Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: UN Security Council's Ceasefire Call = US Isolation

Starting point is 00:00:00 Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, December 14th, 2023. Professor Sachs joins us from New York City for the first time in a while. Happened to be home. After his world winter. I hope you're at least staying in New York for the holidays. But Professor Jeffrey Sachs, it's always a pleasure. And thank you very much for making yourself available to all of our viewers and listeners and to me from wherever you have been on the planet. Today is perhaps the easiest. You're in your office at Columbia University. But we are deeply

Starting point is 00:01:11 grateful to the lengths through which you went to be available to us wherever you were, because you never miss a beat and you're with us every week and we all appreciate it. Well, it's a great pleasure and honor. I can tell you I was in Ethiopia and a leading Ethiopian diplomat said how much he enjoys your show. I thought I should mention that to you. Nice to hear that. When you were away, we broke our goal of 250,000 subscriptions, which we wanted to meet by Christmas. And because of guests like you, we were able to reach it yesterday. Hey, great news. Congratulations.

Starting point is 00:01:48 Thank you. But while you were away, the Congress of the United States of America used its subpoena power to compel the testimony of college presidents, and certain members of Congress proceeded to berate these college presidents because they didn't say what members of Congress thought they should say about the exercise of free speech on their private college campuses. Now, you are on the campus of Columbia University as we speak. The president of Columbia was not involved in this. You and I have very strong views about the First Amendment. We are both free speech champions. What are your views about Congress berating college presidents because the presidents didn't say what Congress thought they should have said about public issues like the war in Gaza.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Well, I think the way that this congressional hearing with the three university presidents, the university presidents of UPenn, of Harvard, and of MIT, was disgusting. The Congress behaved very badly, especially this Stefanik Congresswoman from upstate New York. Not only were they completely out of line, but they were absolutely misconstruing basic facts, either lying or just completely ignorant, and really causing a lot of pain and undermining of our institutions, I would say. And it's not over yet. It's not only the Congress, of course, it's large donors to the universities. They want to hear the campuses

Starting point is 00:03:54 perform the way they want. In the particular case we're talking about, they want only pro-Israel messages coming from the campus authorities and the students. And people have different ideas about the crisis underway in Gaza. Our students, many students are protesting Israel's invasion and bombing of Gaza. I protest it too. I find it war crimes, basically. And to say that, though, boy, that runs against what some of these congresspeople think or what some of these donors think. And so what? That's what free speech is. And especially in a moment like this with such high political stakes, political free speech is essential. and obnoxiously misconstrued words and protests on the campus, specifically in her interrogation,

Starting point is 00:05:11 because that's what it was, of President Gay of Harvard. She said that when student protesters, pro-Palestinian protests, by the way, both of the Jewish and non-Jewish students protesting on the side of the Palestinians and against Israeli actions were chanting intifada or from the river to the sea, meaning the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. They were calling for the murder of Jews. That's what Stefanik said. No, they were making a political statement. They were making a statement that was against prevailing Israel government policies, but they were exercising political speech at a time when we need political debate, because what's happening, in fact, is horrible. Thousands and thousands of women and children are being killed.

Starting point is 00:06:16 And it's natural and important that there be political debate about this. Almost all the world is against Israel's policies, is aghast at Israel's policies, and voted in the UN General Assembly a couple of days ago by a vote of 150 countries countries to just in favor of a C-SPAR. Yes. If I've got the number, if I remember the numbers correctly. Let me just stop you for a minute. A little bit jet lagged. I know you want to go deeply into the UN because of your familiarity with it. But just to say before we get off the topic, that what the students are expressing, the point I was going to make without digressing to the UN, is they're expressing a view which is widespread around the world. They are not calling for the murder of Jews, as Stefanik in a very vulgar and incorrect way said, they are calling for a stop to Israel's war against the Palestinians

Starting point is 00:07:31 and calling for a... is outrageous. But the whole purpose, you know this, everybody listening to us knows this. Supreme Court has said it a hundred times. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government out of the business of speech. It is none of the government's business what the students say on a college campus and how the presidents of the universities respond to it. This Congresswoman Stefanik was just using her power as a member of Congress and a member of this committee and the subpoena power to berate, humiliate these college presidents, and of course, one of them, her job. Well, it was absolute bullying because the very premises of her question were ludicrous and false. First, the whole premise was that students on the campuses are calling for the mass murder of Jews, for the genocide of Jews.

