Jan. 14, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi, everyone. | |
| Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. | |
| Today is Wednesday, January 15th, 2025. | |
| Our friend Kivork Almasian joins us now. | |
| Kivork is, of course, our expert on all things Syrian and on many things Middle Eastern. | |
| Kivork, it's a pleasure. | |
| Thank you for joining us again. | |
| Thank you, Judge, for having me again. | |
| Of course. | |
| Who's in charge? | |
| Who runs the government in Syria? | |
| Or does that depend on... | |
| Where you're physically located in Syria? | |
| Actually, it is. | |
| First things first, I think HTS occupies Damascus, Homs, Hama. | |
| These governorates, and they are under big, let's say, influence of Turkey. | |
| However, there is another group called the Syrian National Army, and these groups, they occupy more north to the Aleppo, Azaz, and Jarablos to the borders with Turkey. | |
| So HDS itself, it combines different... | |
| Let me just stop you so we have terminology correct. | |
| HTS is the acronym for the terrorist organization accredited with overthrowing Assad. | |
| Yes, it is called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. | |
| Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is the rebranded Al-Nusra Front, which is the offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Syria. | |
| But they had to rebrand it in 2018 in order to bring other armed groups under the umbrella of Al-Qaeda, and they didn't want to portray it as Al-Qaeda-led insurgency against Assad. | |
| Therefore, they rebranded it, and they started also rebranding Al-Jolani, who was himself the founder of the Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, and he fought in Iraq. | |
| In 2003, he has been sending, everybody knows this, that he was responsible for sending car bombs to the Shia neighborhoods. | |
| So he started also a sectarian conflict in Iraq between 2003 and 2005. | |
| And then he ended up in the Bukha, I think called Bukha or Bucha American prison there, alongside other leaders of Al-Qaeda. | |
| Okay, HTS was and is On the American State Department terrorist list, President Biden, we don't know what Donald Trump's going to do, but President Biden refused to remove it from the list. | |
| It was on the British terrorist list. | |
| Is it still there? | |
| There was also a bounty, $10 million over his head, and they removed the bounty now. | |
| And I think the designation of HDS as a terrorist organization is just meaningless at the current moment because the Americans and the Brits and the French, everybody is dealing with Jolani as a de facto leader in Damascus, and they're striking also diplomatic deals with him because they're reopening the embassies. | |
| So if you reopen your embassy and you deal... | |
| All right. | |
| Before we get into what life is like in Syria and the type of people running the government, are there areas of Syria uncontrolled by Al Jelani and HTS and under the control of Turkey? | |
| The United States occupies one-third of Syria, but they can't occupy it by themselves because they have only 2,000 American soldiers. | |
| So they cooperate with the Kurdish militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces and their YPG forces, basically. | |
| And they have armed around 60,000 of them. | |
| And this is how they control half of Syria's oil fields and also the wheat fields, which means the U.S. has a grip over the food basket and also the energy basket of Syria. | |
| And the Kurds with whom the U.S. interacts are bitter, even mortal enemies of the Turks. | |
| And Heya Tahresham or HTS, they are anti-Kurds. | |
| So the U.S. is supporting both sides in this conflict on multiple sides. | |
| And I would like to remind your respected audience, at some point between 2015 and 2018, there were groups fighting against each other, inner conflict between these so-called rebel groups. | |
| Some of these groups were funded by the CIA, and other groups were funded by the Pentagon. | |
| So both sides were fighting against each other on a piece of geography. | |
| We will occupy this area. | |
| And both sides were basically supported by the U.S. All right. | |
| Now to Israel. | |
| Are there portions of what was Syria, let's say a month ago, which Israel now claims is Israel and over which it purports to exercise governmental jurisdiction and authority? | |
| Actually, Israel now occupies a large swath of new territories in Syria, bigger than the Gaza Strip itself. | |
| They occupy the higher hill in Syria and in Israel and in Lebanon, and they overlook entire this region. | |
| They are 20 kilometers away from Damascus. | |
| They are very, very close to Al-Mazze military airbase in Damascus as well. | |
| At the same time... | |
| They are occupying the water sources in the South. | |
| So any water dams or lakes or rivers, they're occupying these, let's say, resource-rich areas, and they're asking the people to disarm. | |
| And HDS is also encouraging the people to disarm in this case. | |
| And ironically, today, for the first time, Israel bombed an HDS position in the South, and we have to really see why Israel did that, because HDS was present in this place, calling for the people to disarm and give up. | |
| Does HTS, which purports to be the government of Syria, formerly Syria, with which foreign nations are opening embassies and establishing diplomatic relations? | |
| Does it have a military and will it resist the IDF? | |
| Actually, Israel destroyed all of Syria's strategic weaponry. | |
| So Syria now is castrated. | |
| It doesn't have an air defense. | |
| It doesn't have military fighter jets. | |
| It doesn't have any warplanes. | |
| It doesn't have artilleries. | |
| It doesn't have tanks. | |
