Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Netanyahu Destroying Israel

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Scott Ritter : Netanyahu Destroying IsraelSee 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, excuse me, Thursday, June 20th, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, my dear friend, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much. I have a lot of questions to ask you about Israel and Gaza, including some breaking news about the IDF saying Hamas cannot be defeated and in defiance of Prime Minister Netanyahu. But first, the even more breaking news. I want to ask you about President Putin's peace offer, and then I must ask you about the significance of his trip to North Korea. So first, the peace offer.

Were you surprised at the summary, I mean, before the ink was dry, rejection of it by the West? No, not at all. Neither, I believe, was Putin or the Russian government, but it was a peace offer that had to be articulated for any number of reasons. You know, when you look at the offer in its totality, none of it was new. Bits and pieces of that offer have been spoken of by Vladimir Putin, by the Russian government for the past six months, but never in a singular, all-encompassing, official declaratory policy statement. And this is what Vladimir Putin owed the Russian people. And he owed his allies, the people, the nations around the world that have rallied around Russia, or at least have refused to rally around the United States and Europe and their proxy conflict against Russia. we recognize that Russia's on the right side of history, but a forever war is not something

anybody supports, and a war to what end? People would like to know what is the Russian endgame, especially when a time exists where the West is saying, well, Russia wants to conquer NATO, what Russia wants to conquer Europe. And so Vladimir Putin's statement was 100% needed. He had to give this statement. The chess aspect of it comes, you know, the timing of it to deliver this statement as it is. You know, he could have delivered this at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. There were a number of high profile opportunities for him to articulate something of this nature. He dropped hints there, bits and pieces, but he did this on the eve of the so-called Ukrainian Peace Conference in Switzerland, basically to expose the conference for what it was, a sham. It wasn't a peace conference, it was a war conference. And what Vladimir Putin did by making this statement is say, there can be a termination of this conflict right now.

We can end this war today, but it has to be done on terms that are realistic and terms that respect the Russian position in this. And of course, if you take a look at what came out of the peace conference, the so-called peace conference, there's just zero respect for Russia, zero realization of reality. And Putin's statement proved this. So it was the timing of the statement, but it's a genuine statement. If it were taken up, the war would end today, right now. What kind of pressure, if any, Scott, is there on President Putin to wage the war you know, Russia is an absolute dictatorship where Putin wields, you know, power, it's just not true. He consults with the various power centers. And one of the power centers in Russia, of course, is the military. They've been tasked with, you know, carrying out military tasks, demilitarization, denazification. And the military, I wouldn't call it pressure, but the military has prepared, according to people I've talked to, options to bring about a rapid end to this war. They have the resources necessary to decisively defeat the Ukrainians in quick order on the battlefield. But this would cost Russia a lot of manpower. Basically, Russia would have to

run through the buzzsaw of Ukrainian drones and Ukrainian artillery and exhaust those Ukrainian capabilities, and then the war would end. This would cost Russia probably 100 plus thousand troops. And Russia's just, Putin says, I'm not in the business of doing that. There's no necessity for this. And if you think about it, look at it from his perspective. This war has made him stronger politically. The election in March proves this, that the Russian people have rallied around Vladimir Putin and this cause. Two, Russian defense industry is growing without harming Russian civilian industry. They're lapping NATO, lapping the United States. The longer this war

goes on, the stronger Russia gets. And diplomatically, Russia has never been stronger than they are today in the modern post-Soviet era. We have BRICS coming up. The world is rallying around Russia. Vladimir Putin is looking at the totality of the position that Russia is in, and he's saying, why do I need to sacrifice 100,000 Russian troops to bring to an end a process that only strengthens me. Rather than force the issue, why don't we just continue to also engage in a process that allows Ukraine to commit suicide, which they're doing. Sersky, the general, has just been given orders to within the next 45 days to carry out a decisive counterattack in Kharkov, exactly what the Russians want them to do, and it'll be a repeat of 2023. The Ukrainians will all be slaughtered, which is demilitarization. NATO is

