Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Does Netanyahu Keep His Word?

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Does Netanyahu Keep His Word?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 for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, January 16th, 2025. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, always a pleasure. I'd like to get right to the hot news of the day, which is the so-called, you can obviously agree or correct me, ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Is this ceasefire, as you understand it, a defeat for Israel? Yeah, I think it's clearly a defeat for Israel. In fact, when I read it, I was actually shocked to read the details. I mean, first of all, the Israelis have agreed at the end of the ceasefire. And of course, you want to remember, we're assuming here that the ceasefire goes into place and that the ceasefire holds. Assuming that is the case, the Israelis have agreed to leave

Gaza. They're not going to have any military forces left in Gaza. They've agreed to give up control of the Philadelphia corridor, which is the corridor or the line between Egypt and Gaza, which they insisted on holding. Furthermore, the Palestinians in Gaza are free to move around, which means the Palestinians that have been pushed out of northern Gaza can return to their homes in the north. About a week ago, we were talking about the Israelis ethnically cleansing northern Gaza. That's not going to happen with this ceasefire. Furthermore, Hamas is alive and well.

In no way is Hamas defeated. And on top of that, food, gas, oil, water, and so forth and so on, medicine that's been kept out of Gaza is pretty much free to flow in now. night in an offhanded comment to a reporter or a group of reporters that he had offered this very proposal seven or eight months ago. And that we know from other sources that whoever is the author of this proposal, it has been rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu a half dozen times. Why would Netanyahu suddenly accept that which he profoundly, poignantly, publicly rejected? Well, I think there are two factors at play here. One, I think there's no question that Donald Trump put enormous pressure on Netanyahu. Let's face it, Trump doesn't want this war to be raging when he moves into office.

So he has a deep-seated interest to shut it down, and he played hardball with Netanyahu, no question. The other factor is that the Israelis are in deep trouble inside of Gaza. There have been a spate of articles in the Israeli press, and this includes newspapers that are sympathetic to the Netanyahu government that make it clear that Hamas has basically reconstituted itself and is not in bad shape at all. In fact, it looks like it is in as formidable shape as it was on October 7th. In addition, the Israelis are suffering significant casualties in Gaza, including northern Gaza. The idea that they have a free ride in there is simply wrong. And the Israeli army,

which is constituted to fight short wars and is fighting not only a long war in Gaza, but is now stuck in southern Lebanon and stuck in Syria, is beginning to feel the pain of that commitment. And the army is having trouble getting reservists to report for duty. So I think the state of the Israeli army, the casualties, the fact that Hamas is alive and well, coupled with Trump's pressure, is what pushed the Israelis to seriously consider this deal. They have not signed it yet. And furthermore, once they sign it, there will be powerful incentives to break it because it's not a good deal, given what the Israelis set out to do in Gaza after October 7. Well, if you look at Prime Minister Netanyahu's goals,

get the hostages home and degrade Hamas, he has not succeeded, not by any measurement. Exactly. He's failed. He's categorically failed. He will get the hostages back. But the fact is that he has not defeated Hamas. And along the way, he said the Israelis were going to stay in Gaza, they were going to run Gaza, and they were going to make it impossible for the Palestinians in Gaza to reconstitute themselves politically, militarily, and economically. And that's not the case, obviously. And in addition, the Israelis in the process have executed a genocide. They've done enormous damage to their reputation around the world, including in the West. And you have arrest warrants issued for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Golan. So this is all

beginning to look like a total disaster for the Israelis. You know, my friend Gerald Salenti always says, when all else fails, they take you to war. Might Netanyahu's eyes be looking toward Iran? And might there have been some sort of an agreement with Trump? We do know there's a side agreement, which I'll get to in a minute, but might he deflect the public scrutiny of his failures in Gaza by picking a fight with Iran backed up by the U.S.? Well, he wanted to pick a fight with Iran backed up by the United States before this ceasefire became a real possibility. This just increases his incentive to get us to help him attack Iran. So I'm agreeing with you completely. The question is,