| Israel destroyed them all, including the ammunition depots and long-range missiles. | |
| So eventually, HDS also doesn't have all these weaponry. | |
| They have these pickup trucks. | |
| They have these PECSAs. | |
| We're good to go. | |
| Jolani to tone down with Israel and also be passive on Israel's expansion in the region. | |
| And the article says that Turkey doesn't have any interest with clashes with Israel. | |
| And what they are trying to do is to find a formula so that both sides can coexist alongside each other. | |
| And I think that is what they are trying to do in the next few years. | |
| Redraw the map of the region. | |
| Especially in the maritime borders, Turkey would have an upper hand over the energy resources, and then in the southern part of Syria, Israel would create another buffer zone after it has created one in 1967 by occupying the Golan Heights, because the Golan Heights has been occupied since 1967. | |
| They said this is a buffer zone, and now Israel is expanding more inside the Syrian territories to create another buffer zone, but this time only 20 kilometers away from the capital of the country. | |
| Is it safe to walk the streets in Damascus, or are you unable to answer that question because it depends on who's doing the walking? | |
| Actually, who is doing the walking is a good way to put it. | |
| Yesterday, in a Christian neighborhood called Al-Qasar, Militants from HDS stormed into the neighborhood and they wanted to detain some Christian men, Syrians basically, who have an alcohol shop, | |
| for example. | |
| So they closed this alcohol shop and they're calling for the people to not drink alcohol and not to mix between the genders. | |
| They're calling for segregation. | |
| The buses in the public transportation, for example, they have imposed the gender segregation. | |
| In the courts, there were females. | |
| Male lawyers and male lawyers should not interact among each other. | |
| I mean, this is for me... | |
| Even ridiculous to mention because I want for the people to know what's happening. | |
| But it's also, I feel ashamed because I'm a Syrian and we were never used on such things. | |
| We were never used to segregate between genders. | |
| We were never used to discriminate against women. | |
| We were never used to segregate at schools because male and female, they used to go together to schools. | |
| And now everything is flipping and Syria is becoming more what they call Islamic, which I don't agree with this. | |
| Because I don't see HDS themselves as followers of Islam, but I see them as takfiris. | |
| And the takfiris means someone who doesn't see the others, the others from other religions, other sects, as equal to them. | |
| And they're ready to perpetrate and use physical violence against them and eliminate them for the sake of establishing what is called an Islamic caliphate. | |
| Is it safe? | |
| Is the part of Syria, now I'm not talking about Damascus, Talking about the entire part of Syria governed by HTS and Al-Julani's thugs. | |
| Is it safe for Christians to practice their religion, whether it's Catholicism or another form of Christianity, in those areas? | |
| I reported about this judge, and in Homs and in Latakia, HDS militants are asking the Christians to not show their crosses, and you cannot put it out of your T-shirt, for example. | |
| And they have closed the Hagia Sophia. | |
| Church in Homs as well. | |
| And in the coastal side and in Homs, they are basically, they are massacres against the Alawites, all documented on video. | |
| They are killing entire families and dumping their bodies even inside swimming pools. | |
| And the swimming pool is like completely red. | |
| It's a bloodbath. | |
| So they're documenting all these crimes and they're posting it. | |
| So I'm sharing all these crimes on my account and I feel very sorry to share such gruesome videos, but I won't. | |
| For the people to know that what they have been told on TV, that Syria is liberated and now we are moving to a democracy, it's a sham. | |
| Syria is not moving to a democracy. | |
| Syria is not moving to stability. | |
| Syria is moving to more chaos. | |
| And the proof of that is that now that after all this sectarian and ethnic-motivated violence against the minorities in Syria, every religious and ethnic community in Syria started to talk and consider themselves part of a religious or ethnic group. | |
| So they don't consider themselves Syrians any longer. | |
| They say, I'm an Alawite, or I'm a Christian, or I'm a Druze, or I'm a Kurd. | |
| So accordingly, they are calling for international protection for the minorities. | |
| One of the representatives of the Alawites in Jeble, in the coastal side of Syria, he called on France. | |
| To intervene and protect the Alawites. | |
| And this is very ironic for me to listen because French government or the deep states in the Western governments, they were the ones who propped up HDS and enabled its conquest of Damascus. | |
| So they are pushing. | |
| The news from the Middle East today, it hasn't been officially announced by government, but it's been leaked from so many sources and picked up by so much media. | |
| Is that Hamas and the Israelis have reached some sort of a tentative agreement, the outlines of which appear to be the release of 33 Israeli hostages, the release of between 1,000 | |
| and 1,200 Palestinian hostages, the removal of the IDF from Gaza with the right to return, and the unimpeded and massive injection of humanitarian aid If these outlines are accurate, | |
| this is a deal rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu several times in the past three or four months. | |
| If this is the same or substantially the same deal that he rejected, why did he accept it now? | |