Starting point is 00:08:37 This is not the case. They are making political speech, not advocating murder. She didn't cite one case. And when you start looking at this, you find out, and AP did a good job of exposing the falsehoods being carried on the social media, literally putting words in videos into the mouths of the protesters, which is not what the protesters are actually saying. So Stefanik, either knowingly or ignorantly, was misconstruing what the protests are about. And then as the university presidents were grappling with what for them was a hypothetical because their students are not calling for a genocide

Starting point is 00:09:26 or a murder of Jews and they were asked about it. They said, well, you know, whatever kind of speech has to be considered in context. And that statement was viewed as, oh, so intellectual. We need to fire this president. And actually the president of UPenn stepped down, which is so sad. I don't know the full background to that. The chair of the board stepped down as well. What we do know is that they were bullied not only by the Congress, but by

Starting point is 00:10:04 some of their big donors from Wall Street. And these people can be real bullies. Right, right. Tell us about the U.S. veto of the very sensible humanitarian resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Security Council. A couple of questions. How do American diplomats react at the UN when they are so overwhelmingly at odds? Did the U.S. attempt to dissuade the General Assembly from its vote after the veto in the Security Council. How does this play out when the U.S. is so isolated and isolated along with a country whose murderous rampages it could stop with a phone call? Well, this is the key point. The U.S. is not an observer to what is happening. The U.S. is a direct, and not just in a political sense, in a logistical sense, a direct accomplice. It is U.S. munitions that are being used by Israel and not from stockpiles, from current ongoing daily deliveries of munitions.

Starting point is 00:11:33 The United States is working hand in hand with Israelcalled military campaign in Gaza against Hamas, as it's said, has displaced nearly 2 million people who are now crowded, hungry, dying of 18,000 people killed and probably many, many more under the rubble. And 70 percent of those women and children. And the United States is providing daily the weapons for this. So what does the world community say as represented by the governments, the 193 member states of the UN? It says overwhelmingly, stop this. Stop this killing. This is mass civilian slaughter before our eyes. And by the way, with a political end that is utterly unacceptable because what does the Israeli government say? It doesn't say we're defeating Hamas so we can have justice with the Palestinian people. Netanyahu, who in my view is an absolute corrupt thug, says never to a Palestinian state. So what is the outcome of this

Starting point is 00:13:08 also? The outcome is this idea of complete Israeli control over Palestine. This is a vision that many of his members of the cabinet have of the so-called greater Israel, in which Israel either expels the Palestinians or dominates them in an apartheid state. But Netanyahu is not even offering a political solution that is even remotely acceptable morally or according to international law. Now, the United States is siding with this. So the vote was 150 governments calling for an immediate ceasefire, 10 opposing. That's the United States and a few very small countries, the largest Guatemala and Paraguay, and then a few islands, and then 23 countries abstaining. Now, if you look at the share of the world accounted by these votes, nearly 90% of the world lives in the countries that voted stop the killing. The United States on the side of 5% of the world population, four ourselves in the U.S. and another 1% these other countries and 5% abstaining. In other words, we are isolated diplomatically and even our closest allies right now are saying privately or publicly,

Starting point is 00:14:49 we can't go on with a mass slaughter of civilians before our eyes. And then these geniuses in the White House, Jake Sullivan, not my favorite, says, okay, just a few more weeks of the slaughter. It's going to have to listen to what three Arab diplomats had to say in response. This is after the vote in the Security Council, not after the vote in the General Assembly. Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution's call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war. We believe there is a moral obligation toward the international community to stop the killing of the Palestinian civilians. And it's the first time, at least in my lifetime, that I have

Starting point is 00:16:06 seen that calling for a ceasefire became a controversial issue. I'm not sure how deep is the understanding here of what's happening on the ground in Gaza. I mean, this war has broken every record. Largest number of journalists killed. Largest number of hospitals destroyed. Largest number of medics killed. Largest number of UN employees killed. Our message has been very clear. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire.

