Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer : Can Israel Win in Gaza?

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Can Israel Win in Gaza?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 with Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 1st, 2024. Professor John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago, joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, always a pleasure, sir. Welcome back to the show and thank you for your time. My pleasure. I want to spend most of our time on the latest events in Israel and the corresponding events in the United States involving the president. But before we do, just a couple of questions, if you wouldn't mind, on Ukraine. Within the past 24 hours, the EU has announced 50 billion euros, 54 billion US dollars approximately in aid to Ukraine. That, of course, required twisting the arm of President Viktor Orban of Hungary, and apparently they did twist his arm in a rather ugly way. which is about to lose its chief military guy and which is in desperate need of manpower,

going to do with $50 billion worth of second-rate military equipment? A couple of points. First of all, they did twist Orban's arm. They coerced him into accepting this deal. And he really had no choice because Hungary is a small country and they could cause Hungary great economic harm if he didn't go along with the deal. So he went along with the deal. But that brings us to the question of what does this mean for Ukraine? First of all, it's $50 billion, $54 billion over four years. But more importantly, that money is not for military equipment. That money is basically money that's designed to keep the government in Kiev afloat. So it's not like we're giving them money to buy weapons. And even if we did give them money to buy weapons, there are not many weapons to buy. As you and I have talked about on

numerous occasions, the problem is that the West doesn't have an industrial base that can spin off large numbers of weapons that it can give to the Ukrainians so that it can stymie these Russian attacks. This is the real problem here. So in the end, this money is not going to have much impact on what happens on the battlefield. And this war will continue to go in Russia's favor as a consequence, because it is a war of attrition. The Russians have a significant manpower advantage, and they have a huge and growing advantage in terms of weaponry. Did the EU actually threaten to wreck the Hungarian economy and cause innocents to suffer because the president is standing on a sound principle that Ukraine's going to lose anyway? Why should we waste our money there? Sure. This is the way the United States operates all the time when countries balk at doing what we want them to do. This is why we have sanctions on so many countries around-

Was the US involved in this EU threat to Orban? No, I think the United States was surely on the sidelines. And I mean, Orban knows that the Americans dislike him as much as most of the countries in the EU dislike him. But the fact is that Hungarian is in a precarious economic situation, in good part because of this war, and therefore it is vulnerable to economic coercion. And the EU is desperate enough to get that money to Ukraine that it was willing to play hardball with him. And they played hardball. So this, because it's cash and not military equipment, this is a field day for the corruption

masters in Kiev. Well, this is one of the two reasons that Orban did not want to give the money to Ukraine. He said this is the most corrupt country or one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And giving them a huge chunk of money like this is like throwing money down a rat hole. And then the second reason that he didn't want to give money to Ukraine is that he thought that this was a lost cause. And the whole idea that you're going to use Ukraine to bleed the Russians white makes no sense at all. And in that regard, I think he was absolutely right. And, of course, he was absolutely right on the first point as well. Ukraine is a great country. Right. And do you know if, contrary to American cash aid,

there is an inspector general for the EU to certify where the cash goes? Or does the zeros just show up in the government's account in a key bank and they can draw down against it as they see fit? My understanding is they have very limited capability to assess what Ukraine does with the money. There's no evidence that there's a serious mechanism in place for the EU to check exactly where that money goes. So I think a lot of it will be siphoned off. What is happening to General Zeluzhky, whom you and others have said has been fairly well respected in the international military community? Is President Zelensky's threat to fire him serious?

Is he on his way out? And if so, do you know why? Yeah. I mean, first of all, he is very popular inside of Ukraine. He's very popular in the military, but also in the broader population. His population ratings are over 80%. They're significantly higher than Zelensky's. And Zelensky doesn't have bad poll ratings.

I mean, he's not in the class of Joe Biden. He has quite good poll ratings, but Zelensky has much better poll ratings. I mean, he's not in the class of Joe Biden. He has quite good poll ratings, but Zelensky has much better poll ratings. So you want to understand that when Zelensky goes after Zelensky and says he wants to fire him, this is a really tricky matter. Now, what's the basis of the disagreement? According to news reports, there are sort of two big issues, aside from the fact that they personally don't like each other. It's just very important to understand that. They just don't get along constitutionally. But there are two big issues. One is that Zelushny, the general,