| That's a very good question. | |
| I think this time Trump has pressed Netanyahu to accept this deal because there is going to be major regional compromises in the region and they need a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in order to prepare the ground for a major development. | |
| And I think, I suspect that is going to be the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. | |
| And in this case, Saudis... | |
| Always said to the Americans, we cannot sign this treaty with Israel until Israel ends its genocidal war against the Palestinians and find a solution to the Palestinian problem. | |
| So what is the solution to the Palestinian problem? | |
| That is a major question. | |
| Is a two-state solution viable? | |
| I personally do not... | |
| I think a two-state solution is viable. | |
| I think that one state where everyone between the river and the sea live side by side and equal citizens under one jurisdiction and one law, that is the way out of this conflict. | |
| But two-state solution when people like Netanyahu and Ben Gavir and Smotrich are in charge with serious issues. | |
| Let's say, ideological issues and they don't see the Palestinians as equal and human beings. | |
| I think this is only a recipe for more conflict, especially that the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there are so many settlements that are so separated from each other and the Palestinians have to go every day into checkpoints and being treated really badly and inhumanely in this case. | |
| So I don't see that a two-state solution is viable, but I see that this is... | |
| Have the Saudis insisted on I followed the statement of the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. | |
| In some of the statements, he said that the Palestine... | |
| What are they discussing under the table? | |
| We don't know. | |
| But what we know is Saudi Arabia wants to normalize relations, and this will be the key. | |
| If Saudi Arabia normalizes relations for a defensive pact with the United States, because this is a separate agreement and separate negotiations with the U.S. under which Saudi Arabia wants to strike a defensive pact with the United States, which conditions American support to Saudi Arabia if Saudi Arabia comes under attack from any side. | |
| So the same way the U.S. comes in support of Israel. | |
| That's how Saudi Arabia wants to be treated by the United States, to be a strategic partner. | |
| The United States has so much blood on its hands. | |
| Here's a clip over the weekend from the highest-ranking member of the Biden-Blinken-Sullivan State Department to resign. | |
| Many people resigned. | |
| This is the highest-ranking person who resigned. | |
| He worked for three presidents, presidents of both parties. | |
| The genocide in Gaza. | |
| His name is Josh Paul. | |
| I think you'll probably agree with this, but it's got to be disheartening and disruptive to the Saudis or anybody who wants to be America's friend. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| Most of the bombs come from America. | |
| Most of the technology comes from America. | |
| And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel's fixed-wing fleet comes from America. | |
| There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. Because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane. | |
| These Israeli airstrikes, you could say, are made in America. | |
| They are. | |
| Airstrikes made in America. | |
| 2,000-pound bombs dropped on people living in tents. | |
| What do the Saudis have to say about that, Kevork? | |
| I don't think they care much in Saudi Arabia about what's happening in Palestine. | |
| In the Gulf countries, they have detached themselves for a long time from the Arab-Israeli conflict, and they have been promoting for normalization of relations. | |
| And Syria was the last Arabic country in the region which culturally, politically, economically has been boycotting Israel and non-normalizing ties with them. | |
| So in this case, the Saudis' interest is more what interest they have in the region, that they want to establish We're good to go. | |
| That's why also they strike the diplomatic and security deal with Iran. | |
| So they have a different mission for the region, and the Palestinians are not in their calculations in this case. | |
| However, I would like to mention one thing about the friendship with the U.S. Nobody in Syria, for example, was against a friendship or partnership with the United States. | |
| But with the U.S., it's very difficult to deal with the U.S. because in the U.S. perception, how a relationship works, if you are their ally, But if you're an enemy... | |
| Then you will be also receiving lots of blows from the US. | |
| So in both cases, it's very fatal and dangerous to deal with the US because they see the world from a zero-sum game perspective. | |
| They don't believe in a win-win formulas. | |
| That's why the alternatives or the rising powers, let's say, in Russia or in China, they are gaining popularity and better reputation. | |
| than the US in what they call the third world countries because Russia and China are not coming and telling the people how to live and what to accept and what values they should adopt and what economic model they should implement in their countries and I think on the long run despite American hegemony this is not a good image. | |
| I'm reminded of that famous one-liner. | |
| I know you've heard this from Henry Kissinger. | |
| It's dangerous to be an American friend. | |
| Excuse me, I've got to say this right. | |
| It's dangerous to be an American enemy. | |
| It's fatal to be an American friend. | |
| A lot of historical support for that. | |
| There are rumors leaking out in the Israeli press as we speak of a side deal between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. | |
