Judging Freedom - SPECIAL: Alastair Crooke - The US an outcast at the UN

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

In this special episode of #JudgingFreedom , we are honored to host for the second time this week, former British Ambassador Alastair Crooke for an in-depth exploration of the United States' position as an apparent outcast at the United Nations. With his extensive diplomatic background, Ambassador Crooke offers unique insights into the dynamics shaping the relationship between the U.S. and the international community. From examining diplomatic standoffs to dissecting global perceptions, this episode provides a nuanced perspective on the factors contributing to the United States' status as an outlier at the UN. Join us for a compelling conversation that delves into the complexities of international relations, shedding light on the intricate dance of power, diplomacy, and global governance.#UnitedNationsSee 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 Friday, December 22nd, 2023, just three days till Christmas. It's big brain time for the second time this week. Our dear friend Alistair Crook has agreed to come back to us in light of recent developments in the Middle East and in Ukraine and in Washington and elsewhere. Alistair, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show and thank you for double duty this week. Much appreciated by your humble host and by all of our happy viewers.

Thank you. Are Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu headed for a collision, a political and diplomatic collision? Oh, yes. Very much so. They're heading for one because this is precisely what Netanyahu wants um he wants

to use the united states to suggest that it's the united states that is blocking his plans for a new uh a new independence war for israel this grand sort of war which is going to be civilization, Western civilization, against Hamas and against evil around the world. So he needs this in order to, for his own political needs in Israel. So yes, and the collision is coming very clearly on that and on the two-state solution and even on what's happening in Gaza. It's certainly coming. The big one will, of course, be Lebanon, which will be not far off. What will the nature of the collision be over Lebanon?

Will Netanyahu expect the United States to tell Iran to force, if you follow me, Hezbollah to sit still? I think that's unlikely because they know Iran would not do that and would not claim to be able to do that. It's coming because at the moment, the United States is betting heavily on its envoy, together with the French, to persuade Hezbollah to withdraw from the south of Lebanon, either behind the Litani or 11 kilometers away from the border in the south, so that the Israelis that were displaced at the start of the conflict, if you like, after 7 October, can go back home to their homes and their villages and towns

near to close to the northern border. Now, what has been agreed and green-lighted, is that Israel should not attack and try and destroy Hezbollah, if you like, during this period in which they're trying to negotiate an outcome by which Hezbollah voluntarily withdraws from Lebanon. But by implication, it's very clear that they expect Hezbollah to be destroyed or an attempt to destroy it if those negotiations do not bear fruit. And just to take you back, because it's important context, this was the original proposal in the 2006 war. This was the idea, was that Israel should destroy Hezbollah, and then America and French troops, American and French troops, would take their place on the border, southern border of Lebanon, and protect Israel. And, you know, it's fairly obvious. i know hezbollah quite well i mean they're not going to withdraw uh from from the southern borders in fact the tempo of uh exchanges military exchanges

which has not reached its full limit or its potential is still ongoing and is becoming quite fierce so this is coming and then of I mean, whether you like it or not, the United States is going to be engaged in this because they're setting this up for what will be an attack on Hezbollah now probably towards the end of January, because that's the date which the defense minister has told those residents of the northern territories that they're going to return home that day. So that implies that Hezbollah, one way or another, is going to be not there. They don't want to see Hezbollah on the fence.

They don't want to see their phalanx. They don't want to see their fighters on the other side of the fence. The residents have made that very plain to the Israelis, say, we're not going back until you've moved Hezbollah. And so there's a commitment. But does Netanyahu not recall the last time Israel and Hezbollah fought? Do they somehow think that the IDF can fight two wars on two fronts? The IDF has barely degraded. We'll get to that in a minute. Hamas in Gaza, can it neutralize Hezbollah in the north? I think it's very unlikely to do that at all.

Not only unlikely, I think it's virtually impossible. Like in 2006, Israel will think that it knows where the arms depots and the weapons and the missiles are located, and it will claim, as it did in 2006, that it's going to destroy all of its missile resources. And of course, there was nothing there. There was false intelligence. And I don't think it'll be very different this time around. And Hezbollah, the point about Hezbollah is that they have, first of all, forces, the Radwan force, on the border, ready to go into Israel on this occasion,

take the fight inside Israel. And beyond that, they have about 150,000 smart cruise missiles hidden around Lebanon. So if Israel does attack, it's going to be something quite major and catastrophic for Israel, I believe. Do we know if, as we speak, December 22nd, Hezbollah has entered Israel? No, not physically. No, they have not entered Israel. They're firing from the Lebanese side of the border, and Israel is firing back into Lebanon and at targets of Hezbollah inside Lebanon. But they haven't yet moved any troops. But the Radwan forces, which are probably about 6,000, 10,000 men,