falling apart. I mean, we're going to see it in the NATO summit, all this talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about NATO unity. There is no NATO unity, and NATO is looking at the fact that Russia has become the strongest military power in the world and there's nothing NATO can do to counter that. NATO will go bankrupt trying to counter that. So from Putin's perspective, what he needed to do is solidify the foundation of his support by providing a clear understanding of how this war could be ended today, and most importantly, what the consequences will be if the West and Ukraine opt not to take advantage of the Russian offer. Even bigger news than Putin's announcement for peace and the summary rejection of it by the West. It obviously big-footed the so-called peace conference in Switzerland. But even bigger than that was Putin's trip to North Korea. How

significant geopolitically, America, China, the West, North Korea, Russia, how significant geopolitically was that trip and the agreements that emanated from it, Scott? You know, the term game changer is used and abused. This is a game changer, though. I'm not abusing this term. This changes everything, fundamentally changes everything. First of all, the United States has been engaged in a pivot to the Pacific, ostensibly to counter China. And in doing so, we've been seeking to build up this trilateral relationship between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, all premised on the notion of the continued isolation of North

Korea. North Korea is no longer isolated. You know, logically, if you take a look at, you know, the lead up to this, the feeling was it would be China that would have brought down the trade barriers that would have opened up relations with North Korea. but China has hesitated because China didn't want to incur the wrath of the collective West in terms of economic sanctions. Russia doesn't care anymore about sanctions. They bore Russia. In fact, the more you sanction Russia, the stronger Russia gets. So Russia is beyond caring, and so too is North Korea. Two nations that simply don't care about anything the West does have now come together to strengthen each other. And North Korea, you know, I will say this, in three to five years, when we take a satellite image of North Korea, because the people who pick on North Korea always

show the satellite image of the Korean peninsula at night, and it shows the South fully lit up and North Korea dark. And they say, ah, look at the backward North. In three to five years, when they turn that on, the North is going to be awash in light. This fundamentally changes the reality of North Korea. They will now be plugged into one of the fastest, most resilient growing economies in the world, the Russian economy, that is serving as one of the heartbeats of this multilateral empire being built called BRICS. North Korea will benefit directly and indirectly from BRICS. And this also changes the United States and South Korean, Japanese, you know,

geopolitical reality. They can no longer go to war against North Korea because a war with North Korea is a war with Russia. Not only that, if you remember, Putin promised, you start giving weapons to Ukraine to attack Russia, we're going to start giving weapons to other people. And I think Putin made it clear that North Korea is now going to be armed with some of the most advanced Russian technology, Russian weapons, weapons that will forever change the military balance between North Korea is now going to be armed with some of the most advanced Russian technology, Russian weapons, weapons that will forever change the military balance between North Korea, the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Talk to us a little about the role of China in this. I mean, we can assume that when President Putin was in Beijing last month, he discussed this in detail with

President Xi. This would never have happened without China's approval. China must be welcoming this. Actually, the exact opposite. I've spoken with a number of Russian experts. You know, Russia and China have this, they call it, it's the best friendship possible. You don't need a treaty to do it because it can go anywhere you want, but it's also flexible. Vladimir Putin neither needs nor wants Xi Jinping's permission to do anything, and he will never ask permission. Anybody who thinks that Russia has to go to China and ask permission for anything, they don't understand Russia, nor do they understand China because China would never make such a demand. They both understand they live in, they're sovereign states, they live in interconnected yet separate realities. What Russia is doing with North Korea is a Russian initiative,

pure and simple. In fact, you might say that China may not be too enthusiastic about what Russia is doing because it's forcing an issue. The relationship between North Korea, the United States, Japan and South Korea in a direction that China doesn't control. It's not that China disagrees, but China, like any nation. Has North Korea been a virtual vassal state of China up until this week? No. I mean, again, it misconstrues the relationship. China has inherited modern China, because remember, we're talking about post Mao Zedong China, has inherited the North Korean problem set from its predecessors. You know, the Korean War was not a policy initiative of Xi Jinping. They've inherited this, and it's been a distraction. It's been