Starting point is 00:16:39 There needs to be a cessation of hostilities. And we need to have immediate access for humanitarian aid. It is not acceptable. What do diplomats, I think you have your finger on something here, Jeff, what do diplomats say not for publication and behind closed doors? Does Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, call up Biden and say, hey, Joe, we can't back you up much longer, or I'm going to be voted out of office. Netanyahu is intentionally slaughtering women and children, and you are providing him the means with which to do it. Do conversations like that happen either between heads of state or among diplomats at the

Starting point is 00:17:20 UN? They are happening right now, and Netanyahu is showing the finger to the American president, by the way, because Biden, in a kind of pathetic and weak way, is saying, well, we need a two-state solution and so forth. And Netanyahu is saying, hell no, no two-state solution. We determine things. And the United States says, OK, we back you up. Whatever you want, we'll keep sending the weapons. So who's running things? Whose weapons are these? Whose bombs are these?

Starting point is 00:17:55 These are our bombs. And if we wanted to stop this, it's not even convincing Israel to do something. Stop providing the bombs. Literally, it's a logistical matter. It's not even a political matter. We are an accomplice to this. So if Biden wants something different, stand up and be a president. The Israeli defense forces captured young civilian men, stripped them down into their underwear, paraded them in front of cameras.

Starting point is 00:18:32 There's three war crimes right there, the kidnapping, the stripping and the parading in front of the cameras. And claimed that they were Hamas soldiers surrendering. That, of course, has been debunked. The tape of the so-called surrender was farcical. These guys were not soldiers at all. But when this happens, the international humiliation of innocent civilians, what does this do for Israeli and American standing in the world community? And how, if at all, does it exacerbate things to the point where other countries in the region will be forced by popular demand to do something? Look, the United States is essentially completely isolated together with Israel in this. As I said, 1% of the world population joined the United States in the veto of this General Assembly resolution.

Starting point is 00:19:40 A few tiny countries. That's it. And we should take note if we care anything about American diplomacy, not that we do anymore, but if we care anything about Americans standing in the world, not that we seem to, but from a practical point of view, of course, we're completely isolated. I can't remember of all the horrible things that happened. I can't remember another time so vividly when we see hour by hour the mass slaughter of people, when we hear the vulgarities coming from the government of Israel about how these are animals or we're going to starve them out, when we see actually nearly 2 million people displaced and their homes destroyed, and we can't figure out in the United States to do something different about this when it's our very bombs that are literally the bombs that are

Starting point is 00:20:47 causing this destruction? It's shocking to me. Now, what also Biden doesn't understand is that he's lost the American people on this and especially the young people. You know, this is partly a generational issue. Young people who don't have whatever perspective that older people do on this just see Israel killing civilians in a way that is completely unacceptable. And that's why they're protesting on the campuses also, and possibly why these older donors don't get it. But this is America now. We don't like what's happening. Is Joe Biden just stuck in a time warp where the United States is wedded at the hip to Israel? Does he not have his finger on the pulse of what the public wants? Surely

Starting point is 00:21:46 the Congress doesn't have their collective fingers on the pulse of what the public wants. If you look at the AIPAC website, you'll see more than half the members of Congress's faces there, and all you do is click on the AIPAC website to donate to those members of Congress. This list goes on and on and on and on. Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives. So it's the United States of America at odds with the normal human sensibilities of the American public, which is repulsed by what they see. We know from opinion surveys that Americans are disgusted. They do not support at all Biden administration policies. It has been an absolute automatic standard of American politics don't show any space with Israel, no matter what.

