Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: How Will the War in Gaza End?

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer: How Will the War in Gaza End?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 Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024. Professor John Mearsheimer joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, it's always a pleasure. Thank you very much for your time and your analysis. Since last we were together, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he had requested of a panel of judges on that court their permission to file an indictment against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders alleging war crimes and that he will seek their arrest warrants. What, if any, international geopolitical significance is there to going after the head of state so directly, so profoundly, as he is going after Prime Minister Netanyahu? Well, I just think what is going on here is that the ICC's move

in the wake of the International Court of Justice's move in January just contributes to the damage that is being done to Israel's reputation. And this is damage that is going to last for as far as the eye can see. Enormous damage is being done to Israel here. And at the same time, I think it's fair to say that significant damage is being done to the United States, because the United States is joined at the hip with Israel. And as we back Israel at every turn in the face of evidence that shows that Israel is being legitimately charged with these crimes. It does great damage to us, of course, as well as to the Israelis. So this is bad news for both countries. Here's Karim Khan, the very articulate chief prosecutor, explaining the charges against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister

Gallant. Cut number nine. On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my office, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the following international crimes committed on the territory of the State of Palestine from at least the 8th of October 2023. The crimes include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment, willful killing or murder, and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population,

as well as crimes against humanity of extermination and or murder, persecution, and allegations of crimes of committing other inhuman acts. I noticed two phrases that we haven't heard before in the criminal or judicial context, Professor Mirshamber. One is extermination, and the other is the state of Palestine. So I put those two gems on the plate for you to address. Yeah, I was actually shocked to see the word extermination because it raises immediate thoughts of the Holocaust and what the Germans and others did to the Jews during World War II. But the term is not unpacked

in the document, as best I can tell. So I'm not sure what he means by extermination. And it's very important to understand that in the ICC documentation that came out the other day, there's no talk of genocide. And if you just listen to what Mr. Khan said, you did not hear the word genocide. And of course, the International Court of Justice hearings earlier this year, and the report that was issued by the ICJ did talk about possible genocide, but that's not at play here. But there is that word extermination, and of course you hear about crimes against humanity and so forth and so on. Look, the charges against Israel are straightforward. There is just a huge amount of documentation that

supports them. And in a way, the finding of the ICC, this recent finding of the ICC, is not surprising at all. It's stunning to the Israelis and stunning to the Americans because it puts both countries up in bright lights, and it makes it look like they're complicitous in this mass murder or genocide or whatever you want to call it that's taking place in Gaza. So, as I said before, this is devastating for Israel, and it is hugely damaging for the United States as well. Now, with regard to your second point, what exactly was the issue there? He referred to the crimes as occurring in, quote, the state of Palestine. Yeah. I mean, is that an indication that in the view of the court, or at least this prosecutorial

office, much like Ireland, Sweden, and Spain declared earlier today, Palestine is a state? Well, what's going on here is that the question of jurisdiction is at play. And for the court to intervene, the ICC to intervene in this case, one of the parties has to be a signatory to the Rome Statute. And is Palestine a signatory to the Rome Statute. And is Palestine a signatory to the Rome Statute, unlike the United States and Israel? Yes. That's what the court has ruled. The day joined in 2015. That's the basic finding here. Therefore, the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed on their property and against their people. Exactly. That's what's going on here. And that's why Khan paid so much attention to this issue. If I could make one other quick point, Karim Khan is a very clever and forceful individual.

And you want to understand that what he did here was he convened a panel of six legal experts. These are experts in international law and two academic experts to look over all of the evidence and help him sort through that evidence and help him reach a conclusion. They all agree unanimously with him. They wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times, the six legal experts did, saying they agree unanimously with what Khan is doing. And furthermore, they issued a lengthy report that lays out in detail the basis of the ICC's charges against the Israelis, or I should say against Netanyahu and Gallant. So this gives Khan lots of support. It makes it look like it's not one individual, this prosecutor, taking aim at the Israelis. He has the support of six

distinguished international lawyers. Were you surprised that three Hamas leaders were also named, particularly the third one in the list of the names, and I'm sorry I don't have the name in front of me. You may know who it is. He's a longtime friend of our friend and colleague Alistair Crook, and he is the chief negotiator for Hamas who flies between Doha and Cairo transporting the negotiation methods and efforts, which I guess he can no longer do if an arrest warrant is out for him. Yeah, well, once the arrest warrant is granted, that will be true. For the time being, he could move around. His name is Ishmael Hanya, and I was surprised that they included him. But I think what's going on here is surely Khan understood that if he went after Israel, he had to go after Hamas as well. And if you're going to go after two Israeli leaders,