problematic. They can't dump North Korea, but China has not been openly embracing North Korea either. If they had, North Korea wouldn't be in the economic straits that it is today. China has participated in the sanctioning, and China has used the sanctions as a tool of controlling, seeking to control North Korea. Will North Korea join BRICS? Well, I don't know. Again, that's a consensus-driven decision, but it doesn't matter, because North Korea has joined BRICS indirectly by engaging in this dramatic expansion of economic interaction with Russia. Whatever benefits Russia accrues from BRICS will also accrue to North Korea. Like I said, this is a game-changer. And, Judge, we have to put this into context. Putin then went to visit Vietnam, a nation that likewise doesn't have

wonderful relations with China. And what Russia is doing is solidifying the Russian-Vietnamese relationship. What Putin did in this trip here expands Russia's regional influence in the Pacific at the detriment of China. People need to keep that in mind. Anybody who keeps talking about how Putin is under Xi Jinping's thumb, he needs to go, don't understand the reality of Russian-Chinese relations. Is there anybody in the international scene as diplomatically sophisticated as Vladimir Putin? Not today, no. I mean, you could say that Xi Jinping, the Chinese, are very sophisticated, but they haven't been as aggressive as Putin has. You know, Putin has diplomatically conquered the continent of Africa. China has poured hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into Africa, but Russia is the most dynamic diplomatic presence in Africa today because of the Russian foreign policy. And what Putin just did here is a masterstroke. You know, take a look

at his visits, you know, since becoming president or being reelected. China, again, very important, foundational relationship. Belarus, nail that down because of the impending conflict with the West. Then Uzbekistan, that's huge when we talk about Central Asia and the role that Central Asia is going to play in BRICS, in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Putin has talked about creating a Eurasian security arrangement. Understand what he's talking about. He is talking about creating a NATO for Russia and China in Eurasia that can work both sides of the issue. Hold back Europe, the United States and Europe. Hold back the United States and the Pacific. Uzbekistan is a centerpiece of that. And now he's gone and he's bringing in North Korea and Vietnam.

This man is playing chess at a level that, you know, nobody in the West understands. Okay. Switching gears. As we began this broadcast, the Wall Street Journal reported that the IDF announced that it cannot defeat Hamas in direct and public defiance of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government. What does that mean? We're at an existential stage of Netanyahu's political existence. He has positioned Israel, and I know there's a lot of pro-Israeli people out there, but understand Israel has lost this war, dramatically lost this war. And if they go to war with Hezbollah, as Netanyahu is promising to do, it will be the strategic defeat of Israel. I just hope people understand that. Understand

when Hezbollah releases drone footage that shows how it is mapped out the totality of the target set in northern Israel, when Hezbollah releases videos that show that they can at any time of their choosing take out the Iron Dome system or the David Sling system or the Arrow 3 system, that Israel has no effective ballistic missile defense, and that Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets which will enable them to blanket Israel on a daily basis from the top to the bottom, from the left to the right, from the river to the sea, with high precision missiles that will destroy everything they hit. That if Israel chooses to go to war with Hezbollah, it will be the physical destruction of Israel, not just the military defeat, but Israel

will be physically destroyed. The Israeli military knows this. They're not stupid. They understand they've been beaten in Gaza. What the spokesperson says is that Hamas is an ideology, and you cannot defeat an ideology. And this is true. You can't. You can't kill an ideology. In fact, what Israel is doing in Gaza is strengthening the Hamas ideology on a daily basis. Hamas is stronger today than they were on October 6th or October 7th. And they get stronger every day because Israel positions itself to fit the international definitions that have been put out there of apartheid state and genocide state. Israel has defeated itself. And this is what the public relations officer of the IDF is acknowledging. And notice that Netanyahu came out and said, no, no, no, no, no. Our mission is to

