Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US/Israel Stand Alone

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US/Israel Stand AloneSee 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 11th, 2024, Veterans Day here in the United States. Professor Sachs joins us in just a moment about the United States and Israel still standing alone. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years. Save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value. Just the cost of groceries is absurd. Let me be brutally honest,

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They help me diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Professor Sachs, welcome here, my friend. Before we get into Israel, I want to ask you a couple of pointed questions, one of which is your view about the United Nations. I know the regard with which you hold the United Nations, and I know of your professional involvement with it for many, many years. Over the weekend, President-elect Trump announced that his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and his former director of CIA and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not play roles in his coming administration, and then almost in the same breath announced that the committed neocon Zionist Congresswoman Elise Stefanik would be his ambassador to the UN.

How do you read this? Well, she's been a staunch supporter of Trump and also a staunch supporter of Israel in Congress. So it's a pretty natural appointment for him to make. Nothing really surprising here. I guess it's not a policymaking job. She basically will vote the way whoever her boss is, the Secretary of State or the President, tells her how to vote on these issues that come before the Security Council. And she's not stupid. She's going to know in advance how they want her to vote. Well, of course, you know, in some cases, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. does play a policymaking role inside the deliberations in the executive branch. So she might. But in general,

it's true. The decisions are made in Washington and the votes are taken in New York. What do you think is the Kremlin's view of the election of Donald Trump? Well, they probably sense that there is some scope for ending the war in Ukraine, and that's good. More generally, I don't think they expect too much from the United States on many issues. So I don't think that there is exuberance. But it seems that Trump and Vance and a number of people around Trump really do believe that the Ukraine war should end. They're not committed to this NATO enlargement, which has been the underlying cause of this conflict, really an underlying cause of the U.S.-Russia tensions and then war over a 30-year period. Trump is not a pro-NATO expansionist. So I don't think they mind this.

I think that they find this more likely to lead to resolution of at least one issue. But I don't think that they're exuberant. The relations with Trump were mixed, to say the least, in the first term, and they're going to be mixed again this term. Do you have a finger on the pulse, Professor Sachs, of the elites in the EU and NATO, and how they have reacted to the election of Donald Trump? Well, there's a little bit of panic in Europe because Europe, it didn't quite sell its soul to the United States, but it sold its foreign policy or gave away its foreign policy to the United States over the last four years. Everything in Brussels, in the European Union, in the words of almost every leader in Europe, was

obeisance to the U.S. and following the U.S. narrative, up to and including the German chancellor standing by next to Biden after the U.S. blew up their energy supply. I mean, literally blew up the pipeline that fed low-cost energy to German industry. In other words, Europe abandoned an independent foreign policy for the sake of the U.S. neocon agenda. That seems to have been a very bad deal for Europe. And now all these politicians are scrambling. One former commissioner to the European Union, of the European Union, I should say, French commissioner, said in the media, well, there was a strict ban on saying anything about peace in Ukraine until now. now that Trump's elected, now they can start talking about things that they weren't allowed to say before. Really,

the silence in Europe of an independent foreign policy has been absolutely amazing and distressing. I think what Trump's election will do is cause Europe to recognize that they better have their own foreign policy going forward. You mentioned the Nord Stream pipeline, and you alluded to the decisions about 10 days ago of Chancellor Schulz, which has resulted in his government becoming a minority, and as I understand it, the need for general elections in the early spring. Will the opposition run against him on the grounds that, hey, we all just had a cold summer and we're burning foul, filthy coal because of what Schulz allowed Biden to do. Well, you know, there are opposition parties on the left and the right that are basically saying that. The main opposition party that is likely to take the chancellorship, the CDU, is basically just saying this government has failed, it's time for us.

So I don't think it will be based on anything other than the failure of the incumbency. And by the way, I think it's worth saying that that's generally how elections go. Trump's victory, in my view, and in fact, in the vote count was less a victory of Trump per se. He got fewer votes than he got in 2020. It was the debacle of a failed Biden administration, which got many fewer votes than it got in 2020. I mean, the public just said, we don't want this to continue rather than standing up and cheering everything that Donald Trump is saying. This was a rejection of the incumbency, and Schultz is going to go down because the Germans are fed up with an incompetent government that has not looked after Germany's own and his own basic interests. In the same week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

fired his defense minister, Yilav Galant, who I understand, correct me if I understand, if you see this differently, had a fairly good relationship with the leadership and even the rank and file of the IDF. And Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed a Ben-Gavir and Smotrich acolyte to be the Israeli ambassador to the United States. What can you tell us about these two decisions and what effect they might have?

Well, Netanyahu's reading is that now he has an even freer hand for his absolutely radical policies. And in truth, after Trump's election, I think, and the fact is, and it's very, very basic and grim fact, basically, the United States government has been doing Israel's bidding for 20 years without as much as a boo. Basically, everything Netanyahu has said, Biden would mumble along and do it. And Netanyahu thinks Trump is going to be even more that way, that he will have a green light to pursue any war, any policy that he chooses. In fact, Smotrich, one of those absolute extremists that you just mentioned, said today that now is the time just to annex the West Bank, which is his dream. I don't think it's so clear, by the way.

