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Sept. 10, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:04
Phil Giraldi : Did Trump Cause Oct. 7?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, September 11th, September 11th, 2024.
Phil Giraldi joins us now.
Phil, always a pleasure.
Thank you very much for joining us.
You forwarded to me an intriguing article, intriguing article, the gist of which is that Donald Trump is largely to blame for October 7th.
Before we get there, and it's a rational, logical article written by a person for whom you have respect, there is some breaking news from Ukraine, some of which is also off the wall.
Secretary Blinken and his British counterpart have just finished spending the day with President Zelensky, I should say former President Zelensky.
The Secretary announced a total of $617 million in new aid, all cash, all cash, going to Ukraine.
He announced, this is almost unbelievable, you can invest in Ukraine.
The government is sponsoring a $350 million insurance trust fund.
But just as absurd as these, Is cut number 19. Ukraine will join NATO.
Watch this.
It's important that the Ukrainian people continue to hear directly from us.
We remain fully committed to Ukraine's victory.
To not only ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself today, but can stand on its own feet strongly, militarily, economically, democratically, for many, many days ahead.
to securing the path the Ukrainian people have chosen toward greater integration in the Euro-Atlantic community, including the European Union and NATO.
Why would NATO even want Ukraine with its level of corruption and absence of democracy and now destruction over a war that NATO and Ukraine could have avoided?
Well, that's the point precisely.
I mean, in the past, some bids that were made by the British and the US to consider having Ukraine enter NATO, these were rejected by the majority of the countries in NATO because of the corruption,
because of the fact that The government was involved in hostilities with Russia that ebbed and flowed, and it was an invitation for World War III.
So there were a lot of good reasons why people objected to this, and I'm actually quite astonished that Blinken has come out with this in such an open way, because it's an idiotic proposal.
Just because we are arming and paying these people to fight on our behalf to weaken Russia, as our Secretary of Defense defines it, doesn't mean any of this makes any sense.
You know, he's poking the bear.
The whole reason for all of this is NATO wanting to join.
Is Ukraine wanting to join NATO?
Mrs. Newland, about which more in a minute, and her machinations to bring this about.
And now, when Ukraine is on its last leg, perhaps in an effort to salvage public opinion about it, at least through November 5th, he comes out with this statement, which he just made about an hour ago.
And another one.
Putin will not outlast Ukraine's resistance.
Just as equally as crazy, Phil.
Our message, our collective message to Putin is clear.
Our support will not wane.
Our unity will not break.
Putin will not outlast the coalition of countries committed to Ukraine's success, and he is certainly not going to outlast the Ukrainian people.
They've never wavered in their belief that they, and they alone, We'll decide their future.
Unless he and his British counterpart more or less said the opposite in private to Zelensky.
You gotta sit down.
You gotta start negotiating.
The public will is not there.
The money's going to dry up.
You're about to get slaughtered.
And this is the public front they're putting on.
I can't understand why he'd be making statements like that at a time like this.
Well, I think you hinted a little while ago that Elections are coming up.
So there's certainly a play going on there.
And certainly the Congress is somewhat committed to this path.
There's very little in the way of opposition coming out of our legislators.
So this is a kind of a weird deal.
It's sending messages, certainly, but the ultimate message is that Russia has them on their back heels and no amount of equipment that these poor bastards being dragged into uniform.
from off the streets in Ukraine are not trained to use, this is going to be sending people to the slaughterhouse.
And it is reminiscent in some ways of what's going on in Gaza.
I mean, it's just, don't these people have any sense of humanity, have any sense of detail?
One of the people we love to kick around, Victoria Nuland.
Over the weekend, came out with a statement in which she acknowledged that both Moscow and Kiev initially sought a diplomatic solution in early 2022, and that there was, in fact, an agreement which she and Boris Johnson broke up.
I don't know why she would make this acknowledgement.
You and our colleagues and I have gotten resistance for having insisted on this in the past.