defeat. Did you see what the IDF high command did? They came out and said, no, no, no, no, no. We our mission is to defeat. Did you see what the IDF high command did? They came out and said the spokesperson was speaking about Hamas as an ideology. And we agree with everything he said. So now the military has come out and told Netanyahu, we don't agree with you. And now the question comes when he if Netanyahu orders this invasion. And just so people understand the seriousness of this, Israel, the military went out and cut a secret deal with Cyprus, sent their air force to Cyprus so that they could operate out of Cypriot bases. Why? Because they know Hezbollah is going to destroy their air bases. So they need to relocate to Cyprus to carry out, continue the war. Hezbollah,

of course, found out and told Cyprus, we will destroy you too. And look what Cyprus just did. We have nothing to do. They know what the reality is. The IDF knows what the reality is. Netanyahu lives in a political fantasy land. So tell me a little bit more about the extent of Netanyahu's power. I mean, I couldn't imagine General Pat Ryder, an innocuous person, but the spokesperson for the Pentagon. I couldn't imagine him holding a press conference saying Ukraine can't win and we're wasting our money there in defiance of the White House. Is Netanyahu the commander in chief of the IDF? How can the IDF defy him, even if he's wrong and the IDF is based on reality? Israel's a strange puppy. First of all, they don't have a constitution. They have laws, basic laws. The prime minister

is not the commander-in-chief, the singular commander-in-chief. The prime minister must operate in wartime with a war cabinet. Go back and look at 1973, the Yom Kippur War, or in 1967, and read the histories of Israeli decision-making during that conflict. It wasn't the prime minister dictating. The prime minister has to bring in a cabinet and get consensus, a war cabinet, a war team that has consensus on this. And an important part of this war team is the Israeli defense force. And so, you know, it's different. You can't make the direct contrast between Israel and the United States. In the United States, military-civil relationships are defined by the Constitution. The military works exclusively for the executive who is the commander

in chief. Netanyahu is not the commander in chief. Netanyahu is the prime minister, and decisions are made by a war cabinet. And right now, the war cabinet has collapsed. Benny Gantz, a major opposition figure who had propped up this war cabinet, has resigned. Others have resigned. Now, Netanyahu has surrounded himself with far-right people who have no knowledge of military events, and they're encouraging this strike into Hezbollah, etc. But the military is there as a check and a balance to make sure that decisions aren't made that are politicized in nature, that the greater good of Israel is considered. And right now the military knows that to go to war against Hezbollah is literally to

invite the physical destruction of Israel. So the IDF is not considering, notwithstanding what the skirmishes that have been going on up there, notwithstanding what Netanyahu has been saying, the IDF is not considering war with Hezbollah because they know the consequences which you've just described. The IDF is prepared for any possible option that is required by the situation. I'm not saying... If they defeat Hamas, how are they going to defeat Hezbollah? Well, again, the IDF is not going to go to war against Hezbollah to preserve Netanyahu's political power.

Right. that it has in and of itself reached an existential nature that Israel has no choice but to respond militarily, but in which case Israel understands the consequences, that the consequences of doing nothing outweigh the consequences of actually going to war. Right now, the IDF believes that this situation can be managed. I think you're going to start seeing political consensus in Israel move towards a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that brings an end to that conflict and therefore brings an end to the conflict in the north and therefore preserves Israel's political, economic, and territorial integrity. But to expand this conflict invites disaster, and the IDF isn't in the business of inviting disaster.

