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Nov. 4, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:11
Alastair Crooke : Netanyahu’s Imaginary Victories.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, November 4th, 2024, the day before the American presidential election.
Alistair Crook will be with us in just a moment on Prime Minister Netanyahu's imaginary victories.
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Alistair Crook, good day to you, my friend, and welcome here.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your time with us.
Shortly after October 7th, the Israeli government stated it had two public and important goals.
One was to free the hostages in Gaza, and the other was to destroy Hamas.
Has it succeeded in either?
No.
I mean, flatly, they have not destroyed Hamas.
They may have done some damage, but not substantial damage.
And in fact, in many cases, I mean, the Israeli army themselves are saying they've been astonished how, you know, they thought they'd cleared a part of Gaza, only to find a week or two later they were going back because Hamas had reassembled itself and reconstituted itself.
Hamas is reconstituting itself throughout Gaza.
So they failed on that.
They failed on freeing the hostages, and that's why they decided the solution to what's happening in Gaza is we're going to have a big victory in Lebanon, and that victory in Lebanon will produce, in the end, a capitulation by Hamas in Gaza.
And then when that's gone into difficulties, as it is, they're suffering large numbers of casualties.
The Israeli army, they are not They're just destroying houses in a big band, going in and demolishing people's houses, trying to create a desert there.
They're going back to an old treaty that was the 83 Treaty, whereby they would be able to sort of go in at will anywhere to Lebanon.
They would be able to fly in and attack Hezbollah.
I mean, the 83 Treaty was a complete surrender of Lebanese sovereignty, and so they're asking for the same again.
But since that's not working now, they say, "Ah, well, everything will work if only we attack Iran, a big attack on Iran, and then all of these things will come true." And, of course, the attack on Iran was a failure.
Just like the other elements.
There's absolutely no evidence you can check everywhere you like that any serious person who's looked at the photographs or satellite images tell you there's no significant damage done to Iran's air defenses and certainly not its nuclear program or anything else.
All of that is just pure If you like, it's just lies that are done for victory, showing how actually the policy is working, but you're just not supposed to look too closely and see that it is.
Who gains from Prime Minister Netanyahu's imaginary victories?
They have failed in Gaza.
They claim they've prevailed.
They are failing in Lebanon.
They claim they prevailed.
They failed in their attack on Iran.
Spectacularly failed, to the point where you and others have reported some of their jets had to turn around and come home because they confronted an electronic defense, a radar system with which they were unfamiliar.
Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
Okay, I used to work there at Fox, and okay, they have the same owner.
Are both putting out the message that Israel can destroy Tehran at will.
This is equally false.
As you said, there's no evidence for it.
But what does Netanyahu think he gains?
Is it just domestic politically when he puts out an imaginary victory, one for which there is no evidence, and one against which there's a mountain of evidence?
Yes, and I referred to it earlier on this program about it really being like a Ponzi scheme.
You know, this Ponzi scheme of happy talk about victory and we're just winning, and if only you could see it.
They even said today, Netanyahu's thinking of declaring victory in Lebanon, even though he has no agreement.
He's going to say, we've destroyed the missiles, we've destroyed Hezbollah.
Even though Hezbollah missiles are raining down on northern Israel, even as we're speaking.
Massives of them are coming down.
So what is it all about?
I think he has to keep this idea of victory ahead of Israeli people and ahead of others.
and I'll come to the others in a second, but they've got to keep it because once you start sort of accepting that you're going backwards, Because if you don't get enough good news in, then the whole thing goes down.
And so he needs that.
But it's target, yes, to a certain extent he needs the war to go on, because this is how he can keep this whole thing afloat.
But ultimately, it's aimed at the White House, too.
And we've just had a big scandal in Iran.
Whereby those very close to Netanyahu, the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister's office, are being charged with, first of all, two things: leaking, providing, getting access to intelligence that they shouldn't.
Let me just stop you for a second.
I think you inadvertently said scandal in Iran.
You mean scandal in Israel.
Yes, sorry, that was a mistake.
Scandal in Israel.
What happened?
Someone close to the Prime Minister, there's been another arrest, a senior IDF officer, to a big scandal.
And what it has been is not only has sensitive intelligence been improperly used by the Prime Minister's office, but the allegation is, shall we put it politely, that it was curated to give a certain impression.