Now the chief culprit admits that we were right all along.
Yeah, exactly.
And these are the choices that were out there, where if the United States had played the role of a decent intermediary between the sides, and this applies also, of course, to Israel Gaza, it would have been a totally different outcome, and you wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of dead people.
This is the most astonishing time in history in some ways.
I think 50 years from now, the historians will look back on that if the planet manages to survive World War III, and they will say this was pure insanity.
Where did they get these people and put them in these high positions when they clearly didn't understand how to put two and two together?
Can you outline the case made by this author friend of yours that decisions made in the Trump administration with respect to the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians laid the groundwork for October 7th?
Yeah, basically what he's saying, and I think the argument has a lot of credibility, he's saying that Trump did so many things.
In favor of Israel and against the Palestinians, that the Palestinians eventually reached the point when they realized, look, we've got no future here.
In fact, far from not having a future here, we are basically having a death certificate written for us.
We either leave or we get killed.
And that's what's going on.
And of course, he cites a number of different things.
He cites the fact that the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was declared to be the whole and undivided capital of Israel.
Whereas East Jerusalem, by prior agreements and international law, was supposed to become the capital of the Palestinian state.
So that's a dead issue.
And Trump also annexed the Golan Heights from Syria.
He also said that He approved of whatever Israel wanted to do in terms of the settlements on the West Bank, or if you want to call it Judea and Samaria, as they do.
And he did a whole lot of other things that basically, for example, the Abrahamic agreements that he tried to pull together that were conceived of by his son-in-law, Kushner.
These things were basically designed to give many of the Arab countries reasons to not support the Palestinians.
The United States would enter into security agreements with all these countries, and basically this would favor Israel, and Israel would have a free hand to do what they want to do.
And the Palestinians realized this.
That suddenly they wouldn't even have a voice speaking up for them.
Well, when the Abraham Accords were being negotiated by Jared Kushner and then pushed aggressively by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, had the Palestinians at least participated in the negotiations?
No.
They had no representative in the negotiations.
Well, what kind of an accord is that?
That's called an accord sending you down the river.
This is an abomination.
What is being done to the Palestinians and is being done to them over 75 years is just an abomination and it's being enabled by the United States, which is complicit in the war crimes and is complicit in the crimes against humanity.
And the United States has basically On top of everything else, blocked every attempt by international organizations to make the Israelis behave a bit better.
That's why they feel they have the license to kill anyone, including American citizens.
When Trump was president, did he state, if he supported, if he even understands this, the two-state solution?
Well, nominally, everybody supports the two-state solution, saying, oh yes, there will be a Palestinian state, and oh yes, there will be an Israeli state side by side.
but the reality is that the geography no longer supports that.
Israel relying on the Trump government In fact, he's even used the word annexed them.
And so what this has resulted, what was once potentially a viable Palestinian state on the West Bank, connected by a land corridor to Gaza, no longer exists.
All the Palestinian territories are fragmented.
They're divided up by roads that only Jews can use.
And there are checkpoints everywhere.
So they can't even go between the various parts that are presumed to be what might be the core of a Palestinian state.
There's no such thing anymore.
But the Golan Heights were stolen in 1981.
That's 43 years ago.
Surely an American president's recognition of that theft does not make it lawful, does not make it consistent with international law, does it?
Well, the only international law that it's consistent with is the fact that the occupiers, the people who are being occupied, have a right to resist, have a right to fight back.
And that's a law that the United States doesn't seem to recognize in terms of the Syrians or the Palestinians, or indeed the Lebanese.
Parts of Lebanon have been occupied by Israel for all these years, too.
A lot of these areas were in fact occupied initially after the war in 1967, the Six Day War.
And this was the first big Palestinian areas that were taken at that time, and they've been retained ever since.
And now, according to Donald Trump, and according to Joe Biden, hey, he hasn't reversed any of this, nor has he reversed the agreement that Obama came to to monitor the Iranian nuclear program.