Their job is to avoid disaster or counter disaster. How accepted by the Israeli people is the, and this is going to be a guess on your part, because the announcement was just made literally 20 minutes ago by the IDF that it cannot defeat Hamas. Does the Israeli public understand that, notwithstanding October 7th, notwithstanding the suppression of free speech, notwithstanding the one-sided news that the Netanyahu government has been feeding them? Well, understand that in Israel, there's actually a free press. I mean, they are constrained by military censorships and talking about specific military operations. But for instance, Haaretz has been very critical of this. And Haaretz has been, you know, putting out opinion pieces that say the exact same thing that the Israeli spokesperson said, that Hamas isn't being defeated, can't be defeated. Haaretz regularly interviews former generals, former Mossad, senior Mossad officials who say the same thing. And so I would say in the Israeli people, I mean, you know, I don't believe that they've fundamentally changed

their interior, their internal dynamic. They're very politicized people, very well read on the issues. If you bring, the old joke was you bring six Israelis together and for dinner, you're going to have a six-way debate and all points will be equally argued with equal intensity and backed up by facts, you know, because life is nuanced. It's not black and white, it's gray and the Israelis know this. So I think that the Israeli public isn't going to reject this. This war has become heavily politicized. The Zionist element, the pro-Zionist element, the right wing of Israel understands that this is an existential fight for their political survival, that as goes Netanyahu, so do they go.

And they know that if he is compelled to resign or if he is pushed out of power, they have lost their hold on power. And so there's that element going on in Israel today. I just want to remind everybody that the president of Israel warned the Israeli people and the world before October 7th that because of the internal struggles against Netanyahu about what he was trying to do, changing basic law, taking control of the judiciary. The president said Israel is in grave danger of entering a civil war, a civil war, not civil conflict, not civil disobedience, a civil war. And this was before October 7th. Those societal fractures still exist today. And that makes Israel a very dangerous place. How precarious is Israel today, militarily, economically, diplomatically? Diplomatically, Israel is isolated in the world today and it's not recoverable. Israel will never recover its position. Diplomats have disgraced the state. Take a look at the performance of the

Israeli ambassador at the United Nations. He's become a literal walking, talking meme, you know, which puts Israel in a bad light. The world has turned its back on Israel. Even America, the last supporter of Israel, is starting to say, we're not giving you weapons. We're not going to permit this. We're not going to allow this to happen. You know, Netanyahu chastising an American president on TV, that's political suicide. It doesn't happen in Israel. Prime ministers don't speak out against the United States, who is the lifeline they must have. It shows how desperate Netanyahu is. So politically, he's done. Politically, as I said, Israel, I firmly have endorsed the analysis of other people who are smarter on Israel than I am, that Israel is actually, it's not going to survive the decade as Israel. It can't. Economically, it's devastated. It will never recover from this. Politically, it's fundamentally divided. And the thing that gives Israel the foundation upon which it is built in the present period, these settlers, this concept

of a single Israeli state is a discredited ideology that will be deconstructed in the coming years as the world pushes for a two-state solution. And the process of trying to build a two-state solution will cause Israel to break up and demobilize. You'll see millions of Israelis with dual citizenship flee a country that's no longer worth living in. And then we're going to be looking at a one-state solution. So Israel is finished militarily. The bottom line is Israel is a nation that had access to high technology

and it sought to exploit this unilateral advantage to maintain supremacy. But at the end of the day, war is about a boot on the ground. It's about the quality of the foot in the boot. And the quality of the Israeli foot in the Israeli boot on the ground of Gaza ain't that good. They're getting wiped out. We're talking the Israelis are You know, we're talking, the Israelis are acknowledging, you know, 11, 12 dead a day. The fact is they may be losing 40, 50 dead a day, unsustainable. 70,000 permanently injured Israeli soldiers.