wants to pull Ukrainian troops out of Avdeevka, which is where the biggest battle on the front is now taking place. And Zelensky believes that the Russians are going to win in Avdeevka, and it makes sense to pull out now. Zelensky does not want to pull out. This is a lot like Bakhmut, where last year, as you remember, Zelensky insisted that the Ukrainians stand and fight in Bakhmut. That's what he's talking about doing again, and Zelensky disagrees with him. So that's one fight. The other fight has to do with the mobilization of manpower. As we all know, the Ukrainians are desperate to raise more troops, and Zelensky, unsurprisingly for the commanding military officer, thinks they need 500,000 or approximately 500,000 new troops. Zelensky, who's a political leader,

believes that this is politically untenable. If he tries to raise 500,000 troops, there's going to be huge resistance. So Zelensky's talking about smaller numbers, you know, in the range of 300,000, maybe 200,000 new troops. And Zelensky's saying that's not enough. So you have a big dispute between the two of them on this mobilization issue and on the whole question of whether to withdraw troops or not from Avdevka. And this has led Zelensky to try to fire Zeluzhny. And he's been unsuccessful so far. And the final dimension I would add to this that shows you what a total mess it is, is that if he fires Zeluzhny, he could probably get away with it if he had a popular replacement. In other words, if there was a general in the wings that he could call on to replace Zelensky.

But the two possible candidates have both made it clear that they don't want the job. I think they can read the writing on the wall. So if he gets rid of Zelensky, I don't know who he's going to put in his place. But I think whoever is put in that position is not going to help Zelensky very much. All of this is to say Zelensky is in deep trouble. Do you know, Professor Mearsheimer, if under Ukrainian law he can unilaterally fire him, or does he need the approval of some legislative or administrative body? I think, I underline the word think, that he can unilaterally fire him. It's like the situation with Harry Truman and Douglas MacArthur.

You remember that MacArthur was summarily dismissed by Truman. I mean, Zelensky is the commander-in-chief, and this is why he can say we're going to keep the troops in eastern Ukraine. We're not going to withdraw any troops from Avdevka. So if I asked you before the $54 billion was promised by the EU, and now I ask you after the $54 billion promised by the EU, the same question, is Ukraine on its last legs? There's no question that it is on its last legs. I mean, in terms of the number of troops the Russians have mobilized compared to what the Ukrainians have been able to mobilize to replace losses on both sides, the Russians have a decisive advantage. The Ukrainians have lost huge numbers of troops, and they're unable to mobilize a significant number of people to replace them. And on the other side, the Russians have lost less troops than the Ukrainians, and they have been able to mobilize many more people. And if you look at the balance of weaponry, you have a huge gap

between the two sides. And if anything, it's just growing more and more in favor of the Russians. And, you know, this is not talked about very much. But the other thing is that it is the Russians who control the skies. I mean, leaving drones aside in terms of, you know, fighter aircraft, bombers, and so forth and so on, the Russian Air Force is wandering all over Ukraine, dropping bombs and launching missiles at infrastructure, lines of communication, at troop concentrations. And they're doing this pretty much at will. And the Ukrainians can't do much to stop it. And this is having a significant effect on the ability of the Ukrainian army to reinforce troops up on the front. Do you believe that Ukraine shot down a plane carrying 65 returning Ukrainian prisoners of war

that murdered its own people? Well, murdered implies that they did it on purpose. I'm not in the legal... All right. Well, we'll change the verb to killed their own people. I think they accidentally killed their own people. Yes. I think they did not know that the plane was filled with Ukrainian prisoners of war, and they shot it down thinking that it was going to be a decisive blow against the Russian Air Force when in fact it was no such thing, and in fact they ended up killing a lot of their own people. Switching gears, was the International Court of Justice ruling against Israel a day of reckoning for Israel? ruling was or the order was. I mean, if you read the Western media, it makes it look like Israel received a weak slap on the wrist. It was just no big deal. And in the Western media, attention

was taken off the ICJ order almost immediately. But if you read carefully what that order said, it was a black day for Israel. You want to remember that what the court said was that there is plausible evidence that Israel has the intention to commit genocide, and there is plausible evidence that Israel is in the process, in terms of its actions, in committing genocide. Now, the court was not in a position to determine whether Israel was guilty of genocide. That was not, you know, that was not its mission. That issue will be eventually decided by the court. The question here was whether or not there's plausible evidence that a genocide is taking place. Therefore, is it necessary to issue a series of measures to the Israelis that are designed

to prevent that genocide, in effect, to stop that genocide in its tracks. And yes, they issued six measures that were designed to tell the Israelis that they had to stop doing certain things, because all of the evidence they had said, there is a plausible case here that you have the intention and you are actually committing a genocide. This is remarkable, in my opinion. Wow. Has the IDF violence or the Israeli publicly stated intent been tempered or abated since the ruling came down? I think the answer to that is no.