will Donald Trump do this? I don't think Trump is going to want to start a war with Iran. Does Iran have a nuclear weapon, Professor Mearsheimer? No, there's no evidence that they have a nuclear weapon. There's no question that they're close to the point, very close to the point, where they can produce enough fissile material before bombs, but we have no evidence that they have a nuclear weapon. Paul Jay Would the United States have any interest whatsoever, other than its being wedded at the hip to Israel and its obeisance to the donor class, in starting a war with or supporting a war,

an Israeli war war against Iran? It's important to emphasize that independent of Israel, we have a deep-seated interest in making sure Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. The United States is, for good strategic reasons, opposed to proliferation. The question you have to ask yourself, which dovetails with your question, is whether or not you think it's worth going to war with Iran or any other country that's pushing down the nuclear road. Do you think you can use military force to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons over the long term? And my view on this, which is shared by a lot of people, is that even if we, the United States, use military force against Iran's nuclear installations,

it's not clear we can destroy their capability to build a bomb. But even if we do, they'll rebuild or reconstitute that capability, and they'll eventually end up with nuclear weapons, and they'll be mad as hornets. So using military force just doesn't buy you very much. Professor Mearsheimer, what is the moral, legal, or geopolitical argument that supports Israel having nuclear weapons but doesn't permit Iran to have them? Well, there's no moral argument that determines who can have or can't have nuclear weapons. You could substitute the United States for Israel. You know, what's the moral reason that the United States can have nuclear weapons

and Iran can't? Iran can have nuclear weapons for moral reasons, if you want to put it in that rhetoric, in terms of that rhetoric. But the fact is, we don't want them to have nuclear weapons. With regard to the legal dimension, Iran can't have nuclear weapons because it signed the NPT. Israel did not sign the NPT. Israel, India, and Pakistan, all of whom have nuclear weapons, refused to sign the NPT. So I don't think the Israelis are breaking any law here. If Iran was going to get nuclear weapons, it would have to withdraw from the NPT. And this is what North Korea did. North Korea was in the NPT, and by law, it could not acquire nuclear weapons. It decided it was going to acquire nuclear weapons, and what it did was

withdraw from the NPT. And that's what Iran would have to do. and it can do that. The Israeli press is filled with, not Haaretz, which we read, I don't remember the name of the publication, but I read this earlier today, filled with reports of a side deal between Netanyahu and Trump, which obviously would never be reduced to writing. And the side deal is that the Israeli software manufacturer NSO, which makes a product trade named Pegasus, known in the trade as ZeroClick, this is a computer hacking software that allows the owner of the software to enter any computer venue without tricking the owner of the computer into clicking on a link. When Joe Biden learned that the FBI had this zero-click and was using it, he ordered it stopped and he ordered his Commerce Department to prohibit the importation into the United States of this product.

One of the three, I'll get to the other two in a moment, parts of the side deal is that Trump will remove the embargo on Zeroclick made by this Israeli company NSO. The other two parts are that Trump will either look the other way or will support the proliferation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And the third part is, not if, but when the IDF moves back into Gaza, Trump will support it. If this is part of the, if this is a side deal and Hamas gets wind of it, why would they agree to the ceasefire? Well, I think it makes sense from Hamas's point of view to agree to the ceasefire.

