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Oct. 21, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
37:46
Alastair Crooke : Resistance Escalates; Netanyahu Degenerates
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, October 21st, 2024.
Alistair Crook will be with us here in a moment on The Resistance Escalates and the Netanyahu Madness.
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Alistair Crook, welcome here, my dear friend.
A lot of breaking news and analysis that I would like from you on the events in Israel and the environs.
First, did Hezbollah attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Netanyahu on Friday?
Oh, I don't think they thought he was probably in that house because he goes there at the weekend.
It's true.
But if he had been there, then it was, by the way, a direct hit on the house, on a particular window, in fact, and it went into the house.
So it was what I call the equations, the attack on the leadership of Hamas, the attack on the leadership of Hezbollah.
And here's Hezbollah saying, okay, you know, well, your leadership isn't totally immune from these things.
So they sent a little message, which is to say, you know, you're not any more immune than any of us.
Yes.
I think it would be unlikely that it would have caused his death, but it could have struck him.
In the house or injured him in the house.
It has a reasonably small warhead, that drone.
But I mean, what is quite worrying for the Israelis is not so much just that it hit it.
It is effectively to have picked out the house and hit it with such accuracy.
And the drone, you could see pictures of it flying past an Israeli helicopter on its way to Caesarea.
But what it means is that that drone must have had the photographic image implanted in it so that it could correct itself and hit the target.
Not by GPS or not by some other system.
It was actually by image recognition, most likely, that it hit that house.
We saw that before in the attack on Aramco, on the Saudi oil refinery some years ago, when all six were hit precisely in exactly the same position, which again must have been done by photo recognition technology.
And it's very advanced.
And so that is what will worry the Israelis more than anything else.
It was done on photo recognition, more than just, you know, a lucky strike.
What is the significance politically and militarily to the assassination of Sinmar?
Well, it's become very significant, but not in the way it was intended by the Israelis.
I mean, you know, when was the last time you saw an Arab leader in military gear on the ground with his AK-47 actually fighting the enemy on the streets amongst his men?
I mean, I don't think we've ever really seen such a thing.
And there he was in his, eventually a tank shell had wounded, killed, they'd first of all killed two.
There were three in the team.
It was pure happenstance.
It wasn't a clever intelligence operation.
They didn't know he was there.
They didn't know where he was.
And they killed two of this team that they just happened to come across.
And the third one left into the house, badly lost an arm, badly wounded.
And that's whom we saw sitting in that chair.
And eventually he had nothing left.
He threw a couple of grenades down the stairs to stop the Israelis coming in.
And he then picked up a stick, which was all he had to throw at the drone that was targeting him.
And eventually the Israelis got a tank to fire a shell that killed him.
But he's become an icon.
This is a man who's given his life for his people.
It is like Hussein.
Imam Hussein at Karbala, he fought, he knew his end would be in the sway.
And he was out there with his men throughout, by the way, fighting the Israeli occupation forces.
So he's become very iconic.
It's something occult.
He'll become venerated around the region.
So it hasn't pushed Hamas backwards at all.
In fact, it's given them a new sort of symbol, a new symbol around which young people and much of the rest of the region, all of the region, is really sort of rallying to him.
And that image has become iconic.
Here's how the American government views his death, somewhat one-sided, as you can imagine.
And articulate it in a typically absurd way.
Chris, cut number two.
Moss and other terrorist groups will try to present Sinwar as some kind of hero for the Palestinian cause.
But I think it's important that everyone remember the actual facts, which is that Sinwar was a brutal terrorist that didn't just terrorize the Israeli people, but that ruled Gaza.
with an iron fist before October 7th that brutalized Palestinians in Gaza that tortured Palestinians in Gaza and then unleashed a conflict that has been responsible for the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians.
So I would hope that anyone that's considering thinking of him in any favorable light at all Is this even worth responding to?
Well, again, it's always context.
It's like Ukraine.
The context of Ukraine only starts with the special operation, the invasion of Russia.
Like this.
It starts with the 7th of October.