Well, certainly in terms of the behavior, there's no question about it. The behavior has changed hardly at all. In terms of the intent, you want to remember that Israeli leaders, and we're talking about the prime minister, the president, the minister of defense, and so forth and so on. All sorts of high level Israeli leaders were making statements that were indicative of genocidal intent. There was a piece in Haaretz not long ago that said the road to the Hague is paved with comments by Israeli leaders. Well, that's true. Yes, of course it is. They were making outrageous statements. I think it's fair to say that they have stopped making those kinds of outrageous statements. They've curbed their rhetoric in large part because they understand that it got them into one well of a lot of trouble

at these recent ICJ hearings. But in terms of the actions, there is no evidence that they're backing off. If we've shown you this before, I apologize, but here's the two most extreme members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition after the decision came down by the ICJ. Ben Gevir and Smotrich, you know the names, you know their thoughts. Here they are addressing a rally. One of them addresses Prime Minister Netanyahu by name, even though he's not physically there. Tell me what you think. This is number... You said that the President of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without... Number two, Chris. Mr. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I'm addressing you from this stage. It's a shame

to wait another 19 years to understand that Gush Katith and northern Samaria must be returned. The responsibility of brave leadership is to make courageous decisions. We are settling our land from width to length, controlling it and fighting terror always and bringing with God's help security to all of Israel. You know what the answer is. Without settlement there is no security. Any question what they're encouraging him to do? No, no, there's no question about it. I mean, what they want to do is ethically cleanse

Gaza and reestablishment settlements in Gaza and in fact, make Gaza part of a greater Israel. It's de facto already part of a greater Israel. They do it de jure. The problem that they face is that Netanyahu is not in a position where he can make that happen. I think the Israelis tried to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and I think they're still in the process of trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza. The problem is they're not succeeding. And the United States has made it clear that they do not, or that we do not want to see that happen. The Egyptians and the Jordanians, which is where, who control the land to which the Gazan Palestinians would go, have made it clear

they don't want that to happen. So it doesn't look like they're going to be able to ethnically cleanse the place. So the question then is, you know, how do you put settlements back into Gaza? And Netanyahu has no appetite for that. The problem that he faces is that his government will fall if he gets into a fight with those ministers that you just showed on the screen, because they're part of the coalition and they are unyielding in their commitment to creating settlements in Gaza. So I think Benjamin Netanyahu is in real trouble. Have you ever heard or read about in your studying of modern warfare of soldiers or intelligence agents, males dressing as females, dressing as healthcare workers going into a hospital and shooting in the head three patients who were being ministered to by healthcare workers in the hospital?

I've never heard of an instance of that. And I'm not surprised that the Israelis did it. I think the Israelis don't pay any attention, any serious attention to the rules of war. And they think they can do pretty much anything they want and get away with it because the United States will protect them. And I also think that, I mean, one of the things I find most disturbing about watching what's happening in Gaza is it's not just simply the killing. I mean, that's categorically depressing, don't misunderstand me, but it's also just the cruelty that's involved here. The Israelis seem to take a certain joy in inflicting punishment, inflicting cruelty on the Palestinians. And it's just horrible

what's going on. And this is just another instance of them just not caring at all about the basic rules of the game and doing whatever they think is necessary and oftentimes doing it in a very cruel and evil way. Chris, can you put on the screen, the full screen of the quote issued by Prime Minister Netanyahu's office just a few hours ago, and I'll read it aloud for those who are taking in the podcast on audio. Coming up, this is a statement by Prime Minister. Here it is. Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to impose sanctions on settlers in the West Bank. Quote, Israel acts against all those who break the law everywhere. Everywhere is the emphasis as to where