very experienced, very tough fighters, I know are waiting there in case they get the order from the Secretary General to go in and take the Galilee. Yesterday, I had a conversation with our colleague, Professor John Mearsheimer, and I asked him his opinion of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the IDF in degrading Hamas fighters in Gaza. I'd like your thoughts on this as well. Here's what Professor Mearsheimer had to say. I would submit that Israel has lost the PR war catastrophically. You tell me if they've even made a dent in Hamas. Well, it's very hard to say

exactly how much damage they've done to Hamas because there's just not much information. The Israelis control who gets into Gaza, who gets out, what they see. And therefore, there's not a lot of hard facts in the media. And that includes the Israeli press as well. My sense is that they're not doing very well at all. First of all, the Israelis only control about 40% of Gaza. Just think about it. They control 40%. That means the other 60% is territory where Hamas can go and the Israelis can't get at them. Second, the Israelis have not captured any hostages. That's quite surprising.

If they haven't captured any hostages, that probably tells you a lot about their ability to find the Hamas fighters. Furthermore, if you look at the number of people that the Israelis have killed, the number is about 20,000, as you said before. And most people agree that about 70% of that 20,000 is women and children. So that would be 14,000. That means that the Israelis have killed 6,000 males. Now, those 6,000 males were certainly not all Hamas fighters. Most of them, I'm sure, were innocent civilians. So let's say of the 6,000, 4,000 were civilians and 2,000 were Hamas fighters. I don't think that's the likely number, but let's give the Israelis the benefit of the doubt. That says

that they've killed 2,000 Hamas fighters. Well, most people argue that Hamas had 30,000 to 40,000 fighters to start with. If they had 30,000 to 40,000 fighters and they've killed 2,000, that means they have a whole heck of a lot of fighters left. If his numbers are accurate and he's using publicly available numbers as well as his own gifted analysis, the IDF has killed 18,000 civilians and only 2,000 Hamas, and there's 28,000 Hamas remaining. And we don't know how many IDF fighters have been killed because the Israelis won't release those numbers. What's your take on the numbers analysis, Alistair? Well, like the professor, we can't give you an empirical figure for the, if you like, losses from Hamas. But what he says is correct. Broadly, that's absolutely right.

I mean, I would think that the losses of Hamas is perhaps between 1,000 to 3,000 out of a force of, as he said, 30,000 total. What's interesting is we don't know what are the Israeli losses. They're being kept very secret. There have been rumors. We saw sort of rumors in the press. I'm talking about the Hebrew losses, they're being kept very secret. There have been rumors. We saw sort of rumors in the press. I'm talking about the Hebrew press, not the English language press. In the Hebrew press, they are much, much larger than is being admitted, but the censor won't allow it to be published, and that wherever there is a suggestion of this, it's been taken down.

So we don't know. Are we talking hundreds or thousands in terms of IDF casualties? It's in thousands that it is. But I stress this is unconfirmed. This is in sort of Hebrew has been surrounded. So we just don't know. But there is generally a sense and an unease in Israel that their losses are much, much larger than the IDF are admitting because of censorship. Everything is censored there by the military censor. So we don't know. Certainly, they've lost a lot of tanks and vehicles. That we can confirm because we see them on the videos that Hamas and others publish every day.

They've lost lots and lots of MAKOVA tanks and personnel carriers. So they've lost people. There's no doubt. And Professor Mearsham is exactly right. And it underlines the bigger point here is, you know, that Biden has been tying the United States to this bet, but it's not a very sensible one. He's betting on the Israelis saying, as they said at the outset, oh, we'll go into Gaza and we'll destroy Hamas.

And it's not happening. And that means that, you know, all that we're going through, all the anger about why is there no ceasefire, resolutions at the UN, everyone getting very angry about this. What's it being done for? Well, not for any military logic now. I mean, they're in Gaza with tanks and things, but Hamas is 50 to 60 meters beneath them

and is not engaging at this stage. It's keeping its powder dry. Let's get back to Biden and Netanyahu and the clash between them. Both have a lot of problems on their hands. Netanyahu has the clash between them, they both have a lot of problems on their hands. Netanyahu has two criminal prosecutions and an extremely low personal popularity rate, even though the Israeli public is overwhelmingly, even the Israeli left, it appears, is overwhelmingly behind this catastrophic invasion. Biden, of course, is doing very poorly in the polls here against former President Trump and even against other potential Republican nominees. He's facing a

potential impeachment. I think it's specious, but it's going to happen. But more importantly, he's going to be facing an American public, I think, utterly repulsed by what the IDF is doing, by these Gestapo tactics. How much longer will it be before he does what our friend Max Blumenthal said and picks up the phone and says, Bibi, stop it now or you won't get anything else from us. I know that's a very common sort of sentiment in the United States, but actually I'm not sure how meaningful it really is that given the political, if you like, context of the US, the situation of Congress in respect to AIPAC and the lobby and all of that,