It ignores 50 years of history of how we got to this point.
And I think this is one of the things.
There he is on your video in the chat, and he's about to pick up a stick and throw it at the drone as it approaches.
Or perhaps this is an Israeli one.
they probably cut that off in case it shows him in too favorable a light.
But, you know, it's this.
He just threw it.
Yeah.
You can see he hasn't got a hand anymore.
Anyway, and then he died.
But as I say, you know, for most of the Arab world, not just the Palestinian world, here was a man out on the front with his AK-47 fighting with his men.
And you haven't seen that for a very, very long time.
South America perhaps is the last time, but this is very striking from their point of view.
And again, I just go back, you know, what was just said by the spokesman.
This denigration of anyone that is regarded as being, you know, an opponent of Israel or opponent of the West, always they cut completely the context, cut the history.
And they just started from the point which is most convenient to start.
Oh, well, 7th of October.
That's terrible.
But why did we get to 7th of October?
What is the history behind that?
What is Sinwar's history?
His house was destroyed before.
He was, if you like, one of those that was a refugee all his life, apart from 22 years spent in Israeli prison.
22 years.
Is Netanyahu rational these days, in your view?
I think he is, at the moment, very conflicted.
He's had this period where he is creating this imagined reality of a stream of Israeli victories that took place with the pager explosions, with the killing of many of the Hezbollah leaders.
And then he had, if you like, because it was purely Happenstance, Sinwa being killed.
And so he's on a high.
For the first time, the polls show Likud in the lead again, first time since the 7th of October.
The polls show that Netanyahu's party is in the lead and would win 25 seats in the Knesset elections.
So he is on a high, but he has to keep it going.
And even as we speak, It's going to be very much an escalatory period.
Just as we're speaking, the 91st Division, their tanks are driving into South Lebanon.
And so we will see now, this will put the Israelis in close proximity with the Hezbollah forces.
Most of the people who've been fighting They're not Radwan.
Sometimes the Radwan are still there.
These are the elite special forces of Hezbollah, who are very experienced and well-trained.
But they now have gone into South Lebanon.
So this will put them directly face-to-face with Hezbollah, and time will show us.
Whether this is going to be a success for Israel or not.
And at the same time, of course, he's just pummeling Lebanon, Beirut particularly, but all across Lebanon with bombers every night.
And Hezbollah is pummeling with rockets and missiles, Haifa and Israel.
Sometimes hundreds of rockets coming in.
To Lebanon, sending everyone into the shelters.
But it's becoming really, I mean, this is a madness.
Everything, you know, anything, all the rules of war, all the rules of civilization, all the rules of the United Nations, out of the window.
Anything goes at the moment.
We are in a war without limits.
It's without control.
So, at the moment, last night, the Israelis were bombing about 26 buildings in Beirut and around and beyond Beirut that they claim to be Hezbollah's financial support system.
It's complete nonsense.
It's actually this organization.
It's a not-for-profit organization that provides small loans to people with no interest.
And it's not anything to do with Hezbollah's financial system.
But it's part of this process of trying to cower the Lebanese people and make them so distraught at what's happening with the daily bombings.
I mean, 25% of Lebanon has been ordered by Israel to leave their houses and move here or move there, I mean, across the board.
And Hochstein has arrived in Lebanon with an ultimatum from Netanyahu, an absurd ultimatum.
And this is all intended to sort of really force Lebanese.
into saying they will do something to take action against Hezbollah.
And it's not going to happen.
So, I mean, you know, there are two major problems it is about to face.
One in South Lebanon, when the 91st division with the brigade is going to come up against the Hezbollah forces.
And also his idea that he's going to somehow get an agreement, which he calls the 1701 agreement.
Because the things that they've demanded, and they are demands.
He's put forward demands in Lebanon, amongst other things, that Israel in the future, if there was an agreement, would be allowed to enforce it as it shows, that it could come in and bomb and attack.
Anything that they felt was threatening to it, so that they would be able to come in, if you like, and enforce, you know, that there was no Hezbollah, no weapons, no threats south of the Litani or further.