Now, for no reason that one can even imagine, Trump Backed out of that, and essentially it gives Israel an excuse to get the United States to attack Iran.
They can claim Iran is a developing nuclear power and a threat to the United States.
Are Donald Trump and Joe Biden the first world leaders to condone and claim land theft on a massive scale is lawful?
Yes, they have.
Of course, they wouldn't phrase it quite that way.
But they essentially have looked the other way in terms of Trump actually condoning the annexation of land which is being stolen.
As we sit here, the settlers are attacking Palestinian farmers.
There have been attacks on a number of villages on the West Bank.
In the past week, in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed.
And Trump hasn't said a word about that.
He hasn't said hardly a word about the poor Turkish-American girl who was shot through the head by an Israeli sniper when she was protesting about one of these villages being overrun by these illegal and heavily armed settlers.
Here's what the State Department Do you actually condemn the actual act of killing an American citizen protesting?
The aggression of, let's say, the Israeli Occupational Army.
Condemn the act of the killing itself.
Let's just be very clear.
Of course, we would condemn the death.
The death of any American citizen is heartbreaking.
But let's be just very precise and clear that I am not going to speculate on what transpired on Friday.
As those facts and those processes are still being determined and adjudicated, and we're going to let that process play out.
It is troubling.
It is tragic.
And it's certainly, there is a responsibility here to share as much information as possible so that the But, Said, there is a process, and I'm just not going to get ahead of that.
And I'm not going to speak on behalf of our partners in Israel.
So you actually condemn the act of the murder of an American citizen?
Of course, Said.
The murder of any American citizen, we would take issue with.
He wouldn't say he condemned it.
With about 15 or 20 uhs, he said, of course, we would take issue with it.
Why are they afraid to call something what it actually is?
The murder of an innocent human being by putting a bullet in her head.
Yeah, they're terrified of crossing Israel and the Israel lobby in the United States.
That's what it is.
And the media.
Read the accounts of all these things.
They're always heavily weighted in favor of giving Israel kind of a pass.
And that's exactly what happens to the State Department.
Every time an American citizen is killed, Rachel Corey, the Shireen Abu Akka, and this killing, it's the same story.
Oh, the Israelis will investigate.
Well, they don't investigate.
And nobody ever gets punished.
In this case, there was a Haritz.
And that's an Israeli journalist standing right next to this woman.
And he saw the snipers, and he saw the sniper shoot her through the head and kill her.
And it was a deliberate killing.
But nothing's going to come of it.
And then, you know, we have the case a long time ago, 1967, of the USS Liberty in which the Israelis killed 34 U.S. sailors and the United States never did anything about it.
Israel controls.
And this was true back in 1967 with that animal beast, Lyndon B. Johnson, who let this happen.
And it's true today.
If you listen to the debate last night between Trump and our good Kamala, And there was an article today by a friend of mine, Kelly Vajos, which basically said, it's make America great, but not if it involves Israel.
Here's another grilling of the State Department spokesperson.
And the questioner here mentions Rachel Corey.
This is a litany.
Of horrific acts by the IDF.
And the essence of the question is, isn't any of this enough to cause the administration to rethink its policy?
Cut number two.
To Said's question, the U.S. says it demands respect for press colleagues.
Then Israeli forces kill our colleague Shereen Abu Akhla and scores of Palestinian journalists.
The U.S. says it supports aid workers.
Then Israeli forces kill American Jacob Flickinger and plenty of other aid workers, including The U.S. says it condemns illegal settlement activity, and then Israeli forces kill Aishinor Egi, Rachel Corey, and scores of Palestinians subject to settler violence.
Another New Jersey teacher last month was shot by Israeli forces as he did the same thing Aishinor was doing.
How many more Palestinians and how many more Americans Killed, violated, will it take before this administration actually does announce a policy change?
So, Prem, I will say this, that one of the reasons we are so squarely focused on working to get a ceasefire deal is because of the calm and the stability and the potential it has for that, not just In the immediate Gaza Strip and the surrounding areas, but the region broadly.