it makes sense to go after three Palestinian leaders. So nobody can say that you're favoring Hamas over Israel. And so that, I think, explains what's going on here. I just want to make another point, because it's very important to understand this. I read the report very carefully, and I read, this is the report of the six experts, and I also read Khan's statement. And he makes it unequivocally clear that he is conducting ongoing investigations. And those ongoing investigations include what is going on in the West Bank. And if you read the documentation carefully, there's every reason to believe that this is not going to stop with Netanyahu and Galant, that there are going to be a number of other Israelis who are singled out. And I believe it's not going to be for what's simply happening in Gaza, but what's happening in the West Bank as well.

And my view is that once Khan opened this door, once he opened Pandora's box, there's no telling where this is going to stop. And the reason I say that is the evidence is overwhelming that Israel has been committing serious war crimes. That, of course, is true. However, under the rules of the court, wouldn't Benjamin Netanyahu need to be physically present in the court in order for them to try him? In other words, if he stays out of countries where the arrest warrant can be executed for the rest of his life, he can avoid prosecution. Am I right? Absolutely.

I would bet a lot of money he will never be prosecuted. But that's not the key issue here, whether he's prosecuted. Right. The key issue, as I understand it, is the international effect of these prosecutions or these indictments and arrest warrants? To put it in slightly different terms, it's very important to create facts. What the Palestinians and their supporters have gotten very good at over the years is creating facts. And when facts are created by legitimate bodies like the ICJ and the ICC, they mean a lot. And what's happening here, and this is a huge problem for Israel, it cannot be underestimated, is that the narrative is changing in fundamental ways. And the narrative is changing in ways that make it almost impossible

for Israel to counter. Again, the documentation in the case of the International Court of Justice and here with the International Criminal Court, if you just sort of look at the documentation, it's voluminous. And this is a huge problem for Israel. And it all adds up to a serious indictment of that country that I believe will be a permanent based on religion, ethnicity, or nationality, but the international condemnation of genocide also includes funding it. Can Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Jacob Sullivan, Lloyd Austin also be in the prosecutor's crosshairs? There's no question about it. There's just no question about it. They are complicitous. It's obvious that they're complicitous. Not only are we giving Israel material support and economic support, but we're protecting it at every turn diplomatically. All you have to do is look at how we responded to the ICC ruling

the other day by Khan. I mean, it's quite clear that the United States is complicit in what I would call a genocide. Do you think sometimes that Israel is its own worst enemy. There's no question about that. I think many Israelis understand that. And furthermore, I would go beyond that and say that the Israel lobby in the United States, all these staunch defenders of Israel who go to great lengths to protect Israel, no matter what it does, are doing enormous harm to Israel. They like to argue that it's people like me, people like Steve Walt, people like Jeff Sachs, and so forth and so on, who are doing real damage to Israel. I think that's not the case at all. They're the ones who are doing great damage, and they do it by enabling Israel to behave in barbaric ways and foolish ways from a strategic point of view.

Israel is in a giant mess. It shows no signs of getting out of this mess. And in fact, it looks like they're just digging deeper and deeper. And what is the lobby doing? The lobby is supporting them as they dig deeper and deeper. This is a pro-Israel approach, not in my view. Do you think that there are two Israels? There's sort of the modern, liberal, high-tech, prosperous Israel, and then there's the theocracy, and the theocracy seems to be in control of the government now, or do you have a different view? Well, I think there is a lot of truth in that. And I think if you look at the big fight that took place in Israel before, and let me underline the word before, before October 7th involving the judiciary, the Israeli Supreme Court, you saw that divide that you just described at play. And in fact, many people were talking about a possible civil war inside of

Israel. But if you talk about foreign policy and you talk about policy towards the Palestinians, I believe that that divide that you describe is not meaningful in any way. It's kind of like the Republicans and the Democrats on foreign policy in this country. The Republicans and the Democrats are Tweedledee and Tweedledum. It doesn't matter whether Donald Trump gets reelected or Joe Biden gets reelected. This is not going to be any fundamental change in American foreign policy, in my opinion. In terms of domestic policy, there's a lot of difference between those two characters. There's no question about that. And I think that's what I'm saying about Israel. In terms of how the Israelis think about the occupied territories, how they think about a two-state solution, how they think about dealing with the Palestinians, there's just not a lot of daylight between, let's call it, the center and the right.