and where the funding comes from for elections in the US. How far can he go? Can he go face to face with the lobby, with AIPAC, and face them down and say, no, I'm going to stop all the support for Israel. There's still support in the United States. I mean, it's not the case with the younger generation, up to 34, 18 to 34. But amongst the older generation, there is still support for Israel, not necessarily for Netanyahu, necessarily for the actions that Israel has taken, but for the sort of generic idea of Israel per se, there is still broad support in the US. So can he cut them off? I'm not sure. You may be a better judge of that than I, But I'm just saying he's being led down the primrose path by Netanyahu because

he seems to have bought into the idea that this military operation in Gaza is going to lead to the end of Hamas, and it clearly is not. Well, not only is it not going to lead to the end of Hamas. It clearly constitutes war crimes, war crimes that probably would be impossible to commit without American moral support and American equipment and ammunition. Vladimir Putin was indicted for a war crime, and it consisted of saving babies and moving them from a dangerous area against their parents' will, but from an area where they might be killed to an area where they were safe. And he was indicted for a war crime. These war crimes are horrific and Gestapo and SS-like. So question, if Bibi Netanyahu and his team are liable for war crimes, is Joe Biden and his team comparably liable? Because they provided the means without which the war crimes could not have been

executed. I think that's clearly the case, because there is direct involvement and direct support for it in terms of providing flights with ammunition for tanks and whatever. But I think the other thing that's so important, perhaps we're missing a little, is, you know, the effect. Even now, anger in the Security Council, I mean, it's amongst Europeans. I'm not talking about just the Arab states. But look what's happening in states like Saudi Arabia. There was a poll done just there in Saudi Arabia just now. And it was done by the Washington Institute, which, as you know, is not a sort of pro-Hamas or pro-friendly organization, quite the contrary. But it showed that 96% of Saudis believe that Arab states should cut their link to Israel.

96% believe that there should be an immediate cutting of all links to Israel until the fighting stops, until a ceasefire takes place. 40% of Saudis now support Hamas, a big increase from what it was before. And 95% of Saudis just don't believe the Israeli narrative about what happened on the 7th of October in terms of rape and beheadings and other things. They just don't believe all that. So, I mean, you know, the region is really boiling. And so when there is no ceasefire, I mean, it's a big bet that is being taken. And this is why I say many ways, you know, the United States,

Biden has tried to use this tactic of embracing Israel, sending senior individuals, senior staff member after another to say, we love you, we're going to support you, whatever happens, to try and, if you like, preempt any criticism that the U.S. isn't supporting Israel. And at the same time, he is trying to preempt, if you like, what happens in Lebanon or what happens in Yemen against the Yemenis or in Syria or wherever else by the United States taking charge of it and sort of controlling it and managing it. But, you know, inevitably, if that goes wrong, then the United States gets pulled further and further into this wider war.

I mean, it's already had to back down on Yemen. It's no longer going to attack Yemen directly. It is going to provide an air umbrella, firing 25 million value missiles back at the Yemeni missiles and drones that they make for about $2,000 each. So, I mean, but you get pulled in. It's going to be sure. Maybe the Yemenis will fire one of their missiles at an American ship. It's quite possible. And then also in Lebanon, get pulled into this because, you know, if you break Lebanon, you own it, basically. And this is, you know, if you break Clemenceau, you own it, basically. And this is, I mean, there's no doubt that the United States has said, Austin was very clear.

He just said, listen, you know, to Netanyahu and others, he said, listen, you know, please don't attack them until we've finished our diplomatic track a bit, please. I mean, so it's clear that there's a green light there. Security Council in order to vote on an utterly watered down and probably a useless resolution, the only way they could get the United States not to veto it, which basically calls for humanitarian aid. It doesn't use that dreaded word, which Blinken and Biden won't allow the American delegate to vote in favor of a ceasefire. What is the significance?

And we'll play the UN, actually let's play her first and then I'll let you comment on it. This is the American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, cut number nine, Chris. We have worked hard and diligently over the course of the past week with the Emiratis, with others,

with Egypt, to come up with a resolution that we can support. And we do have that resolution now. We're ready to vote on it. The draft resolution is not watered down. The draft resolution is a very strong resolution that is fully supported by the Arab group that provides them what they feel is needed to get humanitarian assistance on the ground. So who won here? Did the United States win by getting everybody else to come along with this watered down, okay, let some trucks through, but the IDF can keep killing? Or did international pressure cause the United States

to cave so that it looks like something is being done? Or, I'm sorry, the question is so long-winded, is nothing being done effectively to stop the slaughter of civilians in Gaza. Yes, I mean, this resolution fully is aligned with Israel and Israeli policy. There's nothing else to say. They'd worked very hard, and she's right on that, to come up with a line, first of all, that it won't be a ceasefire, but it could have a brief cessation of hostilities. That was cancelled. That was taken out of the draft. And the draft now makes no reference to a cessation or a pause or a diminution.