I'm reading this for you, Professor Mearsheimer, and therefore there is no room for exceptional measures in this regard. The Prime Minister's office added that the absolute majority of settlers in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, are law-abiding citizens, many of whom are currently fighting in the regular and reserve army for the defense of Israel. Nobody would take seriously a statement from Netanyahu that Israel obeys the law. They don't obey any norm or standard of civilized behavior. I mean, I think it's impossible to take seriously Netanyahu's comments. It just, the facts are overwhelmingly opposite of what he says. I mean, what else can you say? Who really believes that? I mean, if you look at what the settlers in the West Bank have been doing to the Palestinians before October 7th, but certainly after October 7th, it's hard to

make the argument. It's impossible to make the argument that this is consistent with international law. I would think it's probably not even consistent with Israeli law. Right, right. Here's the president, number eight, Chris. Here's the president outside the White House. I'm going to have to do some reading here because you can't really hear the questions that the reporters are shouting to him because there's a lot of noise in the background. I think it's a helicopter. But basically, he's expressing an opinion

about whether those who supply weapons are responsible for the manner in which the weapons are used. Take a listen to this. Have you made a decision on how you respond to attacks? You hold Iran responsible for the deaths of free Americans? I do hold them responsible in the sense that they're supplying the weapons to the people who did it. What will happen in response? We'll have that discussion.

How do you... What's different this time? We'll see. So the president believes that he can hold responsible for attacks those who supply the weapons. I guess he forgot what he's doing in Ukraine, what he's supplying in Ukraine, and what he's supplying to Israel. Well, you want to remember with regard to Israel's behavior in Hamas, he made it very clear at least one point that he thought that the bombing was indiscriminate, that the Israelis were engaged in indiscriminate bombing in Gaza. They were using American bombs to engage in the indiscriminate bombing. Yes. And I would also note to you that, and we've talked about this before, that the

Israelis are dropping 2,000 and 1,000-pound bombs in areas that are filled with civilians and the end result is that they're killing huge numbers of civilians it's the united states that's providing him with those bombs and as this war has gone on we have fed the israeli military more and more weaponry as many israelis including israeli generals made clear. They could not fight this war the way they're fighting it without American assistance. This is why, you know, on the whole subject of genocide, the Americans are complicitous. The Americans are absolutely complicit. I mean, we're violating federal law, which prohibits us from giving military assistance to the countries that engage in genocide. What happens if, in response to the deaths of the three American soldiers at Tower 22,

wherever it is, whether it's in Syria or Jordan or at the border or 34 or so others, the president attacks Iran or Iranian assets in Iraq. Well, there's a big difference between the two. I mean, if he attacks Iran, the Iranians have made it clear that they will respond. And I would be shocked if they don't respond. And there's a lot of evidence that Biden is going to great lengths not to directly attack Iran or not to directly attack Iranian assets, like an Iranian ship at sea, because he doesn't want this one to escalate. But at the same time, he is, I think, going to attack some military targets in Syria and Iraq that have something to do with Iran. Maybe it'll be one or two of these militias that the Iranians provide weaponry to. It's very hard to say because he's been opaque about what he's going to do. But I think he has to respond,

and he has to respond against targets that have some relationship to Iran. But at the same time, I think he's going to go to great lengths to avoid attacking Iran. Here's Secretary of State Blinken, cut number five, Chris, being rather ambiguous, but you'll see. It's nothing new from him, but I'm anxious to hear your thoughts. The president said this, I think, virtually from day one to anyone who would try to use the crisis in the Middle East, the conflict in the Middle East, to sow further instability and to use it as an excuse to attack our personnel, we will respond. We will respond strongly.

We will respond at a time and place of our choosing. And obviously, I'm not going to telegraph what we might do in this instance or get ahead of the President, but I can again tell you that, as the President said yesterday, we will respond. And that response could be multileveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time. I don't know. Maybe it's just the way I view his personality. Maybe it's his personality. It seems like he's always hand-wringing, and there's always an apologetic tone to what he says. If Joe Biden wakes two weeks before responding, does he remove the sting of the response? Does he undermine the domestic political benefit of the response?

I don't know that it really matters whether he does it now or he does it in a week or two weeks. I mean, the belief here is that if we whack Iran or we whack Iranian assets, or we go after the Houthis, or we go after these Iranian-supported militias, that the end result is that they will throw up their hands and quit. We will deter them. The purpose of this military action is to produce deterrence in the region so as to avoid escalation. My view is you get exactly the opposite. This is why he doesn't want to bomb Iran, because he understands the Iranians will retaliate. So any use of military force here is just likely to lead to further escalation. You know, I just want to say one thing about what's going on here. If you listen to Blinken speak, and you listen to Israel and

Israel's supporters in the United States speak, the argument they like to make is that Iran is the taproot of all the trouble in the Middle East. And what Iran is doing here, you heard Blinken say this, is Iran is taking advantage of a crisis to pursue its own narrow interests. But that's actually not what's happening here. What's happening here is the Houthis, the Iranians, Hezbollah, and these Iranian-supported militias are all responding because of what's happening in Gaza. You want to remember, as you like to say, before the war broke out on October 7th, Jake Sullivan said the Middle East was as peaceful as we had seen it in a good number of years, right? And then everything changed after October 7th. And you want to ask yourself the question, why did everything change?

