Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi: Israeli Descent Into Depravity

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Phil Giraldi: Israeli Descent Into DepravitySee 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, March 27th, 2024. Phil Giraldi joins us now. Phil, my dear friend, thank you very much for joining us. You have a fascinating and compelling and at times difficult to read piece that you posted just the other day about the depravity of the Israeli government. But before we get to that, I'd like to discuss some of the breaking news that has happened since we were last on together. On Monday, there was a vote in the United Nations Security Council supposedly calling for a ceasefire. The United States did not veto it. It abstained. Prime Minister Netanyahu supposedly was furious at this and directed his people that were about to leave for Washington from Tel Aviv not to come. There have been five of these votes. The first three, the U.S. vetoed.

The fourth, the U.S. sponsored. It was so watered down that the Russians and the Chinese vetoed it. This one passed 14 to 0 to 1 abstention. As soon as it passed, the United States ambassador to the UN and Admiral Kirby both said the same thing. It's not binding. So what is the value of all this, or stated differently, aren't all these things binding, whether the United States and Israel think differently or not? Well, there is a distinction, in fact. When the UN was founded, General Assembly votes were just taken as a matter of the opinion of the General Assembly. And that persists to today when General Assembly votes are in that same status. But the Security Council was essentially set up because its votes were binding under international law, and they were meant to be responded to with the authority of the Security Council. So I don't know where Kirby and our noted ambassador dress have gotten up with this idea.

They also have been playing word games with what the Israeli expectations might be with this latest resolution. And they're talking about hostages being returned as they condition to get any of this going. But there's no word of any hostages in the document. So these people are going into this with their own preconception of what it means. And, of course, their bottom line is to protect Israel.

In this case, this is not a ceasefire. It's a pause of two weeks for Ramadan. And after that, the Israelis would well be expected to resume their offensive. And so nothing is accomplished the United States, Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors to the UN each speaking. You can imagine what they're saying right after this passed. Cut number 10. We fully support some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution, and we believe it was important for the council to speak out and make clear that our ceasefire must, any ceasefire, must come with the release of all hostages. The resolution just voted upon makes it seem as if the war started by itself. Well, let me set the record straight. Israel did not start this war, nor did Israel want this war. This must be a turning point. This must lead to saving lives on the ground. This must signal

the end of this assault of atrocities against our people. A nation is being murdered. A nation is being dispossessed. Did you notice that she said it's a non-binding resolution? I hate to spend too much time on this, but Admiral Kirby is so unworthy of belief. Here's cut number 11. Listen to what he says at the end. He asks the rhetorical question. Is it non-binding? Yes, it's non-binding. Here's what he says. The UN Secretary General said after the vote, this resolution must be implemented. You say it's non-binding. So who is right here? And if it's non-binding, if, as you say, it does not change anything, why has the administration blocked so many pretty similar resolutions in the past? Because they didn't condemn Hamas. I've said that repeatedly. This one doesn't condemn Hamas either. Because they didn't condemn Hamas and because they also just called for a ceasefire with no linkage to the hostages. This one, the reason why we can't

support it but didn't veto it is because it does link hostages and a ceasefire, which is in keeping with our policy. And on the binding thing, is it binding, non-binding? It's a non-binding resolution. Good God. So that's the official spokesperson for the President of the United States who presumably directed his ambassador to the United Nations to abstain, both she and the president's spokesperson say it's not non-binding. So they have a profound and fundamental misunderstanding of what the hell they're doing. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact is, by the judgment of many, many experts on international law, Security Council resolutions are binding when they passed and they were structured with five permanent veto members uh just to make sure that this was a

judgment that everybody could get behind and it's very much binding uh which is not to say that either the United States or Israel will understand that fact and behave in appropriate fashion. Yesterday, we're switching gears to the assault on the Moscow concert hall. The Russian chief of FSB, that's their intelligence services, Alexander Bortnikoff, not a person who typically comes to microphones and cameras. He's the opposite of Chuck Schumer. I mean, he doesn't, he runs from cameras. Nevertheless, told reporters in Russia when asked if the U.S., Britain, and Ukraine were involved, quote, we think that this is so in any case we're doing more uh research how serious is it for him to say that would he say something like that without running

it past President Putin first would he say something like that without some evidence uh to back it up well uh Putin in fact today is is is hinting at the same conclusion. And I think that we don't know enough yet to come to a very good conclusion about how this developed. I mean, it's pretty obvious to me as a former intelligence officer that this whole operation was run by what we call in the business cutouts, where the people who actually did the terrorist act were cut off from the people who were directing them, paying them, and doing this, that, and the other thing. They probably never really met too many people. And if they met them, they didn't know who they were. It's kind of thing so i'd like to know a lot more about what the russians have found out about the chain of custody of these guys where they were recruited

how they were trained how they were paid how they were sponsored so on and so forth because the big kicker in this thing is if indeed it was isis the people who had the best contact with ISIS and have the best contact with ISIS are the United States and Israel, who have been supporting ISIS to bring down the Syrian government. And they have excellent contact to the point where ISIS supporters who get injured are treated in Israeli hospitals, and the U.S. has been funding them and giving them weapons. So this is, I'd like to know where those connections go. I don't know if you know this fellow, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow. He's an American, but he lives in Brussels.