I saw that number this morning, Scott, and I was astounded because I saw it on social media. I didn't see it in the New York Times or hear it on Fox News or see it on the Washington Post. Is that confirmed? 70,000 permanently injured IDF? This is civilian army. This is not an army like we have. The Israeli Defense Force, I believe, is the one that's released this figures really. And also in relationship to the. But again, you got to understand, you know, the Israelis build decent equipment. Again, I come back to the technology. So when you're when you're in a murk of a tank and it gets hit by a projectile that under normal circumstances would kill the tank crew, there's a survivability factor. But it doesn't mean that the guys inside are okay. We're looking at traumatic brain injuries. So they might be

physically okay, but the brain is jelly. We're looking at permanent disfigurement from burning, lost limbs, cracked limbs, broken spines. The amount of paraplegics and quadriplegics and people who've lost their arms and their legs in this conflict is beyond belief. The medical cost alone, if the war ended, just the medical cost of sustaining this many casualties. Take a look at the global war on terror and what it did to the Veterans Administration here in America as people started pouring into a system that wasn't designed to absorb this many problematic cases. People with, again, traumatic brain injury. We don't know how to deal with PTSD. We haven't figured out. That's why there's 22, 26 veterans a day

committing suicide here. It's going to be a problem for Israel as well. How universal is the disgust for the behavior of the IDF in Gaza? Example, the IDF called about a 12-hour pause in fighting. The prime minister condemned the pause, infighting. The prime minister condemned the pause, which is what prompted me to ask you, isn't he the commander in chief? I now understand that he's not. And then gangs of Israeli fanatics blocked the aid from coming in while the IDF stood by and allowed them to do it. This must produce revulsion throughout the world. So my question, how universal, you have your finger on the pulse of these things from your sources around the world, how universal do you think is the revulsion at the behavior of the Netanyahu government and the IDF in Gaza? It's a complicated question, so I'm going to give you a complicated answer. I probably know it's probably not what you want or your audience wants, but it's the truth. The revulsion that we

see is superficial in nature. And what I mean by that is, yes, we're revolted by it. We look at it and we say, oh, that's horrible what they're doing. And people are jumping on the bandwagon because it's easy to do. That is easily condemned until you dig down into it and understand that every nation in the world is capable of doing what Israel is doing. Every nation in the world is capable of dehumanizing. You know, we're a nation in the United States that used to sink Japanese trawlers during World War II. And as the Japanese swam to be rescued, we machine gunned them down because we hated the Japanese that much. What we did in Korea, people don't talk about what we did in Korea during the Korean War to Korean civilians,

blowing up bridges with tens of thousands of Koreans on the bridges because we just didn't care about them. We only cared about ourselves. Every nation has this selfishness where it comes down to, when it comes down to issues of existential survival, we are capable of doing horrendous wrong. And so, yes, nations, we are condemning Israel, but I would be careful about putting too much weight on this because at the end of the day, most people who are in a position related to the security understand that thereto but for the grace of God go they. That if they were called upon to do, look at how Europe treats the refugees that come in from Africa. None of what you're saying can minimize for an iota the genocide that's going on. I'm not seeking to minimize it at all. What I'm trying to say is I can guarantee you right now that if America was put in a similar situation, we'd be committing genocide. I can guarantee that.

And so that's all I'm trying to say. I know your argument is profound, Scott. It's subtle, profound, and historically based. And you even left things out like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You know, you left a lot of things out. Putting Japanese in concentration camps. Correct. Japanese and Americans. FDR looking the other way on December 6th, 1941, knowing damn well what was coming after we had cut off the full supply of oil to the

Japanese. Okay, I don't want to get carried away. There are many, many, many examples slaughtering the Native Americans. There are many examples of what you're- None of it justifies what Israel is doing today. None of it justifies what Israel, and Israel's paying the price. Understand that, that Israel is paying the price. Back to my question. How isolated has Israel made itself, whether that isolation is a revulsion at the public behavior of their diplomats, or whether that revulsion is caused by the Arab street and the revulsion of the billion Muslims in the world, all of whom live within a few hours, or most of whom live within a few hours of Israel? It's real. The revulsion's real. And Israel, I don't think, will recover from it. I only brought up, again, there's a difference

between fact and perception. The fact of Israel's genocide is indisputable. It's there. It's real. It's disgusting. It must be condemned. The people who jump on this, though, I would say that many of them are jumping on because it's a cause. They're jumping on a cause. They don't fully understand things. And we need to guard against looking at pure numbers because many of the numbers that we see that are jumping on Israel are doing so without a full understanding and comprehension of why they're jumping on it and without a full recognition that, again, looking in the mirror, there before the grace of God, go you. People should really reflect on how they behave in a similar situation. That's all I'm saying. It's very easy to jump on this because Israel's behavior is so abhorrent.