Right. your brilliant lecture in Australia, which is posted on Judging Freedom, four probable scenarios for the end of the war in Gaza. And I would like to address each of those scenarios with you if I could. One is, it seems unlikely, but I shouldn't comment because you're the expert. Israel becomes a normal liberal democracy with equal votes and equal rights for everybody who's there. We're not going to see that, are we? No. We want to make sure that we're clear that we're talking about greater Israel here, which would mean Israel plus Gaza plus the West Bank. Correct. From the river to the sea. Yeah. As I said in that talk in Australia, from the river to the sea is a term that Israelis use

as well as Palestinians. And basically you're talking about greater Israel. And what Hamas wants to do is turn greater Israel into greater Palestine. But they're talking about the same big piece of real estate. But the Israelis would never agree to turn that into a liberal democracy where every person, where every adult person got a vote because it would soon turn into a Palestinian state and no longer be a Jewish state. So that is not happening. The two-state solution with a free, this is the second possible, not probable, possible outcome. I suppose anything's possible, but we're not in a court of law here. A two-state solution with a free and independent Palestine. Well, the Israelis are adamantly opposed to that. Is this what Tony Blinken wants and Joe Biden says he wants?

Yes. But that's because they're delusional. It's not going to happen. I mean, the Israelis call the tune here, not the Americans. And the Israelis have no interest in a two-state solution. And furthermore, after what happened on October 7th, regardless of what you think about the occupation, it is hard to imagine any Israeli leader agreeing to a two-state solution, because a two-state solution means that you get a viable Palestinian state, and that viable Palestinian state has the military means to defend itself. Of course, that Palestinian state would want the military means to defend itself since it lives next door to Israel. But from Israel's point of view, those defensive weapons that the Palestinians had would look

offensive in nature. And given that you have organizations in the Palestinian world who want to take back all of the territory that Israel now controls, it is very hard to imagine a situation where you get a two-state solution in my lifetime or your lifetime or in my children's lifetime. The third and fourth are not unlike what we see now, an apartheid state with genocide. Well, what you have now is an apartheid state. Let's leave the genocide aside. Israel is an apartheid state, and here we're talking about greater Israel. And as I like to emphasize, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem, which is the largest human rights group inside of Israel itself, all three of these human rights

organizations have issued lengthy reports making the case that Israel is an apartheid state. And I think if you read those reports, even if you just read the executive summaries of each of the three reports that these human rights groups have issued, you see that it is manifestly clear that this is an apartheid state. But it is an apartheid state at the present time, post-October 7th, engaged in virulent ethnic cleansing, which has risen to the level of genocide and for which it has been condemned internationally, and for which there is, as you said at the outset of this conversation and many other conversations and in many of your speeches and writings, more than ample evidence. the case has proven beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that Israel is engaged in genocide. But this gets to the fourth option.

The fourth option is ethnic cleansing. And my argument is that the only way the Israelis can get out of apartheid is to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank. Because once you cleanse the Palestinians, then you can turn greater Israel into a liberal democracy, because most of the Palestinians have been pushed out of greater Israel. So it solves that problem. It also solves, it's worth noting, the Hamas problem. Israel is not going to defeat Hamas as long as the Palestinians remain in Gaza. But if you ethnically cleanse Gaza, you solve the Hamas problem. So ethnic cleansing solves the Gaza problem, I mean the Hamas problem, and it solves the apartheid problem. Now, what happened after October 7th is the Israelis saw an opportunity to cleanse Gaza, and they started bombing the place and trying to make it uninhabitable, trying to kill large

numbers of Palestinians, all for the purposes of cleansing the Palestinians from Gaza. But they failed. Nevertheless, they have continued to try to make that work. I believe they're still trying to make that work. This is why they're now starving the Palestinians. They're trying to push them into Egypt and trying to push them into Jordan. But it's not working. Ethnic cleansing is not working. So you're back to the third strand, which is apartheid. And what's going to happen when the shooting finally stops is that Israel is going to remain an apartheid state. And that means the Palestinians are going to continue to resist, and we're going to have another October 7th or something like it down the road. Do you think that October 7th and the events which have followed it have effectively destroyed

the efforts of the American State Department to bring about a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It certainly looks that way. The Saudis are insisting that they want a deal with Israel and with the United States. But in order to get a deal, there has to be serious movement. And I think they mean serious movement, toward a two-state solution. And the Israelis have made it clear that as much as they'd love to have an Abraham Accord involving the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, they're not willing to make any concession on a two-state solution. That's just not going to happen. It appears at this point in time you're not going to get an Abraham Accord involving Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States.