Both to the Israeli public, but also, I'm sure, to Washington, to the White House.
Why else do we get the strange thing where we hear that, you know, on the one hand, oh, yes, it's going to be an agreement any moment because Hezbollah is defeated and they feel they're defeated and they're looking for a way out.
And Iran is looking for a way out.
It suffered badly before.
And both of those are just quite plainly untrue.
So how do they come about?
Because it's an old problem, and we've been here before with Israel.
It's known as stove-piping intelligence, straight up to the White House.
It used to be Jared Kushner in Trump's days, but other people.
So intelligence offers intelligence reports that perhaps were manipulated, and this is what they're showing.
In the Israeli press today, you know, the manipulation of something they claim came from Sinwar's laptop.
Well, I mean, you saw the death of Sinwar.
You know, he wasn't the person going around with a laptop around his neck.
Far from.
They claim they've got it from Sinwar.
That is very much doubted by the Israeli intelligence services.
It's something they picked up and has been manipulated to show that Netanyahu's policy in Gaza was the correct one.
And I wouldn't be surprised if that...
There's no proper analysis of it.
There's no sort of second view.
There's no alternative view.
It just goes straight into the key people around the president who gets this, oh, hot intelligence from Israel.
This is what they found on Sinwar's laptop.
I mean, it's just distortion.
Is Prime Minister Netanyahu himself in danger of being blamed, accused, or prosecuted for orchestrating or looking the other way about these leaks?
Well, there are lots in Israel who are going to suggest that he is to blame, but he's working very, very hard to put all the blame.
On this official who was involved in presenting this intelligence first to Bildt in Germany, suggesting that Netanyahu was on the right course, and then to the Jerusalem Chronicle in Britain, which has been completely debunked as lies.
Now it seems that another official close to Netanyahu has been arrested.
Is he going to burn the Prime Minister?
You know, well, he's been astute at avoiding these crises.
Nothing to do with me.
Let's move on.
Nothing to do with me.
Nothing to see here.
Let's go ahead and get on with the war on Iran.
I mean, that's, I think, how he will try and deal with it.
How does the West view Netanyahu's deceptions?
Deceptions, obvious lies.
How does the West view this?
How do the elites in Europe view this?
I used to talk to the CIA officer in Tel Aviv, and of course he knew what was happening.
But what could you say?
because these things were going, you know, directly into the White House and being read there.
And then, you know, you're going to say that this Israeli intelligence is...
And sometimes, I mean, I came, I had a personal experience of that when I was working for the EU.
The EU were given these intercepts of telephone conversations between the Palestinian Authority and a group that they describe as a terrorist group.
And this was supposed to show collusion.
And the whole thing was fake.
I mean, it was on the right paper and it looked at it and it was sort of had all the hallmarks of being an intelligence report verbatim of this call.
Never happened.
Never happened.
Is there a general understanding that if Israel couldn't penetrate Iran's radar and defense systems, then the United States can't penetrate it?
And if that's the case, if that's the understanding, isn't Iran pretty much safe from a major attack by Israel and the U.S.?
Well, that's the whole point of this narrative that is produced.
The Wall Street Journal said, you know, thank God, you know, anyone who is dealing with Russian technology, you know, they're on a slippery slope to rail hiding.
Western technology, Western intelligence is the gold standard for the future, and that's not going to change.
And you have the same thing appearing in the mouthpiece, The Economist in London saying, you know, this is the end of the Iranian regime.
Well, none of it's true, but it's trying to create the right atmosphere in Washington so that, you know, Netanyahu can slowly drag.
Washington into this war.
What is quite striking, though, was a statement that came out, I think, from the Pentagon.
I don't know if it was the Secretary of Defense, but at a senior level was saying, well, you know, if there is another attack on Israel by Iran, you know, it's not, we're not probably, you'll have to face the full wrath of Israel itself.
In other words, perhaps the United States doesn't want to get drawn into it.
And I think that is probably the view, because there will be people, of course, in the Pentagon that understand exactly what happened in Iran.
I mean, they've got satellites.
They can see satellite photographs.
They can check.
They can fact-check it exactly.
They know what happened.
They know what happened.
But, you know, politically, it might be convenient for some in the US.
To say, yes, you know, Iran's on the back foot, it's about to collapse, and that's why we need to go and support Israel fully.