The world is changing fast. As Smotrich was saying that, all of the Arab leaders were meeting in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, saying there is no way to have any normal relationship whatsoever with Israel, no peace until there is a state of Palestine. This is very clearly put. This was put by the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. This is a very clear statement across the region. And Trump can't ignore it. The game was, we're going to get the Saudis to do it our way. We can push the region around.

You know, the United States doesn't have the clout. Trump doesn't have the clout that he might think. It's much less even than it was a few years ago. The United States doesn't have this ability to sway politics. Israel has miscalculS. has our back. Everything will work deal with Russia to stop this bloody mess, which never should have taken place at all. I mean, this is Biden's reckless folly that we actually got to this war rather than simply understanding and agreeing not to push NATO enlargement. But my point is, Ukraine bet on the United States. Netanyahu and Smotrich are betting on the United States. It's not a good bet. I'm sorry to say for Israel, it's a terrible bet. And the new Israeli ambassador to the United States, another bull in the China shop like that fellow at the UN?

Well, one extremist after another. This is a Qahani disciple, one of the most extremist figures and divisive and deadly figures in Israeli politics for generations. Basically, Israel is unhinged, as cruel as could be, killing people left and right, trying to expand war and thinking that Trump is going to back all of this. Even if Trump were to do so, it's going to end very badly for Israel. But I doubt that Trump is going to do anything like Netanyahu thinks, that it's just going to be that Trump's going to give the green light to Netanyahu. I think he's going to be pretty disappointed in this estimation. 28 days ago, the Biden administration gave the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu 30 days to comply with certain humanitarian mandates. They haven't complied. The noncompliance, if realistically applied, could result in the loss of the veto at the Security Council. It could also result in the

loss of military supplies. Should we expect the certification of noncompliance in two days, or am I naive? Whatever is going to happen, Biden's going to do nothing till the end of his term. Nothing sharp or decisive is my guess, because he hasn't done anything of the sort during his four years of government. And I would be very surprised. They could technically agree on one thing or another. I'm not on the inside, obviously, but they're not really going to do anything that is blocking Israel's moves right now. This is running out the clock, and then it's going to be a new administration. And by the way, probably Netanyahu is going to continue on his strategy, which is expanding war for a while. But I think what Trump and the Trump administration is going to find is that their old gambits of divide and conquer the Arab world is not going

to work anymore. There are just new players around there, the BRICS, which is really a big change of geopolitics. There is Russia and China with a much larger role in the region, despite everything, despite the U.S. pretensions. There is the groundswell of complete disgust and disdain for Israel throughout the region after more than a year of genocidal actions. So I think, I don't know when, maybe already, but sooner rather than later, the Trump administration is going to realize that their old ideas, if they don't already, aren't going to work, and they're going to listen to the Arabs. That's my feeling. They're going to listen to the Arab League. They're going to listen to the fact that there is, and I don't think most Americans know about it because you won't read about it in

the New York Times, that's for sure. There is an Arab peace initiative on the table, one that makes perfect sense. It says two states on the legal borders of June 4, 1967, the borders set by the International Court of Justice, two states living in peace side by side. That's the Arab offer. Everything is done in the mainstream media to hide the fact that the Arabs are making that offer, but they said it again today. But they also said there is no alternative to having a state of Palestine. And that is a new fact of life for the Trump administration. It was the whole gambit of Trump and then of Biden that Saudi Arabia wouldn't stand up for that, that other Arab countries could be peeled off through this inducement or that inducement. That game is over. I mean, what you just articulated was stated publicly by Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He even went farther and said there'll be no relationship, no political relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel until this comes to pass. And he stated the June 1967 borders as well. When this happens, does it give Netanyahu pause? Not Netanyahu, no. Is he so arrogant and committed to his extremist views that he isn't even concerned about a united Arab front threatening him? It's really important to understand that Netanyahu has had a strategy for 30 years that is the same strategy. And while it's been a disaster, it has not been a disaster for Netanyahu. And let me explain. Netanyahu's strategy explained

absolutely vividly 30 years ago is, look, Israel's going to keep all the land. It's going to rule over what they call greater Israel, which means all the occupied territories, including the West Bank that Smotrich wants to annex right now because Trump has been elected. It's going to keep that. Then there's going to be opposition. The opposition is going to be Hamas and Hezbollah and other military opposition or paramilitary opposition. Then Netanyahu's idea is very simple. We're not going to fight Hamas and Hezbollah. We're going to depose the governments that back them. So Netanyahu's idea 30 years on is massive regime change operations across the Middle East. And this idea is why the US went to war with Iraq. It's why the US went to war with Syria. It's why the US went to war with Libya, because believe it or not, weird as it

sounds, the U.S. has been fighting Israel's wars for decades. It's been a disaster for the United States, trillions of dollars. By the the other side of absolutely horrendous, useless, reckless wars fought on Israel's behalf. Well, Netanyahu, as I said, he doesn't view it as a failure because the U.S. keeps complying. It keeps going along with this. It hasn't stood up and said, you ruined us in 2003. You promised we'd take out Saddam Hussein and all would be well. You told us to take out Bashar al-Assad. We tried to do that. And that was in 2011. And we're 13 years later and we're still at war. You told us to take out Muammar Gaddafi. And we did that 13 years ago. And now there's still chaos.