And then that the airspace would be free and open for Israeli aircraft to come in and bomb or attack sites.
I mean, you know, sovereignty?
They're calling for a complete surrender by Lebanon to become just, if you like, a satrap of the Israeli hegemon.
And I don't think that's going to work.
But Hochstein is there at the moment trying to gauge how much people have been frightened by these daily bombings.
Is Hochstein there as an agent?
Is Hochstein there as an agent of the United States or as an agent of Netanyahu?
Netanyahu.
He's going there.
These are effectively Netanyahu's demands that he's positioned.
But he comes representing the United States, but he's presenting Netanyahu's demands for a revision, amendments of 1701, the disarmament of Hezbollah.
complete disarmament, the removal of Hezbollah, and that the Israelis can come in and bomb whatever they like after agreement has been made.
So that's the demands from...
So I mean, you know, this is I mean, this is pure aggression, pure maximal aggression to drive a people into abysmal sort of surrender.
But it is not going to work.
But it's heating up in the south, around Beirut and elsewhere.
And with Iran, too, because that's going to come very shortly, I think.
I think Netanyahu is a little nervous about doing this with Iran, because at the end of the day, he's always been known to be, you know, strong and weak on walking the walk.
And not doing things.
And he's probably a little bit anxious about the attack on Iran because Iran is demonstrating absolute confidence and poise in this period, waiting for the attack to come, fully prepared to respond to it afterwards.
So we see.
It seems to have been delayed a little bit by this intelligence leak.
Has caused consternation within Israel.
How do you read the intelligence leak?
Was this someone in the American intelligence community trying to disrupt, disturb, or delay the Israeli invasion?
Did the Iranians hack the CIA?
I mean, how does something like this happen?
Do we know?
I don't, they can't hack that sort of, I don't believe they can hack that sort of communication.
I mean, not only is it the most highly classified, I mean, there was way over top secret, some of the references on the top.
I mean, they were password only.
They're top secret plus password controlled.
And an insider in the US intelligence community that released it.
I imagine someone wanted to stop World War III from starting.
Wow.
But it was, of course, interesting from the Iranian perspective.
I mean, I'm not an expert on these things, I have to say to you, but looks from reading the briefs, that they...
some ballistic missiles.
So that's interesting from my perspective, because what does that tell you?
That tells you that when you take out the air defenses and radar, I mean, this is the first step.
It is evident that it's a preparation for step two and step three or step four.
So, I mean, in a sense, I imagine it was seen as a way of sort of clearing the path for America to join in at some point and to support Israel with a more powerful attack on either the nuclear system, the Iranian leadership.
or even its energy resources.
I think these last two are difficult for, I think these two are quite difficult for Israel, which is why I think it may end up, because this is the Israeli favorite, or as we've seen them, I mean, so many times, you know, decapitation, assassination, to decapitate some of the leadership.
A decapitation strike on Iran.
I don't know whether they'll finally decide to do that, but of course it will have huge ramifications.
We've already seen, you know, images put up on Israeli television with sort of targets on the forehead of Ayatollah Sistani, who is the icon of the Iraqis.
In Iraq, I mean, a huge vignette across the whole Muslim world, and also on Khamenei, the supreme leader.
So we've had their little sort of markings out as being Israeli targets.
Of course, you know, it's done and intended to escalate.
It is all about escalate and about drawing Americans in.
Here's what the Washington Post just a little while ago quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu as having said in response to the intelligence leak,
quote, Would the Israelis presume to engage in a major offensive attack on Iran without, I don't want to say permission, but without the consent and cooperation of the United States?
Oh, yes.
I think that's quite clear that they would, if they can do it.
When I'm talking about if, it's not about permission from the US.
It's about refueling and the aircraft and having the right sort of munitions to do the job, which will not be easy, whichever way it is.
I mean, it's a thousand miles from Israel.
But yes, he would do that because he's quite confident.
I mean, particularly now, he's quite confident that even if he gets into difficulties, now the United States must get involved and Iran is too dangerous.