They want to hope, of course, that Israel won't move back into Gaza. I think there is a chance, maybe a good chance, that Israel will violate the ceasefire and move back into Gaza. There's no question about that, but maybe it won't happen. But the question you have to ask yourself is, if Trump has gone to such great lengths to shut down this conflict in Gaza, and he gets on paper a good deal for purposes of shutting it down, and both the Israelis and Hamas agree to it, why would Trump in a month's time or two months' time agree to allow Israel to undo that ceasefire. It just wouldn't seem to make sense from Trump's point of view. I mean, maybe he did make that

agreement and all he really cares about. Well, we don't know what pressure Steve Witkoff, who's Trump's Middle East advisor, put on Prime Minister Netanyahu. We do know that last Saturday morning, Mr. Witkoff, today being Thursday, so five days ago, Mr. Witkoff was in Doha, where the negotiators are, and he called the Prime Minister's office and said, I'm flying to Tel Aviv, and I need to see him immediately. And they said, sorry, he's observing the Sabbath, to which Mr. Witkoff said, I'm coming and he better see me. Sunday, everybody announced the deal. So somehow Mr. Witkoff must have represented some view of President-elect Trump, which stopped Netanyahu in his tracks. As we said earlier, Professor Mearshamer, this very deal was rejected between four, five, six times by Bibi Netanyahu.

Now, after hearing from Witkoff and Trump, who isn't even in office yet, he accepts it. How do you read all that? Well, I think there's no question that Trump wants a deal. And he put enormous pressure on Netanyahu through Witkoff, who's a tough character, knows how to play hardball, knows how to deal with somebody like Bibi Netanyahu, and was successful. And in addition, as I said, there are reasons for the Israelis to agree to a ceasefire at this point. I mean, I don't think Netanyahu on his own would have agreed, but there are forces at play inside of Gaza involving Israel's capabilities and Hamas's capabilities that points in the direction of moving toward a ceasefire. So I think those factors combine to get this situation. But the big question is, what happens moving forward? Do the Israelis violate the

ceasefire? It's likely that they will. It's not axiomatic, but it's likely. And then if they do violate the ceasefire, will Trump behave like Biden, or will Trump behave like he's been behaving in the past few days? Do you think that Israel and Iran are preparing for war with each other? I would be shocked. I'd be shocked if the Iranians and the Israelis weren't preparing for war with each other. The Iranians surely understand that they have to be prepared for war, not only against Israel, but against the United States. Israel has its gun sights on Iran, and we probably have our gun sights on Iran. And the Iranians, needless to say, are putting their gun sights on Israel. They're planning on retaliating.

Is Israel overextended, Professor Mearsheimer? Yeah, there's no question about that. They're in Gaza, although they may be getting out. They're in southern Lebanon. And in my opinion, they're showing few signs that they're going to get out of there. They're in Syria, and that's a tough neighborhood, and there's no sign that they're leaving Syria. And they have just been fighting a long war against the Palestinians and even against Hezbollah. And as I said before, the Israeli army is not constituted to fight long wars. It's constituted to fight short wars. So it's an army that is wearing at the seams, and they are overextended, and they have

lots more conflict in front of them. Switching gears, Professor Mearsheimer, can you explain, do you understand Trump's animosity towards BRICS? Well, BRICS is a challenge to the United States. Trump was once the president of the United States and is about to become the president of the United States again. He views BRICS as a challenge to himself. He doesn't like challenges. Trump likes people who, when he tells them to jump, their only question is how high. Trump doesn't want anybody challenging him. Yeah, but BRICS is such a high populated, wealthy trading bloc.

Why wouldn't Trump want the U.S. to trade with them? Why would he view BRICS as a threat? They don't have a common currency. They're not in a position to impact the dollar as the world's reserve currency, although Trump claims he has a fear of that. I think it's very clear that BRICS is aimed at the United States. The reason that BRICS was formed and the reason that BRICS looks like such a formidable institution today is that there are a lot of countries in the world that either hate the United States or don't trust the United States. And they've all come together and they're looking for ways to thwart the United States of America. I don't blame them one bit.