Starting point is 00:22:48 That has been the programmed logic of Congress and presidents for decades. But it is not the view of the American people that that is a license to mass slaughter of civilians. And especially, and I think it's important to understand, there's no end game here other than, according to Israel, no end game other than Israeli domination of the Palestinian people, either their deaths or ethnic cleansing or living in an apartheid state, because our ally, the one that we are providing the bombs to every day, is saying straight out, no, no, there's not going to be a Palestinian state. And our president says, well, you know, I know there needs to be a two-state solution. And who gets the bombs and who keeps the killing? Israel. So, you know, it's really, this is how our politics has worked,

Starting point is 00:23:56 but it's completely out of tune with the views of the American people now. And certainly, generationally, there's an enormous change. And worldwide, there is a revulsion. I've been traveling, as usual. I was in the Middle East. I was at the climate conference in the United what the United States is abetting. Not a voice to the contrary. People should understand this. And if the view is doesn't matter, public opinion doesn't matter, world opinion doesn't matter. International law doesn't matter. U.N. Security Council resolutions be damned. It's not a good thing, I will tell you, for the United States of America. We need normal relations with other countries. We can't be seen and should not be accomplices to war crimes, which unfortunately we are being right now. And by the way, the job of a president of the United States is to be more effective than whining.

Starting point is 00:25:14 Right. I want you to listen to and watch a comment from Colonel McGregor on the concept of asabiyah. You probably know what this is, and I'd like your thoughts on it. It's fascinating. So for us to talk about a just peace for the Palestinians in the minds of Arabs, Turks, and Iranians is essentially to say, we will give you a just peace. It's called the cemetery. We'll give you the peace of the grave, and that's about it. Now, that satisfies the current government of Israel, but it puts us in a very difficult position globally as well as regionally. Now, the second point I want to make, and I think this is very important, there is a concept or a word in Arabic called asadiya.

Starting point is 00:26:02 This is a word you don't hear much anymore, but it's a word that refers to social cohesion, group solidarity, or unity of action. It is a word that was used by Ibn Khaldun, probably the most famous historian of the Middle Ages, who happened to have been an Arab from Tunis. His work had a profound impact on the West. Everyone from Toynbee to Oswald Spengler all studied and read his works. And in it, he says, those who have not seen the power of Islam do not appreciate it. Today, we have historically viewed, and today we view Islam as weak, a loose grouping of states that are more interested in killing each other than they are in doing any damage to anyone else.

Starting point is 00:26:49 There have been a few exceptions, but that's essentially the analysis. Asadiyah, however, is emerging in the Arab world. It's emerging because of this war for Jewish supremacy in the region that we are supporting. And it is bringing states and peoples into coalition now that historically have not cooperated in any meaningful way for centuries. What do you think, Professor Sext? Well, I think the one word I would change of that brilliant analysis is it's not the Jewish domination. It's Israeli domination because there are a lot of Jews that are aghast at what is happening. And I think this is really important to state.

Starting point is 00:27:35 This is a policy of an Israeli government that has also whipped up the Israeli public. But this is about Israel. It's not about religion. But I think what Colonel McGregor is saying is absolutely right. And what is important to understand, and this is really crucial for us to understand and for our public discourse, the Arab and Islamic leaders more generally have been stating repeatedly in the United Nations, in a very important meeting in Riyadh, and in many meetings of the Arab League and Arab nations, that they want actual peace with Israel, but the peace is with two states, a state of Israel and a

Starting point is 00:28:32 state of Palestine. And this also is what the United Nations has repeatedly called for in resolutions over many decades. The Arabs and Islamic leaders, and I am including Iran in that, just in case anybody is not sure about the point, are calling for peace with a two-state solution. They are not calling for the elimination of Israel. They are calling for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state as the 194th member of the United Nations. And who stands directly against that is Netanyahu and his right-wing, extreme right-wing cabinet. And who abets Netanyahu. That is the president of the United States who murmurs, oh, we want a two-state solution, and then provides the bombs for an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and mass murder. So this is pathetic. It's not as if there isn't an answer to this.

