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Aug. 28, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:05
Phil Giraldi: Israel Will Bleed US Dry
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, August 28, 2024.
Phil Giraldi joins us now.
Phil, we have a lot to talk about, not the least of which is a 30,000-word piece apparently coming out in 10,000-word segments by the New York Times purporting to investigate.
The terror that Jewish settlers have put Palestinians through and the complicity of the state of Israel in this terror.
I also want to talk to you about your piece at the UNS Review about how Israel will bleed America dry and then discard us like an old shoe.
Only Giraldi could come up with that phrase.
God love you.
But before we do, Israel's foreign minister made an interesting announcement this afternoon.
Or earlier today, when he said he wants all Palestinians removed from what he calls Judea and Samaria.
What is he talking about, Phil Giraldi?
Well, he's basically talking about what the Palestinians would refer to as Palestine.
And what the UN refers to as the West Bank.
Yeah, that's right.
So in other words, he's saying, and this is the foreign minister speaking, so one assumes that it has official sanction for him to be coming out with this.
He's basically saying we're going to have them kind of move along for a while here in Judea and Samaria, which is the West Bank essentially and a little bit more.
And the idea being that these Now, you know, since October 7th, when this fighting, this new war broke out, there have been nearly 600 Palestinians who've been murdered by the Israeli security forces and by these armed settlers who are setting up their settlements illegally in this area.
And so, you know, the Palestinians are on the receiving end of this.
They've resisted in some cases.
There's been some pushback.
But, of course, they're basically not armed.
And they're perfect victims.
They live in villages.
They depend on agriculture for their livings, and the settlers go straight to their And so this is an insidious action going on.
And now the solution to it is to let's move these folks along.
This is a brilliant Israeli solution to a problem.
This is where the Palestinian Authority is.
How many Palestinians live in the West Bank?
And by the way, as you look at that map, what's missing there?
Gaza.
Yeah.
Gaza has already been absorbed, apparently.
I don't know what the actual numbers are.
I've seen numbers like 700,000.
In Israel right now, the total population, I'm saying Israel, but I'm saying Israel-Palestine, the total population is something like 9 million.
Of which 7 million are Jews.
But if you count the total population, there is, of course, a Palestinian state that kind of exists.
And you lump in all the people in the area.
Jews are now actually only 47% of what used to be Palestine.
The rest are Palestinians.
And they have no right.
They're under occupation.
And that's the way it is.
If everybody was allowed to vote, there'd be more Palestinian voters than Jewish-Israeli voters, right?
Right.
Roughly 20% of the Israeli citizen population is Palestinian.
So it's 80% that's Jewish.
But that's Israel proper.
If you live in Israel proper and were born there, but you're Palestinian and Arab, Yes, you do.
And there are Palestinian parties in the Knesset, which some years ago actually had a serious role in government, but that's disappeared as Israel has moved sharply to the right.
Does Israel consider the West Bank to be the Israeli states of Judea and Samaria?
The hardliners who are controlling the government, the Netanyahu government right now, essentially see Israel as becoming a Jewish state from the river, which is the Jordan River, to the Mediterranean Sea.
And it's funny, but this phrase has been used against the Palestinians, claiming that they are terrorists that want to take all this away from the Israelis.
Chris, put the map up again, please.
So the river is along the right side there, where it says Hebron, that's the river.
Where the A in Judea is, that's the river.
Where the M in Jerusalem is, that's the river.
Where the R in Samaria is, that's the river.
Do I have that right, Phil?
Yes, that's correct.
All right, so when they say from the river to the sea, they're talking about the light blue, the sea, the Mediterranean Sea, to the right side of the colors.
On this map, even though the West Bank is legally an occupied, under international law, an occupied territory, just as Gaza is occupied.
And under international law, the people who are occupied have a right and a duty to resist the occupiers, correct?
That's correct.
And I would also add that East Jerusalem.
Is occupied territory under international law.
This was, as the annexation of that has been recognized by the United States for some time, de facto.
And, of course, Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, declaring it to be the capital of Israel, which, again, is a violation of international law, of the agreements that were used to set up the two states What is the essence of this 30,000
-word New York Times piece?
Is it that the radical, violent Jewish settlers and the state of Israel have become as one, and their unlawful violence is overlooked or condoned or even rewarded by the state?
Yeah, that's precisely what it's saying.
And for the New York Times to be reporting this is quite astonishing.
The fact that the radicals or extremists, indeed is probably a better description of them, have been getting more powerful for certainly the time of my knowledgeable involvement in the Middle East over the last 30 years.
This has been a going on process.
Now under Netanyahu, they basically have the balance of power in the Knesset, which means that they control the government.
And they have made it very clear that they intend to have a state which is Jewish, which essentially incorporates what they call Greater Eretz or Greater Israel.
And it's going to be pretty much Palestinian free.
Is there any way that Netanyahu can be rid of these fanatics, or do they have a chokehold?