You have done such destruction, Mr. Netanyahu. Stop it. We don't say that. So he just keeps doing this. And I'm sure that he thinks, ah, with Donald Trump, now I can really do it. Now we'll go to war with Iran. The other side of this was the idea that, yes, we'll do that for Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, but the Saudis will come with us for free. We'll give them some weapon systems, maybe a defense pact, and they'll sign on. That was also the idea of Trump and Biden. No difference between the two in approach. But that's over if it was ever realistic. It's completely over. That's what the crown prince's statement today, but he's been making it repeatedly in recent months.

It's over. Now, I don't know whether the Trump people understand this or not, who knows, but they're going to find out. And Netanyahu's going to find out. And all of this is an extraordinarily reckless behavior. And Netanyahu has been one of the most destructive forces in world politics for a long time now. And he's done a lot of damage to the United States, thank you. And it's time for him to shut up, basically,

to stop trying to bring the United States into war. His latest is to bring it into war with Iran. But what the Trump administration is going to find is the world has kind of wised up to all of this. There's a worldwide consensus other than the U.S. and Israel. We need a state of Palestine. We need to have peace. We need to stop the spread of war. There's not going to be divide and conquer dumb things for a long time, like the Ukraine war, completely dumb, completely predictable to be a disaster. It is a disaster. It's going to end because it was a disastrously wrong thing to do. And we could end the disaster in the Middle East as well now by doing the right thing as well. Two states living side by side, according to international law, as has been part of so many resolutions in the United Nations and

has worldwide support. It's pretty straightforward. That's how we have to move. What a, if you don't mind me saying, so brilliant and gifted dissertation you just gave us. I have another subject matter that I want to ask you about. Ron Dermer, who's the closest advisor to the prime minister, who was born in Florida, but renounced his, as an adult, renounced his American citizenship in order to enter the hierarchy of Israeli government, secretly visited Moscow last week. Scott Ritter and others have opined that Israel is in very, very bad shape economically, and they might be looking for some sort of a lifeline from the Russians. Do you ever read on this, Professor Stacks?

No, I'm hearing it for the first time right now, but it sounds pretty wild to me. Israel's not going to get a lifeline from the Russians, and not in this context, not with the United States still waging war on Russia, not with the Russian assets, $300 billion of Russian assets frozen by the United States. It's just not going to happen. I haven't heard the story, but there is, in my view, no Russian lifeline. Russia, in hosting the BRICS meeting in Kazan a couple of weeks ago, which had 36 countries around the table representing 57% of the world's population, that group issued a very strong statement calling for the end of the wars in the Middle East and a two-state solution. So I don't see, I don't know anything about this particular visit and what it might mean, but there will be no lifeline. There needs to be a change of the ground reality in the Middle East

first. And that means a state of Palestine voted at the UN so that we have two states that can live side by side. Let me go to your other field of expertise, your principal field of expertise, which is economics. How unstable economically has Israel become under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu? Well, of course, the Israeli economy is bleeding. Its creditworthiness is collapsing. It will fall definitely into junk bond status at some point. This is a very bloody and costly enterprise, And it has closed down lots of businesses. Lots of investors have fled. Lots of people have left Israel. Workers are not at work. They're in the IDF. So yes, this is very costly. I have to say, by the way, the instability is pretty wide. Europe is in a very poor economic shape.

And the United States, which is praised as, oh, you know, our economy is doing great. Our economy has a 7% of GDP budget deficit, despite all of this spending. in other words, supposedly a cyclically strong economy, wait till the economy weakens a little bit, tax revenues go down a bit. We've got a complete fiction of fiscal policy, and the incoming administration is committed to tax cuts on top of all of this. So you really can't make this stuff up. So the financial stability of everything that we're doing is in question in my mind. And by the way, we're going to see some realities starting to dawn soon because right now the Trump people are, of course,

understandably in a euphoric mood, but the world and the domestic situation in the U.S., the geopolitical strength of the United States, the ability to dictate terms anywhere doesn't exist. And the financial base is pretty shaky. And so it's a different world right now. Professor Sachs, thank you very much, my dear friend. Great to be with you. Middle of the night where you are, as it almost always is when you're on with us,

but deeply appreciate it. Already looking forward to seeing you next week. Thank you. Wonderful. Good. Take care. All the best. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. A great conversation. What a brilliant dissertation he gave us on the intractable problems that Israel has created for itself. Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday at noon, Colonel Douglas McGregor. At two, Matt Ho Ho at three, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.