In a sense, he wins either way.
He wins.
If he strikes and shows that it's possible to strike at Iran, and now the West must come in and fight the good fight against this evil empire, or if it gets into trouble and it doesn't work out, there will be calls in parts of Europe, in parts of the United States, saying that's even more the reason now that we have to get involved and we have to come at the exercise.
And I mean, he knows that he doesn't really have air defense systems.
And he knows that if the Iranians really put their mind to it, with successive waves of saturation of missiles, which will be highly accurate, will hit their target.
If Iran wanted to, it could really knock out most of the Israeli.
Air Force and its military infrastructure, as well as other parts of the infrastructure.
You know, if you had waves of three, two or three waves of 300 missiles coming, I mean, it would overwhelm.
I mean, THAAD has, each THAAD network, which has about six launchers, it has eight missiles intercepted.
Missiles, attack missiles in the system.
So that's about 24. You have two-thirds, that's, you know, 48. It's not, you know, and then Iran fires 200 decoy missiles.
They won't be able to cope with it.
I think they will be overwhelmed.
So I think he is a little anxious about this because, you know, the Irans may have promised that they are going to hit back.
Very forcefully and very hard if they are attacked by Israel.
Is there an advantage to waiting after the election?
I don't see it because, you know, at this point, everyone who's competing for office and with a sort of great, you know, bucket of campaign contributions that is being taken Everyone is, you know, getting up and declaring their support for Israel.
On all sides, the congresspeople who want contributions for their campaigns, which with some notable and commendable exceptions, many do.
So, I mean, he's in a perfect position, really.
I mean, look, he just demands and he will get.
He demanded another third.
What happened?
America only had seven of these.
You only have seven.
Total.
And he got it.
Wow.
Immediately.
Is there significance to the report on Israel's Channel 12 that 12 IDF were killed and more than 50 injured?
Are those numbers significant for the IDF?
For the IDF, they're quite significant because they happened in Lebanon.
And I think, as I say, now they're going in in a greater way, hoping to, you know, still the objective is to return these displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel.
But it's not happening.
And the Israelis, I mean, even in the sort of liberal press, I mean, there are articles saying, you know, it's not going well in Lebanon.
It's not going well at all.
It's neither going well in a diplomatic sense.
They're not about to get an agreement in Lebanon that will, if you like, hobble Hezbollah.
And nor is it going well in the day-to-day fighting.
Huge losses that are taking place.
And there are going to be more now, now that they've invaded it.
I mean, and Netanyahu makes it clear what the objective is.
It is to lay waste of the entire area of South Lebanon, south of the Litani, to turn it into a sort of a post-apocalyptic desert with all the buildings destroyed, everything gone, empty except for Israeli.
Forces there to make sure Hezbollah hasn't somehow returned undercover and established itself in Lebanon.
I mean, what an objective.
No wonder, you know, the CIS I mean, Biden is endorsing it.
Does that objective include destroying UN troops that are in the air?
Not killing them, but driving them out.
This is the whole point.
I mean, there was another incident, I think, yesterday or even this morning, where they fired on an observation tower.
And every day there's sort of, you know, shootings.
Not to kill, but to say, you know, get out.
We don't want you here.
We want you out of this area.
So he's putting a lot of pressure on the UN peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon, who, you know, don't enter into the fight.
I mean, they observe, they report to the United Nations, but, you know, they're only allowed to fire back if they are being fired on.
But they are being fired on, and they are being harassed in an attempt, as I say.
The aim is to leave the South Lebanon.
And they say this explicitly.
I'm not making it up or exaggerating.
They say explicitly the aim is to leave south of the Litani, a desert that will then be patrolled by the IDF, the Israeli forces.
Do you expect that Israel will commence a major offensive?
On Iran before Election Day in America, which is just two weeks from tomorrow.
I do, yes.
I think there's this sort of delirious optimism.
I mean, it's abound.
we hear sort of people being cautious outside of Israel, but in Israel, They imagine that, you know, by killing these two people, they've completely defeated Hezbollah and Hamas.