Oh, great map, Chris.
There's the Jordan River making it very clear.
And Phil, you can see the size of the West Bank.
At one point, it almost goes over to the Mediterranean Sea.
Where is the Palestinian Authority, what Yasser Arafat wants, headed?
That's in the West Bank, right?
Yeah, it's still on the West Bank, but it basically is under occupation in a way.
It has very little in the way of its own policing authority, and basically that policing authority is subsidized by the United States of America so that these police work with and cooperate with the Israelis.
So it's kind of a funny structure.
Palestinians don't trust it, don't trust their own provisional government.
And Hamas is much more popular among the Palestinian people than is Abbas.
Abbas meaning Abu Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority.
Right.
He's also about 86 years old, is he not?
Yeah, he is.
And that's even older than our president.
Right, right.
The government of Israel is run by fanatics.
Are they all fanatics or does a small group of them, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, have a chokehold on Netanyahu because of the coalition nature of achieving a majority in the Knesset?
Well, I would have to say that they're mostly fanatics or at least fanatics who control enough of the votes where if it comes down to that sort of reckoning, Interestingly enough, from what I've been reading, and I try to read the Israeli media, the liberal newspaper Haaretz has an English language edition, and it can be very good.
It's very critical of the government and actually is sympathetic with the plight of the Palestinians.
So this is kind of interesting, but the ones that have been surfacing lately, They have profound doubts about the fighting that's going on and where it's going to lead to and what it's going to develop into.
Now, it's funny you should say that because retired IDF Major General Yitzhak Barak.
I had an op-ed in Haaretz, and when I read to Colonel McGregor what I'm going to read to you in a moment, Colonel McGregor said, in his opinion, General Barak was expressing the views of many of his colleagues' generals still on active duty in the IDF or unable to speak out.
Here's what he said in his op-ed.
Israel will collapse in a year.
Netanyahu has decided to die with the Philistines.
He has lost his humanity, morality, norms, values, sense of responsibility.
At the same time, Ronan Barr, you know who that is.
the head of Shin Bet, their domestic surveillance entity like our NSA, condemned Ben Gavir's fanatics in the West Bank saying they spread Jewish Okay, how long can a government last when the chief domestic spy says that and when the recently retired Major General Barak says what he said?
And if McGregor is right, but this is representing the views of senior leadership in the IDF.
How much longer can Netanyahu survive?
Well, I'd have to say that's a judgment call.
And Colonel McGregor is probably one of the best judgments looking at that situation to describe what he thinks will come out of it.
So I would certainly respect what he said and the way he shaped it.
The rest of the comment I find, I have seen it before and it's certainly very compelling.
And Netanyahu is, in fact, you know, the monkey on the string and he's just hopping around from one defensive position to another.
And there's certainly a lot of people who once upon a time would have been called Israeli progressives, a dwindling number of them, who have seen this kind of same development.
in a country that began 75 years ago with an idea of being a kind of a liberal bastion in the Middle East of democracy and other values, and has gone in a completely different direction.
In your recent piece at UNS Review with the provocative title, "Israel will bleed America dry and discard it like an old shoe," you quoted Here's what he said.
My friends, if you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this.
Our enemies are your enemies.
Our fight is your fight.
Our victory is your fight.
Will be your victory.
Is there any truth in that, Phil?
No.
None whatsoever.
This is not our war.
It was never our war.
And one of the major things that keeps Netanyahu going is when he gets a clown in the White House that hands him a check for $20 billion to keep the fighting going, and every five days there's a full transport aircraft or a ship.
Landing or docking in Israel with weapons, 50,000 tons of weapons.
I like to think that my country has a better heart and a better soul than this.
But unfortunately, we don't seem to have it.
And the Israelis are certainly And this is our tragedy.
Does it matter?
I mean, I've often argued, I get in trouble with my conservative Republican friends, but I will say it anyway, that the choice between Vice President Harris and former President Trump is Tweedledee and Tweedledum on the issues that matter.
War and peace, debt, universal, warrantless surveillance.
On Israel, does it matter which of them wins the presidency in November?
Well, I would argue that it doesn't.
That essentially they're both owned by America's Israel lobby, and this has been accomplished by big dollops of money.
Going to candidates in both parties.
And the result of this is that when Netanyahu says jump, Joe Biden and Donald Trump jump as high as he wants.
And she's not going to be any better.
In fact, she might be worse because her ignorance, I think, is profound.
And she's into sound bites.
So we don't need another series of soundbites on what's going on in the Middle East.
Did Miriam Adelson either cut a deal or attempt to bribe Donald Trump by putting $100 million in a pro-Trump PAC political action committee and extracting some sort of a promise in return for it from the former president?
And if so, what did she want from him?
Well, we should go back one step before that.
Her husband, Sheldon, did give Donald Trump and the Republican Party $100 million, and the deal at that time was to move the Capitol and the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
So they got that.