It's so disgusting. I guess what I'm driving at is if Israel doesn't stop, notwithstanding what what the IDF said an hour ago. Is a state actor likely, well, which will more likely happen? Israel will burn out and be defeated for the reasons you've just articulated, or a state actor, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, will get involved because enough is enough, and the state actor is under pressure from the people in that state, which is more likely in your view, Scott Ritter, to bring about an end to the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. Israel burns out. Again, Judge, this is the point I'm trying to make. Why would Turkey, have you seen what Turkey does to the Kurds? Turkey has no moral high ground to intervene. Turkey's not going to's in no moral high ground to intervene.

Turkey's not going to intervene on the moral high ground. Turkey will stand by and let Israel burn out and try and manage it to their benefit. If Israel truly cared about the Palestinian people, they would have shut down the oil pipeline coming out of Azerbaijan a long time ago. They haven't because Turkey looks at a larger picture. Look at all the Arab nations that have sat around and not done a damn thing as Israel commits to genocide against the Palestinian people. Why? Because they're willing to live with it. They'll condemn it, but they're not willing to stop it because in many ways, managing this has always been to their benefit. They've sacrificed the Palestinian people over and over and over again. Iran cares about the Palestinian people, but strategically, I think

Iran and Hezbollah, who likewise cares about them, understand that the long-term benefit to the Palestinian people accrues with the termination of Israel, and why not just let Israel burn itself out? And this is a decision, likewise, that Senwar has made himself. He has given presentations where he said, we know, we knew what was going to happen in Gaza. We knew what Israel was going to do, but this is a sacrifice we had to make in order to get a Palestinian state. Next month, if he's still in office, Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to address a joint session of Congress. The Republicans have already said the last time he was here, we interrupted his speech with 55 standing ovations in a 40-minute

speech, Scott, and we have to break that record this time around. Who knows what the Congress will vote and Joe Biden will go for from and as a result of the speech if he gives it. Question, does it matter how much ammunition and military supplies we send them if they are doomed nevertheless? Israel said that they can't defeat an ideology, which means it doesn't matter how many bombs, airplanes, missiles we send to Israel. Hezbollah has demonstrated that they will defeat Israel's defenses no matter how many bombs, radars, missiles we sent. It doesn't matter. It's a waste of money and it prolongs a conflict

that only brings endless suffering to the Palestinians, to the Israelis, to everybody involved. It doesn't matter. But this is the stupidity of Congress, which again falls back upon a methodology that dates back to General Eisenhower's famous farewell address where he warned about the Military-Industrial Commission, the Military-Industrial Congressional Complex, and the role that money plays. The sickness of America is manifest in that we sustain conflict because it's good for our economy.

Scott, you are my friend and professional collaborator, but I have to say your knowledge of all of this is extraordinary and your ability to synthesize it and explain nuance is second to none. And I am deeply grateful for our work together and for the time that you spend on the show. Thank you so much, my dear friend. I know you had a power outage earlier today, so we weren't sure if this was going to happen. It's 100 degrees out here in the northeast of the United States. I'm glad your air conditioning is back on. I had to turn it on.

I have recess. So my makeup person has to come in and get the... Thank you, buddy. Thank you for everything. We'll see you again next week. I hope your house turns nice and cool in the next hour or so. Thank you. nuanced, profound conversations that we've been able to share with you here on Judging Freedom because of his extraordinary knowledge of history and of the world and his personal courage. Coming up at four o'clock, the inimitable Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. freedom.