Here is Secretary of State Blinken yesterday discussing this. Please tell me, it's a little longer than a minute, cut number 12, Chris. Please tell me if you think the Secretary of State of the United States is right on or is naive. Yes, we have sought to move forward in negotiating the bilateral U.S.-Saudi aspects of a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But even if we were to conclude those agreements, and I believe we actually can conclude them relatively quickly, given all the work that's been done, they could not go forward, and the overall package could not go forward, absent other things that have to happen for normalization to proceed. And in particular, the Saudis have been very clear, that would require calm in Gaza, and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.

And it may well be, as you said, that in this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down that pathway. But to the extent that the agreements are finalized in principle between the United States and Saudi Arabia, that in effect calls the question. And Israel will have to decide whether it wants to proceed and take advantage of the opportunity to achieve something that it has sought from its founding. I don't know what he means by Israel has sought this from its founding. Surely Israel doesn't want the two-state solution. It's never sought it, and no Israeli prime minister has. You can respond to that. Also, this is an odd phrase I never heard before.

It might be my own ignorance. Common Gaza. Is that a technical phrase, or is that just an adjective he threw in? I never heard the phrase before, and I'm not sure what he meant. I think your first criticism of his is on the money, but I think it's of minor importance. I think that Blinken basically laid out the situation as it is, which is that the Americans and the Saudis are ready to jump in bed with each other. And we want to bring the Israelis on board, and that includes the Saudis.

But what has to be done here is there has to be movement on the two-state solution. And Blinken surely understands, after the Israelis have beat him over the head so many times since October 7th, that that is not likely to happen or in my rhetoric is not going to happen. And he didn't appear to hold out much hope that it's going to happen for good reasons, I'm sure. Do you think that when he's with Netanyahu, he even raises the two-state solution with him? Oh, I'm sure he raises it. But the question is whether or not he or Biden are willing to get tough with Netanyahu. The United States has a tremendous amount of potential leverage over the Israelis. them to do that they don't want to do is simply not true. We could coerce them to do lots of things. We could have coerced them long ago into accepting a two-state solution. The United States is a remarkably powerful country, and Israel is extremely dependent on us. But we are almost

completely unwilling to exercise that leverage. And Tony Blinken and Joe Biden are certainly not going to get tough with the Israelis. So he probably raises it in a very soft manner. And Netanyahu puts him in his place. Professor Meir Shamir, why are Arab leaders not coming to the aid of the Palestinians? Well, I think that most Arab leaders have long had little sympathy for the Palestinians, and they're mainly interested in pursuing their country's own interests. And for the most part, that means cooperating with Israel quite a bit and allowing themselves to be pushed around by the Americans, who of course support the Israelis hook, line, and sinker. So if you're Jordan or you're Saudi Arabia and you depend on the United States for security and the United States tells

you that we'll give you security if you're nice to Israel. You'll be nice to Israel. So the leaders in most of the Arab world are not terribly sympathetic to the Palestinians. It's the populations that are really sympathetic. Well, we've talked about this before. I suppose it is probable, certainly possible, that the populations could become so passionate and so unified that they population of Palestinians and they have been protesting against the Jordanian government almost continuously since October 7th. So the Jordanians really worry about pressure from down below. And I think the Saudis, although they don't have anywhere near as much pressure coming up from below, nevertheless do have a lot of pressure from below and are worried. And that's why the Saudis, I think, can't consummate an Abraham Accord with Israel and the United States until you get a Palestinian state. Is Israel imperialistic, much as the United States is? Do you see a pattern