Mearsheimer and company tell us that they don't always agree with what he says, but he is highly regarded on matters of Russia. So I'm going to play a clip where he's talking about the significance of Alexander Bortnikoff, the head of the FSB, making any kind of a statement like this in public. And then we'll play some more things that Dr. Rowe said. So first, here's where he says he thinks it is unthinkable that Dr. Rowe would, that Bortnikoff would have said this without running it past President Putin first and without having some evidence. But I'll let you hear what he says. It's English as good as ours.

Number 13, Chris. But Mr. Bortnikov is a close associate of Mr. Putin. He has been in that position as head of the FSD for 15 years. And it is unthinkable that he would say what he said yesterday without the approval of his boss. Now, what does this mean and why is this remarkable? Because going back two years to the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, which was the most spectacular act of terrorism against civilian global infrastructure in 50 years, the Russians said nothing about, they didn't point a finger at anyone. There was

innuendo, the United States was involved, Britain was involved, other countries, but never a direct accusation. What we had yesterday was a direct accusation. At the same time, Mr. Bortnikov explained, he was very, very calm. He had great poise, and he chose his words carefully. He said that he is not speaking out of emotion. He's speaking on the basis of preliminary findings, and that when all the findings are ready, when he has solid facts, he will present them.

Before you comment on... Well, no, I do want you to comment on that. Is it characteristic of the head of Russian intel to make public statements, as the head of the CIA does? Or do the Russians keep their cards to their vests and the head of Russian intel and rarely speak publicly about what they know? His point is, we all know who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. You never heard the head of Russian intel point a finger at who did it, which is the United States. Now you see him pointing a finger or attempting to point a finger. Yeah, well, this goes back to my earlier point that we don't know the chain of custody,

the cutouts that were used in terms of how these guys were recruited. But the Russians, presumably after several days of intensive interrogation, probably know a lot more about what went on and how it went on and who was involved than we know. And this will eventually come out. And if it turns out that the united states has been a party in this and possibly israel uh and uh also was uh pretty clearly evident that it blew up the north stream pipeline although that's never been completely resolved uh you know this is uh how low can the united states go how low can our political class and our politicians in Washington drag us through the mud with all this stuff going on and lying about it?

And, you know, how long can this go on? I realize that in the CIA, there are many different mentalities. There is, for example, you, Phil Giraldi, respecting the law, respecting humanity, respecting natural rights, and then there's Jack Devine and those fellows. But is there in American intel, and British, we'll put them together, the mentality that could have planned this, facilitated it, or known about it and been indifferent to it. I mean, we're not talking about a military target here. We're talking about an assault that by every single objective observation is mass murder at its worst. Yeah. Well, I would say that there are certainly people all sprinkled through the federal government, including congressmen, calling on all Palestinians

to be killed. You know, there are people that will do anything if you give them the right motivation and uh and back it up with other incentives so i i have no doubt that if the agency set up a secret plan and they would have had to keep it pretty secret in internally uh that they would find the right guys or women to do this and um i don't i have no doubt whatsoever and this administration in particular which is so prone to lie about everything in support of crimes against humanity uh i i think they probably would uh have no problem with uh with doing that we're going to run two cuts together ch, 15 and 16. You'll hear someone's name there mentioned prominently that we have discussed quite a bit, although Professor Doctorow

refers to her as Madame, but you'll know who he's talking about. 15 and then 16 together, Chris. We note that several related facts, Madame Nuland, Victoria Nuland, was fired on the 5th of March. It's highly interesting that this coincidence. I and others have spoken of her connection with the German generals plotting a strike on the Kerch Bridge using their cruise missiles. However, it is more likely that she was fired because the mission that she had supervised to attack Russia, a terrorist attack using Islamic extremists on the 8th of March was no longer operable. They are working on expanding further the information leads they

have now on the connections with ISIS in Istanbul, on the timing of the American warning to Russia that a terrorist attack could take place. Let's remember that was on the 7th of March. That's to say two days after Victoria Nuland was fired, and one day before the planned execution of the terrorist attack in Moscow. So the bits and pieces that dots are taking are falling into place. I repeat that Mr. Bortnikov would never dare to say what he said yesterday without the blessing of mr putin and mr putin has always been a very cautious player i guess he's attempting to connect the dots i mean this attack we know was originally scheduled for march 8th when a very patriotic russian performer was to have been there as well as many russian. Apparently these creeps showed up and saw all the security

and then they bolted and on their own they went ahead and did it when they did on last Friday. Could DOTS possibly be connected to Mrs. Newland having said, and we have a nasty surprise coming for President Putin? You know, that's an interesting theory. This is called, of course, plausible denial. It allows the government to construct a narrative or a story or a fiction in this case and have a scapegoat available to blame. And certainly Victoria Nuland is a very effective scapegoat in this regard, as she is the ultra hawk warmonger, probably in the entire administration she was.