It just says urgent steps to create conditions, create conditions for sustainable ceasefire. No date, no time, nothing. So there's nothing there in that. But the worst part of it, which she didn't mention and which is most significant, the main part of this resolution was about giving the United Nations control over the humanitarian aid going in. They would be responsible for inspecting it, checking it didn't have weapons, and they would have also, most importantly, responsible for directing what was necessary to go into Gaza. That has been taken out too, in a very washed down version, which said that the UN will appoint some sort of coordinator who will coordinate with all interested parties on what goes in and how

much and when, which of course is Israel. So really there was nothing in, I mean it's a meaningless resolution there's a lot of anger about it of course but that's i mean i i think probably it was a mistake that it would have been better to get the us to just uh have a plain you know vanilla resolution and have it vetoed than to go forward and say well this is a wonderful resolution achieve achieve something, because it doesn't. And the IDF is going to refrain from killing UN inspectors and monitors and whatever they are, because it hasn't refrained from killing them thus far.

No, and there have been events just recently with the other recently opened crossing, Karimsham crossing. There's been an attack on that. recently opened crossing Karimshem crossing. There's been an attack on that, and some of the UN have been affected. So, no, there's no change. Israel remains in charge of what goes into Gaza, and it does its slow methodical inspections of every single truck carrying water, food, or whatever it's taking in to make sure there is nothing hidden in it in some part.

So no change. So where do you see this going in the next five or six months? At one point, the Americans said, I think Tony Blinken or maybe Jake Sullivan, the heavy military activity in Gaza would be over before the end of the year. Well, the end of the year is nine days from today. Pardon my math. That doesn't look likely, does it? No. In fact, it's got more intense in these last days.

The attacks in Gaza have become more intense. I don't think that's going to happen. I think what the turning point is going to be when, you know, Israelis themselves turn on the government and say, well, you're not achieving your objectives. Hamas is still there. And now you're talking about someone taking over Gaza, whereas we wanted everything to be completely annihilated and removed and Gaza cleared. And I think at this point there will be a need for diversion. annihilated and removed and Gaza cleared.

And I think at this point there will be a need for diversion. And so I think at that point the government will look for something to divert attention, be it in the West Bank, be it on Temple Mount with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, albeit in Lebanon. Already, as I say, the tempo of fighting in Lebanon is increasing in the lead up to when they have the justification, when, if you like, the Israeli citizen who's the UN, who is the negotiator there, Amos Hochstein, says, well, I failed to persuade Hezbollah to remove themselves

behind the Litani. Of course, he's not even talking to Hezbollah. He's only talking through intermediaries to Hezbollah, and I don't think Hezbollah is even engaging in this discussion. You recently published a piece pointing out the, at least by American standards, odd phenomenon of the Israeli left detesting Prime Minister Netanyahu as a person, but fully supportive of the efforts to wipe out Gaza. Is it fair to say that the events of October 7 and the past two months have united the Israeli public behind the government, behind the government's policy, but not behind Benjamin Netanyahu personally? Yeah. I mean, this is the second huge change taking place in Israel. The first change was just over a year ago when there was a rotation of power and the Mishrahi element of Israeli society, that is Jews who came from North Africa or from the Middle East, took power with a very radical agenda and moved the government very sharply to

the right and now in the wake of october the 7th we see that there's been an even greater shift by at least a third of the population to support those sort of policies that that government was advocating i more settlements in the west bank more tough if you like military measures in gaza and even the end of um two-state idea altogether that they can't live with palestinians here that there needs to be population withdrawal removal Alistair Crook, my dear friend, almost literally on Christmas Eve, you're good enough to give us a portion of your time. Thank you very, very much from my heart for all you've done for us this past year. We have a short week next week, and if you're available, we'd love to chat with you, sort of big picture on the lessons of 2023. Of course, the government never learns lessons.

It just does whatever it thinks it can get away with politically, but we can derive lessons from its behavior. But Alistair, thank you so much, my dear friend. And a happy Christmas to you. Thank you. And to you and your family. Coming up today, a new guest, Gary Barnett, who's an expert on the evils of government.

Do we even need government in the West? An entity that survives on lying, stealing, and killing. That's at 1 o'clock. At 3 o'clock, our intelligence roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. And at 5 o'clock, we haven't forgotten him. He hasn't forgotten us. Max Blumenthal is the IDF, the new Gestapo. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.