prevents their homes from being foreclosed. If they don't pay a mortgage, it prevents their leasehold from being taken away from them if they miss lease payments. And it's various other financial benefits that the federal government

provides to American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines when they're called into active duty. He wants to provide these same benefits to Americans who go to Israel, Americans who live in Israel, Americans with dual citizenship in Israel. I've never heard of this. What a Pandora's box this would open, Phil. Yeah, these are benefits that were designed for American soldiers in the National Guard, in the reserves, also active duty in some cases. And I have to read this. The Servicemember Civil Relief Act is one of them. And the Uniform

Services Reemployment Rights Act is the other one, which is for, for example, for National Guardsmen, is pulled out of his job and is sent overseas. That second act is for the government to be able to have a voice with the employers so that these people will have jobs to go back to when the crisis is over. So these are very beneficial for lower ranking American uniforms, soldiers, sailors, and Marines. And they were seen as essential when soldiers were making $90 a month, as the song used to go, $90 a day, once a month, which was the case when I was drafted. But anyway. I remember singing that in basic training, Fort Knox, Kentucky, circa 1970. $90 a day, once a month.

Yeah. Yeah. I see. It must be more than that by now, Phil. You and I are talking about literally 50 years ago. Yeah. Well, it wasn't that way 50 years ago. But the fact is, all right, these were beneficial programs for American soldiers. Now, what they're saying is, oh, well, we have 20,000 dual nationals. These are Israeli citizens who have American citizenship because they emigrated from the United States and went to Israel and did not get rid of their American citizenship.

So these clowns, there are two congressmen. One is from Ohio. One of them is from Pennsylvania that are the initial sponsors of this. And I believe they're Christian Zionists, which is part of their motivation on this. And they basically want to give these rights to israelis these are people who live in israel in most cases and that are serving in the israeli military and we're going to be giving and paying for we taxpayers paying for these benefits to go to israeli soldiers i, this is absolutely unique. This has never occurred in any other similar context in the history of the U.S. military. So this is astonishing.

And everyone would say, are we owned by these people? Yeah, I guess we are. While this is going on, while a slow assault on rafa is taking place while prime minister netanyahu is under a threat of indictment and and arrest if he goes into the wrong country the united states continues to negotiate with israel and saudi arabia to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Now, Saudi Arabia says two-state solution, otherwise forget about it. Israel says no two-state solution. There's Rupert behind you where we're looking for him earlier.

Israel says, as we know, no two-state solution. Secretary Blinken was asked about this yesterday. Here's what he had to say, number 12. Yes, we have sought to move forward in negotiating the bilateral U.S.-Saudi aspects of a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But even if we were to conclude those agreements – and I believe we actually can conclude them relatively quickly, given all the work that's been done – they could not go forward, the overall package could not go forward, absent other things that have to happen for normalization to proceed. And in particular, the Saudis have been very clear

that would require calm in Gaza, and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. And it may well be, as you've said, that in this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down that pathway. But to the extent that the agreements are finalized in principle between the United States and Saudi Arabia, that in effect calls the question. And Israel will have to decide whether it wants to proceed and take advantage of the opportunity to achieve suggesting that Israel has sought a two-state solution from its founding, unless he just mixed his words up and he meant Palestine has sought it. Israel has never sought a two-state solution as far as my understanding of the history of this area goes well i i think the the current israeli government has made it very clear that that it's off the table to be considering what the saudis are demanding uh quite rightly the saudis are demanding a return uh to the original agreement that was to divide up what was then Palestine and create the Israeli state. And so there is a map that shows which part of it is Palestine and which part of it was supposed to be Israel. And the Saudis have said, we go back and we go back to that map. And it also includes that East Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state.

Now, Israel has taken over East Jerusalem and declared it as part of Israel, as it has taken over a number of other areas. So Israel is not interested in going back to what the agreements were. They're not going to do it. And Blinken is just talking out of his derriere, as he usually is. And the fact is that where is the pressure that the United States should be putting on this situation to make it happen, to make Israel think twice about what it's doing and how it's doing it it's not there biden is not going to do anything unless he feels compelled to do so by electoral necessities towards the end of this year and even then it'll be a fraud it'll be like saying well we won't send them 2 000 pound

bombs but the next week uh suddenly there's a shipment going with other weapons. So this is, we are accomplices in this war, we're war criminals, we're paying for this war, and we're arming one side in this war. I mean, what more can you say? Yeah. Did you hear, did you catch Blinken, Secretary Blinken, referring to Gaza as common Gaza? I've not heard that phrase before. I asked Professor Mearsheimer if he knew what he meant. He said he never heard it either.

Common Gaza. Does that mean anything to you, Phil? Well, that must mean these villas that Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared, is going to be building along the Mediterranean Sea there for wealthy Israeli Jews. No, I don't know. Again, there's probably something lurking in the back of Blinken's brain, if one can actually identify that, and in which makes him use a phrase like that because it has some legal or juridical meaning. I can't even imagine what it is. Do you have a feel for why Arab leaders have not come to the defense of the Palestinians,

other than verbally, not a single one? Well, I would say the simple answer to that is that they're a little bit afraid of getting into it because uh that's when the united states starts doling out sanctions and and doing this and doing that and making up enemies lists and uh i i have a feeling they've had enough of dealing with the united states every time lincoln goes over there or one of these other clowns uh they come back with nothing and i think that tells you more than anything that that if the arab states or at least some of the ira states felt that there was something they could do uh against the the pressure being exerted by the us they they probably wouldn't be doing it we've seen turkey in the last couple weeks kind of turn a page and uh at least in terms of what it's saying, looking like they might be

an effective help to maybe the Lebanese, maybe Hezbollah, who knows? But we'll see where that goes. What do you think your former colleagues in the Central Intelligence Agency who are in the Middle East are reporting back to Langley now about what's going on there. And is the truth making its way to Joe Biden, or is this another thing where whoever the briefers are, tell them what they think he wants to hear. Well, I think there's a little bit of everything going on. I can only draw on my own experience, and I think the experience of some people in the agency that I'm still kind of in touch with, to say that Israel is greatly disliked by the rank and file of workers in the CIA because, you know, we're intelligence

people. We see how we're being conned, how we're being taken, how we're being used. But by the time the message of the reporting that gets up to the top level of the agency, where these people are essentially politicians, and it finally gets over to the White House, I would imagine that the message is somewhat, shall we say, weakened. Interesting. Phil, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for your time and for your analysis. As always, these Wednesday afternoons are terrific. I trust we can continue them, and I'll look forward to seeing you next week. Absolutely. Look forward to it. Thank you. Okay. Sure. All the best. We have one more interview for you today coming up in just a few minutes at four o'clock Eastern. Aaron Matej on Ukraine is its inevitable destruction leading to assaults and attacks inside Russia.

Justin Politano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!