And the benefits that it could have when it comes to peace and stability and calm and the reduction of tensions in the West Bank as well.
Certainly, the death of any journalist, aid worker, civilian, whether they're an American citizen or not, is heartbreaking.
And it is a There are no words for the pain that it brings, especially for these individuals' families.
But we will continue to stress directly to all that there is a moral and strategic imperative to minimize the impacts on civilians.
And we will continue to press on that as aggressively as we need to.
This is one of the reasons that our friend and...
Ambassador Charles Freeman calls this the worst State Department since 1947.
Yeah, I mean, this is absolutely awful.
I mean, this clown, and he is a clown, seemingly that's all they have at State Department now, basically is saying that, you know, oh, well, we really want a ceasefire and all those things.
If they really wanted a ceasefire, they would call up Mr. Netanyahu and tell him, okay, Cease fire next week.
And if you do not comply with that, we are going to cut off your money and we're going to cut off your weapons.
And that would have him hopping real quickly.
But of course, he knows that's not coming.
He's in control.
And that's the real tragedy here.
This used to be a great country, and we've turned it into Today's the anniversary of 9 /11.
With laws and destruction of free speech and free association and no accountability towards the people.
I mean, Biden is in two wars right now.
And is talking about two more with Russia and China.
And we haven't had a declaration of war since the Second World War.
And I mean, this is just absolutely astonishing.
What kind of country has this become?
Well, not to raise your blood pressure, but you have a piece out which argues that the national security state is at war with the First Amendment.
And you talk about what happened to Scott Ritter, Tulsi Gabbard, Dimitri Dimes, and others.
What is it about the national security state, military, police, and intel that hates and fears the freedom of speech?
You know, I honestly don't know.
I mean, it's kind of a funny thing.
And I know on your show, on your programs, you have a bunch of people who have come out.
And are saying the same things I'm saying, and a lot of them are intelligence officers or ex-military officers.
They see what's going on.
They understand what's going on.
But somehow there's been this change in atmosphere in this country since 9/11, where a series of presidents have sought to gain executive power, which is not given to them by the Constitution.
And one of the things they have to do to get away with that Well, they will do anything they can to crush free speech.
Last night, I don't want to get in the middle of the debate, but Vice President Harris stated the administration's position, none of which is demonstrable.
On the reason for the unbridled, unlimited military and financial support of the slaughter in Gaza, cut number three.
On October 7th, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert.
Women were horribly raped.
And so absolutely, I said then, I say now.
Israel has a right to defend itself.
We would.
And how it does so matters.
Because it is also true, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.
Children, mothers.
What we know is that this war must end.
Well, I guess she's looking at Michigan and wants to have it both ways.
Well, she premised her conclusion by a series of lies.
Yes.
And these are lies that have been well demonstrated prior to that debate.
I guess maybe she's just not reading or, you know, she's not listening to us.
No, no.
Very sad and to me disheartening.
The attack.
On the freedom of speech, my column which comes out tonight is called Free Speech on the Department of Political Justice.
And I challenge the federal government to withstand a First Amendment claim against these people that it recently indicted.
Dmitry Symes, a Russian-American, living and working in Russia, but dual citizenship.
He's indicted for working in Russia for a television network that is partially owned by the Russian government.
How that can be an American crime is beyond me.
That's what we're dealing with today.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And this has been going on for quite a while.
And it's been less reported by the media, obviously.
But the fact is that they've been putting pressure on people like myself.
And the other people you have on your program, not to have anything to do with Russia or with Iran.
You know, I've been to both of these places.
There are a lot of decent people there, just like there used to be a lot of decent people in the U.S. government.
And God, this has to stop or they're going to kill all of us.
Thank you, Phil.
Thank you for your analysis.
Thank you for these interesting arguments, my dear friend.
All the best.
We'll see you, I hope, next week.
Yes, you will.
Thank you.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
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