in Israel's wish to expand and NATO's wish to expand? And the U.S. popping up military bases is over a thousand now all over the world. No, I don't. I think the United States is a great power, and you could say that it has imperial ambitions, and NATO expansion is one piece of evidence that supports that argument. But the United States is a class all by itself when it comes to expansion. I mean, we basically believe we should be running the planet and that we have the right and the responsibility to intervene in the domestic politics of every country in the world. The Israelis are not in that category at all. The Israelis have basically been interested in taking these two big pieces of territory that they conquered in 1967, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and incorporating them into a greater Israel. I think if they had their druthers, there's other territory that they

might take, for example, in southern Lebanon. And at one time, there were a lot of Israelis who wanted to take the east bank of the Jordan, which is now the country of Jordan, or part of the country of Jordan. But I think they're just, at this point in time, the Israelis, interested in consolidating their position in greater Israel. There's a famous historical anecdote, I don't know if it's true or not, of Benjamin Franklin walking out of the notoriously secret closed door sessions that produced the Constitution. And a journalist said to him, what have you given us? And he said, a republic, sir, if you can keep it. I would argue we haven't kept it. It's now an empire. Do you agree, Professor Mearsheimer?

Well, I think that the United States has always had a very ambitious foreign policy. Since the end of the Cold War, it's got even more ambitious. But at the same time, it's had a liberal democracy inside of its borders. And I think there was always a tension between those two things, because I think the more ambitious your foreign policy is, and the more you get interested in trying to run the world, the more damage you do to the liberal democracy at home. And I think enormous damage has been done to our liberal democracy since the Cold War ended. And I think that what is going on today with regard to Israel is doing even more damage. Because if you look at what's happening inside the United States with

regard to freedom of speech because of our support to Israel. Anybody who's really concerned about the future of our liberal democracy can't help but be sick to his or her stomach about what's happening. So I think a very powerful case can be made that our imperial ambitions to use your rhetoric does damage at home in ways that are not good for liberal democracy. Before we leave, minutes before we came on air this afternoon, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced what the British call a snap election, an election for a new parliament on all dates for the Brits to do this, July 4th. I guess he doesn't have an eye on history or maybe it doesn't resonate over there, but that's only six weeks from now. Do you see

the conservatives getting their clocks cleaned? That's certainly what the polls seem to indicate. And given the performance of the conservatives, it's hard to believe that they won't get their clocks cleaned. But as you and I have learned over the years, you know, six weeks is a long time and a lot can happen. But I would imagine that the conservatives will get their clock cleaned. Their clock cleaned. And by the way, I don't think it will matter at all. Right. What's my next question? Does it make a difference? Will Sir Keir Starmer, who's the leader of labor and the likely new prime minister, is he going to free Julian Assange?

Is he going to stop dealing with Tony Blinken? Is he going to stop sending arms to Ukraine? I'm going to guess no, no, and no. Well, I don't know what he'll do with Assange. Let's hope that he frees Assange. But with regard to foreign policy, I don't think he'll change at all. You want to remember that his predecessor as the head of the Labor Party was Jeremy Corbyn. And Jeremy Corbyn got smeared mightily and pushed out of his position as the head of the Labour Party for being an anti-Semite. And I do not believe for one second that Jeremy Corbyn would have changed British foreign policy towards Israel had he been elected. Because Corbyn's views towards Israel are not much

different than your views or my views. But they wanted to make sure that didn't happen. He was pushed overboard. And again, the lobby played the principal role in throwing Corbyn overboard. And then in came Starmer. And you can rest assured that he understands that if he doesn't dance to the lobby's tune, he'll get thrown overboard as well. So he's not changing. We're about to post on Judging Freedom a talk given to a crowd yesterday by Julian Assange's sister after the court announced that it's allowing an appeal because it rejected the tepid guarantees that the United States purported to send it by a political appointee rather than by the DOJ itself. However, that's not my point. My point is that in the audience of that speech,

cheering her on was Jeremy Corbyn, the almost prime minister of Great Britain. I'm not surprised at all. And I think, again, if Corbyn had been elected, British policy towards Israel would have changed in a fundamental way. And Assange would have been freed. Oh, there's no question about that. Yes.

Professor Mearsheimer, pleasure, my dear friend. We ran the gamut, although we didn't talk about Ukraine. We'll save that till next week. But thank you for sharing all your knowledge and all your insight with us. Much, much appreciated. You're more than welcome. Much, much appreciated. You're more than welcome. It's my pleasure. Thank you. We'll see you next week.

Okay. Coming up at three o'clock Eastern, Phil Giraldi, and at four o'clock Eastern, Aaron Matei, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC