Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Netanyahu Sabotages a Palestinian State

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Netanyahu Sabotages a Palestinian StateSee 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 Monday, November 17, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment. Are there any cracks appearing at the UN over the opposition to a Palestinian state? But first, this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse. And look at where we are now. $38 trillion in national debt. Stocks at record highs defying gravity. So what happens next?

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up to $20,000 in bonus medals with a qualified purchase. Call 800, 511, 4620, or go to Learjudgeonap.com today. Professor Sachs, welcome here, my dear friend. I know this is not your usual day or time, but thank you very much for accommodating my schedule. Pleasure. Did something happen at the UN the other day to indicate that maybe there are cracks appearing in the United States?

States efforts to prevent the Security Council from recognizing a Palestinian state? There are tiny cracks. What has happened is that in September, the overwhelming majority of the world, at least 90 percent of the world population living in countries whose governments have said explicitly at the UN, we need a state of Palestine, especially, in the aftermath of a genocide, called again for a state of Palestine living next to a state of Israel, the two-state solution. The United States basically is the only practical opposition to this. Israel, of course, is dead set against it, but Israel doesn't have a veto in the United Nations. It doesn't have a veto with the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. has been using its

veto to protect the genocide, basically, and to protect the extremism of Israel. So what the U.S. has done is to put forward a fake peace plan, a fake peace plan, so called, which said that there would be a board of peace governed by King Donald himself, our president, who would rule over Gaza. And they presented this to the United Nations Security Council, actually. And I would say that the rest of the world was very unhappy about this. But the U.S., as usual, turned up every kind of pressure on every country it can with threats, with bribes, with whatever inducements to try to get this through. And the idea was basically to put the United States in control of Gaza, not even mention that Gaza is part of Palestine, so not even to mention the broader context at all, and to postpone indefinitely any discussion of a state of Palestine.

Now, other governments then said, no, we at least have to have a state of Palestine. Palestine discussed. And France, who is on our side, said there has to be something about Palestine in this. So the upshot is that the United States revised its proposal in a way that I find pretty pathetic, actually. It said that when and if there's enough reform among the Palestinian authority and in some vague way, that this might be a pathway eventually to statehood for Palestine. So something extraordinarily vague. A lot of the governments under the thumb of the United States signed, oh, thank God you said that and signed off on it.

I think it's nothing but a placeholder. But immediately the extremist fascistic right wing of Israel jumped up and down Even with this incredibly vague mention of the state of Palestine, you have these murderous leaders, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, the two most fascistic members of the Israeli government. And that's saying a lot when you have Netanyahu there. But they immediately said, we'll leave the government. If there's any hint of even mentioning a state of Palestine, there will never. be a state of Palestine. And Ben Gavir, who's really just an absolutely awful, awful individual leading an absolutely murderous group in Israel also added, not only will there never be a Palestinian state,

there are no such things as Palestinians. You might ask, well, who are you murdering? every day, Mr. Ben-Gabir, but he said there's no Palestine, no Palestinians. I should, of course, underscore that this is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu said himself when he spoke at the UN General Assembly in September, that there will never be a state of Palestine. So the U.S. opened a little crack. Many people are impressed with that. I'm hardly impressed with that. I think it's mainly to get this resolution through. And what does this resolution do, aside from establishing our president as the new imperial power of Gaza, it also is part of a U.S. unannounced, unvoted plan of building a U.S. military base on the border of Gaza,

just inside Israel. It's reported to be a $500 million military base. It's one of many military bases that our Department of War is building right now. No one asks the public. No one asks the Congress. No one asks anybody. But this is also what is the subtext of this resolution. One, to put the U.S. in imperial control of Gaza, just what the world needs, and second, to build more military bases. So this is part of a worldwide military buildup that's also underway by our fake peace president, who is actually the biggest arms salesman in the world and presiding over the largest military buildup in, if I could say, in peacetime in quotation marks, because it's hard to repeat. But it's a military buildup of an incremental $100 billion between last year's budget and this year's budget. And that's in a context where they're slashing every kind of benefit for the poorest people in the United States. So this is basically our military government calling the shots,

including building bases in Gaza or next to Gaza, in Damascus, Syria, in wanting to actually building new bases or bringing out of retirement bases in Puerto Rico for a new hugely expensive operation, maybe an invasion of Venezuela, but a huge operation in the Caribbean region. This is our so-called peace president. I'm going to ask you about the massive movement of American military around the world and to go to one of your fields of expertise, economics, what this cost. But before we do, whatever happened at the UN, whatever the U.S. advanced, obviously struck a nerve in the Israeli government because of the Prime Minister Netanyahu's furious denunciation of it.

So we're going to play this. And then I'm going to ask you just how dangerous Ben Gavir is. is he's not only, as I understand it, Jeff, a member of the cabinet. He's not only a person without whose support with his colleagues, the government would collapse. I think he's also the head of the Israeli version of the FBI, which I think would give him extraordinary power to look the other way when settlers are killing people or to help them kill people. But first, Netanyahu yesterday on whether or not there will ever be. of Palestinian state. Chris cut number two. I want to address two specific topics. The first topic is the alleged demilitarization of the part of Gaza that is under Hamas control. There was no such

thing, even in the 20-point plan and in everything else. This area will be demilitarized and Hamas will be disarmed. Either it will happen the easy way or it will happen the hard way. As I said, and as President Trump also said, and regardless of regarding the Palestinian state, our opposition to a Palestinian state on any territory west of the Jordan remains. It is firm and unwavering, it has not changed in the slightest. I have been fending off these attempts for decades now, doing so in the face of both external and internal pressures. So I do not need encouragement, tweets or lectures from anyone. Was there any one reference to Steve Whitkoff or Donald Trump?

I don't know, but this country is not a proper ally of the United States. We have no interest in the United States in enforcing this madness. This is the most important point. Israel is not a friend of the United States. It is an enemy of the Palestinian people. It is murdering them. It is causing America to be isolated around the world diplomatically. And in every other way, it's exposing what are Western values, U.S. values, complicity, and genocide.

The consequences of this so-called alliance are devastating until Israel becomes a normal country and not a rogue state. We have no business for one moment supporting this kind of fascistic regime. This is a murderous regime that says that they're going to, what are they going to do with the 8 million Palestinian Arabs? Are they going to kill them all? Are they going to ethnically cleanse them? Are they just going to rule over them like an apartheid state?

Well, they're trying all of the above. and that's our ally, that's what Trump defends, this is a complete disgrace. And Netanyahu is clear, he's on the record, let every American hear this. Are we in the United States to be an ally with a country that is committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid rule? Or are we to have some semblance of decency and values and not isolate ourselves? and not spend already more than $20 billion on this and talking about tens of billions of dollars more to give to this country that knows nothing about diplomacy and nothing about human decency right now. They're murderers. So this is really what we need to understand when we

watch Net Yahoo. Is that American policy? Mr. Trump? Tell us, Mr. President, that's American policy, that there will never be a Palestinian state? You're the president. If it's not our policy, why are you supporting by tens of billions of dollars this regime as they commit their murders? What will be accomplished, Professor Sachs, what will be accomplished for the United States by the construction of a $500 million, half billion dollar, military base at the border of Gaza and Israel, one of the many borders, with American boots on the ground. What will be accomplished for the United States by that massive expenditure? For the American people, for Trump's supporters who want America first, nothing.

For the military industrial complex, part of their long-term mission to have an ever-expanding military budget. Wars are very helpful for that. Military bases around the world, at least 750, probably 880 countries and rising because they want to put new bases around the world. It goes to a small group of very rich and very powerful people. It is the military industrial digital complex. It is the arms contractors. It is the military contractors. It is Silicon Valley now. They are together. They want expanded military spending and bases everywhere. Does this help the American people? No, it's destroying our budget. It's destroying our government. We can't even keep the government open anymore. It's destroying our health care system. It's destroying the

completely shredded so-called social safety net, which isn't a safety net for anybody because it doesn't exist anymore. But this is for the military, industrial, digital complex. And they want the base there. They want the base in Damascus nearby. By the way, I just have to say, though, I can't be completely explicit about it, that I'm hearing of American pressures to add new bases. in other places in the world also. Governments telling me they're being shaken down by the United States. Oh, why don't you host another American base?

So this is something that's happening all over the world right now. And this is not democracy at all. It's not serving the public good. Spending tens of billions of dollars on Israel is nothing for the United States except making us complicit in general. and isolating us from the rest of the world and killing a lot of people with our weaponry and our financing. And by the way, our Silicon Valley high tech, which like companies like Palantir, which direct the mass murder that's going on in Gaza. This is what we've come to. But unfortunately,

Eisenhower warned us about it, the military industrial complex. And it's, become a lot worse and a lot more powerful when you add in Silicon Valley into this. And Trump is just another fact totem in this. This is not, I don't know what Trump does, but all American presidents expand our military and Trump is engaged in the same thing because he's told to do this. I guess these people did not read the history of how the Roman Empire felt. by doing exactly what the American Empire is doing. I don't want you to give up any of your sources on international television,

but are we expanding military operations in Latin America? We know what's happening outside of Venezuela. We know how insane it will be to invade Venezuela, but is the military doing other things in Latin America besides this buildup outside of Caracas? Well, the Operation Southern Spear, which has been announced as a major buildup of U.S. military operations in the Caribbean and in the vicinity of both the Central American countries and Venezuela is clearly a massive buildup. There is discussion underway of new military bases or expanded military bases in Panama, in Ecuador, or in the Caribbean, there's no doubt that tens of billions of dollars are being committed

right now, again, without any public debate, any, I don't know if Congress still exists because we have a Speaker of the House that just does whatever the President says. But in any event, there's no public debate about this mass military buildup that's taking place. we may be on the verge of several more wars. Wow. Would there be American boots on the ground in Gaza if this base is built there? And what would they do, be enforcers for the will of the Netanyahu administration, the Netanyahu regime?

One thing we should really understand is that there are American boots on the ground in many places that are not declared. This is standard operating procedure. Of course, the CIA is a kind of army of the president of the United States. There are other forces that are deployed and not counted somehow without oversight. So we know that there are advisors by the United States all over the place. we never hear any scrutiny of any of this. In fact, I think it's worth pointing out that the last time there was a true partial vetting of the CIA was 50 years ago, the Senate Church Committee, when Frank Church, the senator of Idaho, because of a rare confluence of events.

It was able to have a real investigation, not of everything, but of a lot. That was 50 years ago. Since then, there has never been a vetting of the CIA operations. And there's a long litany of disasters that have been sued in between, and more of them are building now. Last question, and I'm going to get into this in some detail later today with Scott Ritter. Does NATO want war with Russia? Well, yes, in the sense that NATO is at war with Russia, actively. And one of the reasons why

the war in Ukraine continues is that we're testing our new systems, learning how to use drones, testing more advanced weaponry. So this is an actual test. ground. So, yes, when you have what the United States has right now, a trillion dollars military budget, just for the Department of War, another half a trillion, by the way, another 500 billion in other departments outside of the Department of War, in the intelligence agencies, in the Department of Energy, in Homeland Security, in Veterans Affairs, and so forth. It's about one and a half trillion dollars. It's roughly five percentage points of GDP as we crush. And yes, this is an effort that looks for war. When you spend so much, you use your

toys. You fight wars. You try out new weapon systems. You show that they work. One of America's leading businesses, in fact, it's probably the main job of the president of the United States, other than playing golf, is selling American weapons systems, is to show, look what they do. Look what we can do. And so, yes, NATO wants war. They don't want to, they don't want, I presume, a nuclear war that ends the world, but they're very clear that they want the war in Ukraine to continue. That's not even hidden. That's absolutely called for. Look at Germany as we applaud German re-militarization. Could you ever imagine this would be the truth? We're applauding Japanese remilitarization. We're trying to sell weapon systems everywhere. And war,

are good for business. You need replacement parts. You need to stoke up on your inventories. So all of this is great business. And by the way, if you look at the performance of the aerospace and military sector, look at the S&P stocks in aerospace and military, they've gone up from the start of this year, 37 percent, roughly twice the rise. of the overall S&P 500. So war is great business for a small but very powerful, very rich part of our country. It's miserable for all the rest of us. We end up paying for it in countless ways. It's the worst for the people that get killed through this kind of nonstop American militarism. and we should include the, we don't know how many 100,000 plus Palestinians at least who have died as a result of this.

And probably perhaps two million Ukrainians who have been killed or gravely wounded by what we have been doing. But when you ask, does NATO want war? It's got the war at once. We're at war. And they're making a lot of money out of this. President Trump recently called for new sanctions on Russia and Iran. We know the sanctions are hurting Iran. I'm going to ask you if they're hurting Russia, but let me play this clip of what he said.

Chris cut number three. They're doing that, and that's okay with me. They're passing legislation or putting the Republicans are putting legislation that very tough. It's sanctioning, et cetera, et cetera, on any country doing business with Russia. They may add

Iran to that, as you know, I suggested it. So any country that does business with Russia will be very severely sanctioned. We may add Iran to the formula. Don't these sanctions fail

to harm Russia and effectively drive the secondary sanctions, those countries into BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Of course, it was claimed under Biden that such sanctions would bring Russia to its knees. What it has done actually is crush the European economy because Europe was in a active trading relationship with Russia. And European industry has collapsed. Germany is in a state of demilitarization right now. So the sanctions are isolating the United States and Europe from the rest of the world economy.

If anybody listening thinks that these sanctions are benefiting America or Europe, boy, let's have a good economics talk. This is doing no good for the American people. This is the opposite of MAGA. This is just military, industrial, digital complex at work, making a lot of money for a small group of Americans. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. Thank you for that beautiful background behind you, as well as all your articulate words. Safe travel, so look forward to seeing you again. next week. All the best. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this

morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson. At 4 o'clock this afternoon, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.