| You'll never see it reduced to writing, and I don't know how these reporters claim to know it. | |
| There's an Israeli manufacturer of software called NSO. | |
| The software has the trade name of Pegasus. | |
| Joe Biden, when he learned that the FBI purchased Pegasus, banned it from federal government use and imposed an embargo on its importation into the United States. | |
| What does Pegasus do? | |
| Pegasus is the notorious zero-click. | |
| It allows the owner of this software to get inside of your mobile device, your desktop, your laptop, without tricking you into clicking onto a link. | |
| This is, in America, a profound violation of the U.S. Constitution if used by the government. | |
| If used by someone other than the government, it's computer hacking, and that's a felony punishable. | |
| According to the leaks in the Israeli press, Trump has agreed to lift the embargo on Pegasus. | |
| Also, according to the leak in the Israeli press, if the IDF has to go back into Gaza on its own accord and without justification to the U.S., the U.S. will back them up. | |
| Can you enlighten us at all as to whether there is credibility in these two leaked side deals? | |
| I have read this before I came to your stream. | |
| We don't have a confirmation if there is a side deal on this, but I would like to say that this Pegasus program is very, very dangerous. | |
| Not only against the American officials, but also against the American people, because it can suck your data completely without you knowing it, because you don't have to click on any link. | |
| You can only receive a WhatsApp message or receive an email, and then your mobile is already hacked. | |
| And you will never know that your mobile is hacked, and not a security expert, no one in your surrounding will be able to detect this software. | |
| And I will go one step further and say that such software These softwares were weaponized in Gaza and in Lebanon, and they were used to kill people in these countries. | |
| Two of these softwares, just like a Pegasus software, we had the Gospel and we have the Lavender. | |
| And there is also one called Where is Daddy? | |
| Can you imagine that? | |
| Those are three softwares who were weaponized by AI softwares, basically weaponized by Israel in Lebanon and in Gaza, under which drone operations were conducted and hundreds of people were murdered because these AI programs and these softwares have given the permission to any Israeli soldier to just click on like, | |
| okay, you're on your laptop and you receive an information and they say, we found... | |
| Probably a junior Hamas member and we want to eliminate it. | |
| But if we want to eliminate it, 10 civilians could die. | |
| And 10 civilians is fine under this program. | |
| So the person only clicks yes and then the drone attacks happen. | |
| If they find a senior Hamas member alleged or they have suspicions, right? | |
| And if they kill 100 people alongside this Hamas senior member... | |
| And it's permissible, again, under this AI system. | |
| So we're not only talking about spying, sacking data. | |
| We're talking about data location. | |
| We're talking about weaponizing this data into a war machine and killing people. | |
| So if you can kill 100 Palestinians or 100 Lebanese as collateral damage under this software, this is a huge, huge issue. | |
| That we haven't seen much of a backlash against this type of weapons, which human oversight is very minimum. | |
| It is mechanical, it is AI, it is software, and the human is just saying, giving the last order, which is yes or no. | |
| So in this case, if there is a side deal, I think all Americans would be vulnerable for American spying. | |
| Everything you purchase, everything you search, everything you watch, Trump would be crazy to allow this here in the U.S. The government itself would be liable. | |
| And no surprise, Trump, before Joe Biden even makes an announcement, is saying this. | |
| I won't read the whole thing. | |
| It's very long. | |
| But he just posted on his venue called Truth Social his claim that with this deal in place, my national security team, pardon me, through the efforts of Special Envoy in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, We'll continue to work closely with Israel and our allies to make sure Gaza never again becomes a terrorist haven. | |
| We will continue through promoting peace through strength. | |
| Now I'm summarizing. | |
| Look at what we've done before we're even in the White House. | |
| Imagine what we can do after I'm inaugurated. | |
| No surprise. | |
| There's probably truth to that. | |
| Because Mr. Whitcoff was in... | |
| Just another real estate developer, but apparently he's quite a diplomat, so I withdraw the criticism. | |
| Was in Doha on Saturday, called up Netanyahu's people and said, I'm coming over, and they simply have to see people on the Sabbath. | |
| And Whitaker said, I'm coming anyway, and basically said to Netanyahu, take it or leave it. | |
| Ah! Then the side deals were cut. | |
| Well, we'll see what comes out. | |
| Kivork, it's a pleasure to chat with you. | |
| You're a wealth of information. | |
| Thank you, Judge. | |
| You're fearless, and I love it. | |
| Thank you for being part of our team. | |
| I hope you'll come back and visit us again soon. | |
| Thank you so much, Sean. | |
| Of course. | |
| Coming up on more of all of this, and actually, Pepe Escobar at 2 o'clock has a very fascinating, fascinating big-picture view of how Donald Trump wants to change the world. | |
| And that's at 2 o'clock. | |
| And at 3 o'clock, our dear friend, Phil Giraldi, Judging the Politico for Judging Freedom. |
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