Certainly not in our interest for BRICS to be doing this, but you can understand what the motives are for countries like China and Russia and even India. I mean, the Indians who have somewhat good relations with the United States don't trust the United States as far as they can throw us. And you can't blame the Indians. So you get the Indians, the Chinese, the Russians, and all sorts of other countries coming together to figure out ways to thwart the hardball politics that the United States plays. Talking about trust, I neglected to ask you earlier, though I think I know what your answer will be. Is Netanyahu worthy of trust? No, nobody would trust Benjamin Netanyahu

as far as they can throw him. And that would include many Israelis, many Israelis that I know. He's not a trustworthy person. Does that include the donor class in the U.S.? I think it does include some people in the donor class, but people in the donor class, and here we're talking mainly about the Israel lobby, they don't really care that much about whether Netanyahu is in charge or someone else is in charge. They support Israel unconditionally. And if Benjamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader misbehaves in a really serious way in some cases, you can rest assured the lobby will protect Netanyahu. Well, suppose a Yitzhak Rabin type person became prime minister of Israel, a person really genuinely interested, notwithstanding his youth, in peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. What would the donor class do?

Well, first of all, I don't think Yitzhak Rabin was genuinely interested in having peaceful relations with the Palestinians. I think this is largely a myth that's been created over time, in large part by the lobby in this country. I could go into that chapter. Well, suppose such a person became the head of the government. Would the lobby support them unconditionally? I'm trying to find out if the lobby, if the Zionists in the lobby are in favor of eradicating the Palestinians because that's what Netanyahu and Smotrich and Ben-Gavir want, or are in favor of whatever the prime minister of Israel at a given time wants. Well, I think there are definitely organizations and individuals in the lobby who support with the Smotrich's and the Ben-Gavir's and of course the Netanyahu's are doing, right?

They support that. And if Israel were to move to a two-state solution, they would be unhappy. I think there's no question of anything. But in the final analysis, when push comes to shove, the lobby will support what Israel does. The lobby can't change Israeli policy. And given that it can't change Israeli policy, it has to live with whatever is the policy of the Israeli government. And the basic goal of the lobby is to make sure when the United States and Israel have different interests, that Israel's interests win in the end. And then they go out and they spin the story so that Israel's interests and America's

interests are said to be the same. So it doesn't look like we're pursuing a policy that's not in the Americans' interest or America's interest, but is in Israel's interest. The lobby can't change Israeli policy, but Donald Trump can, just as Joe Biden could have had he had the fortitude and understanding to do it. Well, we'll see. I mean, you told me about this side agreement and the third dimension of the side agreement was that Trump basically agreed that the Israelis could go back into Gaza when they see fit. That basically tells me that Trump caved into the lobby. We'll see whether Donald Trump can really stand up to the lobby, or to put it in slightly different

terms, whether he can stand up to Israel. It appears for sure that he did it this time, but whether this is possible down the road and how this particular instance plays out with regard to the ceasefire, we'll see. You never want to underestimate just how incredibly powerful the lobby is. But I wonder what he told Mrs. Adelson, to whom he has a $100 million debt, before he instructed Witkoff, get a ceasefire, even if you have to twist Bibi's arm? That's an interesting question. I would imagine he tried not to talk to her.

He didn't take the phone call. That would be my guess. I mean, the one reason to think that Trump might play, or there are two reasons to think Trump might play hardball with the Israelis. One is he is kind of a wild and crazy guy. As you well know, we've never seen anybody like Trump. But the second point is he doesn't have to run for reelection. He can't run again. So he's got nothing to lose politically by getting tough with the Israelis. The question for him is if he gets tough with Israel, how much resistance will there be in Congress, in the media, and, you know, from the Israel lobby? My guess is the resistance would be fierce. Can he stand up to it? He could put up a good fight. Will he do that? I don't know.

Oh, but he said he's Israel's best friend, not Netanyahu's best friend, Israel's best friend. I guess time will tell. Professor Mearshamer, pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for allowing me to jump across a variety of topics, but a pleasure to be able to pick your brain. Look forward to seeing you again next week. Look forward to being back on the show. Thank you. Coming up at four o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. At Ritual, we know what goes into a magical holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets.

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