Now, since he, Sheldon, has died and was buried at a hero's funeral in Jerusalem.
She has the fortune.
And their discussion apparently was in exchange for something similar, $100 million again.
She would want Donald Trump to concede that all of historic Palestine should become the new historic Israel.
Presumably Trump kind of nodded his head.
Meaning the Palestinians would be removed from Gaza, from the Golan Heights, well, the Syrians in the Golan Heights, and the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Yeah, I would presume they'll leave some Palestinians around to do the hard labor and that kind of thing.
But clearly there's a...
And that's what we're seeing play out.
And old Joe Biden could stop this by cutting off the $20 billion checks like the one he sent last week.
But of course, he's gutless.
He's not going to do it.
Bizarrely, he thinks he's doing the right thing.
What will Hezbollah and Iran do when the Israeli public policy of removing all Palestinians from the West Bank and from Gaza is perfected, or they attempt to perfect it?
I think they're going to be, I think what they're doing right now even,
If actually Netanyahu does move towards a total displacement of Palestinians, kicking them out into Jordan, into Syria, into Lebanon, it's going to depend on a united Arab worldview.
view, nation view, and that will be part of which the Syrians and Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iranians will play a major part.
That's how I see it developing.
I don't expect anything to happen very quickly, and they are being very careful about it.
When you write that Israel will bleed America dry and discard it like an old shoe, What do you mean?
And before you answer that, I'm sorry for doubling the questions and giving them in the wrong order.
What does the United States gain from giving 20 billion a year to the Netanyahu government?
Well, I would say nothing.
I think this is something that's tribute money, as has been referred to by some critics.
It's symbolic of the fact that Israel and its Domestic lobby here in the United States control major elements of U.S. policy, particularly foreign policy, and a number of other areas that could be cited.
And it shows who's in charge here, unfortunately.
The money, when I say "bleed us," the money is significant.
It's more significant than Thanks to Barack Obama, Israel gets a guaranteed $3.8 billion every October 1st.
That's when the fiscal year begins.
And they get it in cash and they can do whatever they want with it.
And it's often cited, "Oh, they only get $4 billion." Well, the fact is that some people like Grant Smith at IRMEP Have actually calculated a lot of the other stuff that's kind of under the shell there that's not quite visible.
And there are a bunch of charities.
Jared Kushner's family runs one of them that support these settlers, these illegal settlers.
In Israel.
And this is all a write-off from our treasury.
There are numerous charities of this type that support Israel and the Israel lobby.
And then there are a lot of co-production jobs that the United States government does with the Israeli government.
The Pentagon does them.
State Department does them.
And the real sum every year is like $15 billion in a direct giveaway to Israel.
What does that come to since the State of Israel was founded?
Well, the most recent figure I saw was that Israel, which is a country of, you know, a few million, like one of the boroughs of New York, and this country has received $270 billion since its founding.
That's one quarter of a trillion.
dollars going to Israel, which is multiples of what any other country in the world has received from the United States.
So no, the United States is the donor.
The United States gets nothing from the relationship.
Here's an example.
I love you, but I know this is going to raise your blood pressure.
Here's an example of Israeli diplomacy in action at the UN.
This is a gentleman.
By the name of Danny Denon, D-A-N-O-N, who is the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
He's now a roving ambassador, but for some reason he had the Israeli seat at the UN Security Council last Thursday.
Well, you will believe it because you're familiar with all this, but this is pretty brutal.
Here's what he said.
Cut number 10, Chris.
The representative of the Palestinian Authority.
He's still here.
He has been sitting in that chair for 20 years.
You have accomplished absolutely nothing.
Since October 7th, you have delivered hundreds of speeches, yet you have never uttered anything even resembling a condemnation of Hamas.
Mr. Mansour, if you cannot condemn them, you are one of them.
You do not represent the Palestinian people.
Mr. Mansour, you are a terrorist in a suit.
I demand you to condemn Hamas.
If you do not condemn them, you are one of them.
Is this what passes for diplomacy in the UN, or is this unique to Israeli, quote, diplomats?
Well, this is unique to Israeli mindset.
You see, Israel and...
And the Jews in general are always the victims in their mind.
And it's always someone else who's to blame for being, and of course, the popular expression is terrorists.
You know, these people are all terrorists.
How many Israeli government officials have said that we have to kill the Palestinian children, too, because they'll grow up to be terrorists?
So this is the mindset.
And it's like, all right.
We've held these people in a cage for 75 years now and driven many of them from their homes and then stolen their homes, and yet we are the victims.
Well, thank you, Mr. Danner.
Wow.
Thank you, Phil.
Tough stuff, but your analysis is so much appreciated by the audience and by me.
All the best, my dear friend.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
Thank you.
Of course.
We'll see you again next week, Phil.
Coming up later today at 4 o 'clock Eastern, Scott Ritter.
At 5.30 Eastern, always worth waiting for, and we wait for him, but he's a wonderful guy, Max Blumenthal.
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