There are people in Israel that are saying, wake up, come on, you haven't even begun to do that.
What you've done is you've turned one into a hero, you've turned two into a hero.
Icons for the rest of the world.
But you haven't done this.
I mean, but Israel does this time and time again.
After all, Hassan Nasrallah came into power after they had assassinated Abbas Musawi, who was the previous head of Hezbollah.
And what did they get?
They got someone more radical.
They got Hassan Nasrallah, who drove them out of Lebanon, ultimately.
They've killed Yahya Sinwar.
Who are they going to get?
I don't know, but it could well be his brother, Mohamed Sinwar, who's more extreme, if you like, more radical than his other brother.
So, you know, this is the history of assassinations.
It seems such a great victory.
But in Israel, if you listen to the Hebrew television or if you read the papers and things, I mean, you know.
Israel is on a winning streak.
The new Middle East is going to be about to be born.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states will soon join in with Israel in destroying all Lebanon and Iraq and all those that oppose Israel.
And it will soon be it.
A sphere of Israeli Pax Israeli answer, if you like to see.
That is a dream, anyway.
Meanwhile, there's a man in the Kremlin watching all of this.
What will it take for Vladimir Putin to pick up the phone and make some decisions adverse to Israel?
First of all, we have to remember that actually tomorrow is the beginning of BRICS.
And so he is going to be constrained with the management of BRICS.
BRICS is going to be hugely important.
You notice it's not even mentioned these days in the West.
They are completely ignoring it.
You don't even see it, that the whole BRICS summit is taking place in the next few days.
With a statement that is coming at the end of it.
But it is going to change.
You know, we are at the end of one era, if you like.
We're coming to the end of one sort of long era.
And we're waiting for the next, if you like, period to be born.
It's struggling to be born.
It hasn't been yet born.
But this old, if you like, this old era is dying and decaying.
And the new era is struggling, will be born, and we'll probably see the first light of day in Kazan in the next week.
We'll see.
Do you think once BRICS is over, or simultaneously, depending upon when the Israelis strike, the Russians will do something more obvious and apparent in defense of Iran?
I think it's not.
You know, I think they've given Iran a lot of defense equipment and help.
But, you know, Iran can stand on its own feet.
I mean, and it has missiles.
What we're going to see is, for the first time in this era, a final sort of clash between, if you like, air far-par war of carpet bombing.
And missile war.
And the Iranians are prepared.
You know, they even have an airport buried in a mountain, a full airport with aircraft, their fighter aircraft and things, which can take off.
The whole runway is deep inside the mountain, and it just comes out.
So, you know, when you hear everyone, you know, the West saying, oh, well, we know exactly what Iran has and where it has it.
It's not true.
It's buried.
There are missile cities.
I mean, they move their missiles around on these big, long trucks at, you know, hundreds of meters down inside mountains, great roads, double roads, and they have an airport underground.
I mean, you know, it is not a simple task.
You know, it's not you just hit a few launchers out in the open.
It's not going to be like that at all.
So we're going to see this major clash.
I mean, for the first time, we're going to see, you know, air power versus missile warfare taking place.
And anyone who is confident enough to say, well, we know exactly how this is going to turn out, I think should be disbelieved because this is going to be the first time.
But I'm quite confident, on the other hand.
That it's not going to be just an easy exercise.
And I think what will happen in the next few weeks will be the beginning of a long war between Iran and Israel and the West.
Because Iran is fighting not just Israel, but the United States, just as it feels.
Hauster Crook, thank you very much.
We really ran the gamut today and appreciate deeply all of your insights, as well as all the information that you passed to me over the weekend.
Look forward to seeing you next week, as usual.
Thank you, my dear friend.
Thank you.
Thank you, indeed.
Coming up later today, as usual, at 10 o 'clock in the morning, Ray McGovern at 11 o 'clock, Larry Johnson, and at 1.30, Scott Ritter.
Much to discuss about the significance from the American intelligence community of the leakage of these top secret, super secret, password-only documents, which included the Israeli attack plans on Iran.
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