And in fact, you know, actually, Iran is about to, at some point, launch another attack on Israel.
Maybe in days, but certainly not much longer.
And what they're doing,
So they're saying the next attack on Israel will be such that you cannot deny that there's been a strategic shift taking place here.
And this is the background to the Iranian likely strike that is being planned.
It was from the Supreme Leader himself.
He said it's going to be much more harsh.
We've informed our Arab allies, and it will be aimed at Israel and the United States.
In other words, Iran is going back.
To something very basic, which was always part of their worldview, which was we have to end this occupation of the Middle East.
I mean, they're talking about decolonization of the Middle East in all its contexts, the Arab world as well as the Iranian world and Palestinian world, too.
We've got to finish off this, if you like, this idea.
of the hegemony and the control of the Middle East, the occupation of the Middle East completely.
And so this is what is being brewed at the moment in Iran, partly because it's quite clear, and we saw this from the BRICS meeting, the Arab states are sitting on their hands because they don't want to offend the United States.
They want a deal.
You know, don't touch the ruling leaders, the ruling clique in any of our states, and let us keep our money and, you know, we'll turn a blind eye to what's happening in Gaza.
And so it's falling on Iran to, if you like, to try and finally bring about the strategic shift in the region.
And now seems an opportune moment, really.
I mean, this is just an outside view, for me, speculative, but not else.
As America likely goes into a period of some paralysis in the aftermath of the election, we don't know what will happen there, but they will be calculating this possibility.
This may be a good moment to change, if you like, the strategic balance within the whole of the Middle East, whether it will work.
We have to wait and see what will be the outcome of that.
We have to see.
But still, Israel is in deep problem because, as I've just described, all of this victory narrative is false.
It is just a sort of process of trying to be able to show, you know, that things were on a winning path.
That we're doing very well.
We're on a winning path.
Just stay with it and we will, Washington, be with us.
You know, we will get there.
Next time we will destroy Iran.
So we need your help.
We need your tankers.
We need your support.
Come in with us and finish off Iran.
Otherwise, you may lose the Middle East.
And if you lose the Middle East, you lose everything because your hegemon, whether it starts from China,
So be with us on this project.
What is the Kremlin's interest in all of this?
I don't know if it's been signed or not, but there is at least a defense pact generally agreed to with Iran.
Is that not the case, Alistair?
It is the case, and I don't know either if it's been signed.
It should have been signed after Kazan, but I can't say to you that I know that it has been signed, but it's anyway in practice in most cases.
I mean, whatever the provisions that have not been.
Yes, but it is in the process of being signed.
And it's no doubt, because they've given Iran a lot of support.
They've given it their latest EW systems, that's electronic warfare systems, to disrupt missiles.
And I don't know whether they've given them other things, but, you know, there's still a prevalent view in the West that Iran is somehow sort of backward.
And not very tech-orientated.
I mean, the radars, these over-the-horizon radars that were supposedly attacked and destroyed, but were not, that Iran has, are Iranian.
They've had a certain amount of Chinese help, but for 10 years they have been building some of the most sophisticated radar systems, as well as missile systems.
They're not backwards, so it's not...
On the contrary, in many areas, Iran are ahead of Russia and in other areas, Russia is ahead on Iran.
But this is one of the tipping points that is taking place in the world.
Not only are the militaries changing, you know, air power against missile power changing.
The warfare of the region.
But also, technology, increasingly, is not the preserve of the West, any of us, any longer.
It's as much the preserve of China and of Russia and Iran as it is in the West.
And we find that very, very difficult to assimilate.
And that was why it was the subject of a report that I mentioned to you by a RAND organization, which said, you know, We might lose these wars if we take on the world because we don't have the capacity any longer.
And I think it was showing up a key contradiction.
I think because it's very hard to explain how they could say, you know, that the West doesn't have a suitable weapons system.
It's not ready to fight wars.
It certainly can't fight any war against any one of these people, let alone collectively.
And if we tried to do that against one, it could lose.
And I think it's going back to a basic, if you like, contradiction in American and European societies.
You probably may have seen that the British government It nearly did fall two years ago, because bondholders just wouldn't go on financing the deficit in Britain.
The same thing's happening in France.
It's returned again to Britain, where the government can't finance its deficit and its borrowing requirements.