And now, of course, she's gone. She's at Columbia University with Hillary Clinton. And so we've got this person sitting here. So if the story starts to unravel, there will be someone to blame. Very interesting. Over to Gaza, you pointed something out in your piece about the continuing depravity of the Israeli government that Itamar Ben-Gavir, who's one of the fanatical right-wing members of the Netanyahu coalition, has proposed legislation. It's hard for me even to say this, Phil, but has proposed legislation in the Knesset that would state it is not a crime for police to kill, to murder, to assassinate Palestinians on the streets. Can this possibly be? Can the Israeli government go any lower than it has already gone? Well, this is about the ultimate in lowness.

There is a bill that's been sitting in the Knesset for some time, which has not been moved into law yet, but that's exactly what it says. It says if a policeman or a soldier doing their duty just happens to kill a Palestinian, there is no consequence for it. They will not be tried. They will not be interrogated. They will not be anything. It's a non-crime. And I noted also another thing in my article about how these same people are making it very easy for the Israeli Jewish settlers to acquire automatic weapons. And they're basically giving away licenses for people that get automatic weapons. And the reason we get automatic weapons is to kill Palestinians.

So this is obscene. When you say automatic weapons, so folks watching now that are unfamiliar with guns know what we're talking about. You're talking about a weapon where you hold the trigger down once and a fusillade of rounds come out. Such a device is unlawful everywhere in the United States. We know the police have them. We know the military has them. However, the State Department has licensed them to be sold to the Israeli government, which gives them away to settlers on the West Bank. So you can probably bet that if the Knesset enacts this legislation allowing the police to kill, it will allow the settlers on the West Bank to kill as long as they use official government means of

killing, like an automatic weapon, which takes a long time to learn how to use. Why is it? How is it that Netanyahu escapes responsibility, continues to escape responsibility for the crimes he committed that he was on trial for, for October 7th, for the slaughter of innocents, and now for this? Well, a simple answer to that is um is what the consequences would be for someone like a joe biden uh to suddenly turn on on israel and start speaking the truth about the the real nature of the relationship between the u.s uh and and israel and with netanyahu. He knows, Biden knows, and certainly Donald Trump also knows that to come down hard on Israel means the loss of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in political contributions coming from both Jewish organizations that support Israel no matter what, and from Christian Zionists who have the same sentiment.

So this is hardball politics coming against what is absolutely right to do, which is to stop this war in Gaza, stop supporting Israelis with weapons and with money, and turn the game around. But they don't have the courage. These people don't have the integrity. And this is the tragedy that all of us are going to have to face, because we're pretty much hated around the world now as a consequence of this. Here is a liberal progressive Democrat from California interrogating the Secretary of Defense on would the United States be complicit in the slaughtering of innocents.

Cut number four. John Kirby said that Israel is taking more precautions than the U.S. military would to protect civilian life. Mr. Austin, Secretary Austin, isn't that statement inaccurate given Israel has used hundreds of 22,000-pound dumb bombs when there were no place for civilians to go? Would the U.S. government ever target terrorists with 2,000-pound bombs in a densely populated area?

Well, we – I mean, it depends on the situation. And again – But would we – have we done that? Put – used 45 percent of bombs that are unguided or a 2,000-pound bomb? Do you really think that the Israeli Israeli government is taking military is taking more precautions than the United States military would? I think just based upon the results in terms of the significant loss of life. Gentleman's time has expired. You're not recognized gentleman from Wisconsin. Gentleman's time has expired, so he gets off the hook from having to answer. But it's inconceivable that an American government official, the Secretary of Defense, could argue that the Israeli military is taking precaution to make sure that civilians are not harmed. In another Q&A, he acknowledged that 27,000 civilians have been killed.

Yep. Well, Jared Kushner, whom I wrote another article about, said the same thing, that the Israelis were taking all kinds of precautions to protect civilians. This thinking runs deep in the empty heads of the people who run our government. Where do you see this going, Phil? Putin is obviously going to attack deep into Ukraine. Netanyahu is obviously going to attack deep into Rafah. Joe Biden has fomented the former and paid for the latter, and we're in the middle of a presidential election campaign. Well, it can only get worse because these people on both sides of the House are going to get more

desperate in terms of the appeals they have to throw out there to win the contest. And so I think there'll be a lot more stupid stuff coming down the road. You can believe in it. And there's going to be a lot more stirring the pot in the most dangerous way with Russia and China. I guarantee that. Do you think the United States mainland, where we all live, the lower 48, are in danger of attack? The short answer is yes. I mean, you know, this is, we've kind of primed the pump on all this stuff, where people are pulling their most offensive, their most defensive, depending how they're looking at it, capabilities,

and they're saying these capabilities are in play. The Russians have said that very clearly. Well, Phil, it's a pleasure. No matter what we talk about, my dear friend, your candor as well as your extraordinary knowledge of the way this part of the government operates is so profoundly appreciated by my team, by me, and of course by the many, many, many thousands that watch and appreciate you. Thank you, my dear friend. Well, thank you. Of course. Coming up at 4 o'clock Eastern, Aaron Maté on these very same subjects. And at 5, Professor John Mearsheimer at 11 tomorrow morning on Russia,

on the attack, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!