It wasn't because the Iranians and Hezbollah all of a sudden decided to go on a rampage and take advantage of Israel and the United States. What changed was a war broke out involving the Israelis and the Palestinians in Gaza, and that's what's driving this train. So the taproot of the problem, despite what Israel and its supporters in the United States say, is not Iran. The taproot of the problem is Israel and Israel's failure to create a Palestinian state. Here's a former Joe Biden, cut number one, Chris, on the consequences of an American president going to war against Iran without express congressional approval. You said that if the president of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without congressional approval, that would have been an impeachable offense. Do you want to review

that comment you made? Well, how do you stand on that now? Yes, I do. I want to stand by that comment I made. The reason I made the comment was as a warning. The reason I made, I don't say those things lightly, Chris. You've known me for a long time. I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for 17 years or its ranking member. The president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him. I don't has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him.

I don't use words lightly. Some of you may have seen me on Stephanopoulos or Meet the Press, the shows I've been on on a weekly basis. I want to make it clear to you. I've drafted with the help of 17 years I was the chairman of the judiciary or the ranking member. And ladies and gentlemen, I drafted an outline of what I think the constitutional limitations have on the president or the war clause. I went to five leading scholars, constitutional scholars, and they drafted a treatise for me. It's being distributed to every senator. And I want to make it clear, and I made it clear to the president, that if he takes the nation to war in Iran without congressional approval, I will make it my business to impeach him. Oh, that was then, but this is now. Do you think he feels the same way? No, but I'll tell you how he'll try to

wiggle off the hook. He'll say that Iran actually attacked us in the killing of those three Americans at Tower 22. Now, the problem that he faces is he's admitted that we have no evidence that Iran was responsible for this attack. The only evidence he can point to is that they were using, apparently, Iranian weaponry. But the Iranians did not attack us. And there's no evidence that the Iranians told these militias to attack us at Tower 22. And you get the same basic situation with regard to Hamas. You remember after October 7th, again, you always want to remember what Israel and its supporters are going to argue. They argued that it wasn't simply Hamas attacking on October 7th.

It was really Iran because Iran is the taproot of all the problem. They're the puppet master, or they're the puppet masters, the Iranians, and they told Hamas to attack Israel, right? And therefore, it was Iran that's responsible, and we have a right to go after Iran. This is the argument that the Israelis and their supporters here in the United States were making after October 7th. And this will just be another version of that. They see Iran behind every attack. Does Joe Biden and do the neocons, Lindsey Graham, Victoria Nuland, the same cast of characters, do they see Iran behind every attack? Of course.

I think if you listen to what I just said, you take that template and you start reading the news with that template in your head, you'll see that I'm on the money here, right? Look, the question is, who do we blame? Who do we blame for this giant mess that we're in? Somebody like me would say, the Israelis are responsible for this mess because of the failure to give the Palestinians a state of their own. And given the way they treated the Palestinians, both in Gaza and in the West Bank, and they are a strategic liability for the United States. they are a strategic liability for the United States. Israel is a strategic liability for the United States. Now, that's an argument that Israel and its

supporters do not want to hear for one second. So what you have to do is engage in blame shifting. And the question is, who are we going to blame? If we're not going to blame the Israelis, we've got to blame somebody else. So who do they blame? They blame Iran. And if you want to see this in spades, just read the Wall Street Journal every day. This template I'm laying out for you now informs almost every article, op-ed, and editorial you'll find in that newspaper. Professor Mearsheimer, thank you very much. And thank you for that very courageous and insightful description of how we got to where we are in the last three or four minutes. We will cut that clip and run it so that those that don't have the time to watch this full, very insightful interview can hear the summary of it that you just made. Thanks so much.

We look forward to having you back next week, my friend. Likewise. Thank you. Powerful, powerful, elegant, irrefutable,

in my view, intellectual summary of the mess in the middle East and the original cause of it. More on this and more on Ukraine at 4.15 today with another powerful intellect, Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.