And in the United States, too, the cost of interest on the debt exceeds the entire defense budget.
And I think possibly we're seeing some pushback against the sort of neoconservative view that, you know, oh, yes, we are the United States.
We can take on China, Russia, Iran.
You know, let them try.
We can do that because we have the best military.
have the best.
But actually the problem is for 20 years the West has been you know pursuing printing bonds, selling them to the central bank, which monetizes them, prints money to finance our expenditure.
Our expenditure goes up and up.
And now we are reaching the point where the interest rates, well, bondholders have to decide, you know, what are they going to do?
Are they going to decline to pay on their bonds?
Are they going to default on their bonds?
Or are they going to cut expenditures and meet the dangers?
There's a historian that is the favorite of hedge funds in Wall Street who's just said, you know, have you noticed actually we, the West, I mean, France, Britain, the United States, you know, we've become the Soviet Union.
I mean, the same problems, the despair, the sort of the sense of divisions within the Soviet Union before the reform.
And he said, you know, the main thing was that, you know, it was fiscally a very relaxed fiscal environment.
So companies became less efficient, less capable.
They just dragged on because the government would always bail them out with more money until it all collapsed.
And I'm just saying, I think perhaps some people in the Pentagon are saying to the neocons, you know, you talk, you know, about as if the American hegemony is if it's the 60s and 70s, you know, that when, you know, all of Europe was in disarray, was broken by the war, and you were 50% of global economy, and now you're only 15%.
You know, neocons, wake up!
We have to have a different policy because we are failing in every area of our defence capability.
And Rand, for those who don't know it, is, for example, actually the NGO of the Pentagon.
It's funded by the Pentagon.
It always has reflected funding.
So what's going on?
What's going on?
The NGO...
The United States' military budget is $886 billion a year.
The United States' interest on its debt is now $1 trillion a year.
Everything you're saying is backed up That's from a Saturday's New York Post.
Would the Iranians have made?
Such a claim?
Or is that just political hogwash?
I don't think, I've never heard them use tooth-breaking metaphor before.
They actually use a rather more blunt metaphor.
But yes, I think this is what Iran is now about, is about, it's the end of strategic patience, and they are ready to see a strategic shift.
In the Middle East, because Israel was unable to attack their defenses or to get through.
I think the bigger picture, the one that is unsaid, is if Israel is unable to penetrate into secured Iranian airspace.
Is America capable of doing that for all their threats?
And they're saying, well, you know, we'll join in.
We've sent B-52s.
Oh, yeah?
Well, do we know that their stealth fighters will not be met by anti-stealth defenses in Iran?
That seems to be, and it's only speculation, but it seems to have been quite possible from what we saw before.
So the whole strategic position, which is, oh, well, Israel can go.
You know, Iran is not Lebanon.
Where they're just massacring the citizens to sort of blackmail them into pushing for a ceasefire.
You can do that in Lebanon and in other countries, and they have.
But Iran has said, I'm sorry, but, you know, we have the strategic edge, and you don't, and America doesn't have.
And this is what RAND Report was saying, the RAND organization was saying, we don't have actually even the strategic edge anymore.
America doesn't have the strategic edge.
Well, who does?
Well, we only have to look to Ukraine and we only have to look to Iran to see that perhaps some of those, you know, it's slowly, you know, the hegemony is slipping and slipping and it's visible that it's slipping.
It's not down to zero, but that the RAND report is saying, you know, we have to really think very carefully.
About where we're going.
Of course, the RAND suggests that really the answer is, you know, to spend more and more and more, 16, 17 percent of GDP on defense and to have an all of government to go on to a complete war footing.
I mean, active war footing in order to fight a sort of a possible global war.
And they say, you know, isn't it obvious, you know, we are now having to face the idea.
That the United States is at war globally with the global world.
I mean, you know, this is quite a dramatic statement coming out of, you know, the Pentagon's favorite research organization.
Alistair, thank you very much, my dear friend.
Startling information about American weakness and Israeli deception, but none of it should surprise us.
Thank you for your time.
As always, we look forward to seeing you again next week.
Thank you.
Thank you, Judge.
Of course.
Coming up, as usual, on Monday at 10 o 'clock this morning, Ray McGovern, and at 11 o 'clock this morning, Larry Johnson.
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