Starting point is 00:29:47 There is an obvious answer to this. The answer is two states living side by side. And Netanyahu, even today, is explicit. No way. We're not going to do that. That's not what we're doing. And what does the U.S. government do? It says, OK, here are some more bombs. Go ahead. Two military experts believe it will be expanded into a regional war that Netanyahu will not stop. Others believe Netanyahu will be driven from office and a new administration will stop the war. What do you think? How does this end? We took a poll, Jeff, among the viewers of the show. Hundreds of people responded. When do you think the war will end? One month,

Starting point is 00:30:46 two months, three months? Was 47% longer than six months? You know, I'm not very good at forecasting. I think a little bit better at recommending what could happen. What I have recommended in my rather extensive discussions with diplomats around the world in recent days is that the United Nations should vote immediately for the state of Palestine to become the 194th member of the United Nations along the 4th of June 1967 borders, as has been called for repeatedly by the UN Security Council, and therefore is international law. Because with Palestine as a sovereign state and member of the United Nations, I believe would force the United States into the right answer. The right answer is that Israel can be secure with two states. Israel can never be secure with Netanyahu's approach. policy or human morality to use American bombs to bring about your greater Israel solution.

Starting point is 00:32:31 And the United States just needs to say that at any moment. It needs to say within the UN Security Council, together with the other 14 members that absolutely would agree, absolutely would agree in a moment that the state of Palestine exists according to UN Security Council resolutions that date back for decades. So is that going to happen? Perhaps not. Perhaps Biden will continue to obfuscate, to murmur, to be weak in the sense of not standing up for international law and U.S. interests of a normal, peaceful, decent world, that the U.S. will continue to block the obvious diplomacy. And let me add, maybe it's obvious, but let me just expand for one moment. The way to make Israel secure is through a political solution, because what the Arab and more generally the Islamic countries are saying is,

Starting point is 00:33:44 we will support Israeli security. That means stopping the funding for militias like Hamas, stopping the armaments for resistance movements, providing peacekeepers under UN Security Council guidance. With a little bit of imagination, we could provide for Israeli physical security and end this conflict. But the whole game is to avoid the obvious. Netanyahu says the obvious so we can listen. He says no political solution other than Israeli dominance. And we have to say, no, we don't sign up to that and we don't give you bombs to enable you to do that. And then everything changes. We move to politics. We don't give up on Israel's security. We move to the demilitarization and demobilization, not only of Hamas, but of all of the other militias. Middle East or are even armed from the Middle East because right now they're fighting for Palestine. And once a peace is achieved in the way that the Arab countries themselves have been

Starting point is 00:35:15 saying since 2002, there will also be security. And this is so obvious to diplomats. The reason American politicians don't go with it is that they believe that they can't cross Israel. And the reason that Israel doesn't go with it is that they don't want to go with it. They think the Americans will unconditionally back them up. They think they run U.S. politics. And they should not run U.S. politics. America should determine our policies to be on the side of justice and law and peace. And we could do that within a minute. We don't have to send Jake Sullivan over there to tell him,

Starting point is 00:36:04 just keep up the slaughter for a few more weeks, not longer than that. Jeffrey Sachs, thank you, my dear friend. While you were away, we reached one of our wonderful goals, which is 250,000 subscribers, for which you, in no small part, are responsible and for which I and all of our millions of viewers are deeply grateful. We're proud of you and great that the numbers keep rising. Thank you. Thanks for your time today. I hope you can come back next week. Absolutely. Wherever you might be on the planet. We'll see you soon. Thanks. Thank you. All the best. We do have a full day for you tomorrow, including Professor John Mearsheimer, our Intelligence Roundtable,

Starting point is 00:36:47 and by popular demand, Ask the Judge. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!

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Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: UN Security Council's Ceasefire Call = US Isolation

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