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Jan. 21, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
21:15
Phil Giraldi : Does Trump Care About Gaza?
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Thank you, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, January 22, 2025.
Phil Giraldi joins us now.
Phil, no matter what we're talking about, it's always a pleasure to be able to pick your brain, and I thank you very much for it.
Is the so-called ceasefire between Israel and Hamas a true ceasefire or an inauguration pause?
Well, I think it's maybe something in between.
I think it has a certain amount of substance, at least in Trump's thinking, in terms of his desire to be depicted as a man of peace, which I don't particularly buy into.
I do not think it's a ceasefire in any real sense because I think there were There is certainly some evidence that there were negotiated side issues that were not part of the actual agreement,
which were intended to soften the blow for Netanyahu and the Israelis.
And I was specifically referring to things that would make it politically easier for Netanyahu.
And that Netanyahu, as far as he's going, He has made it very clear to his supporters that he doesn't intend for this ceasefire to be a ceasefire beyond the first phase, even if it gets that far.
So I think we have a clear answer from Netanyahu that it's not the real thing.
I want to get into the side deal, or what we believe is the side deal, in just a minute.
But Haaretz reported just about 15 minutes ago.
That a minister close to Netanyahu, wouldn't say who, said expect the war to resume decisively as soon as the first phase is over.
Now, that brings us to the...
Actually, again, before the side deal.
Has the main deal even been reduced to writing and published?
Or is Netanyahu keeping it under wraps?
Well, there apparently is a text that's been circulating that some journalists have claimed to see.
New York Times claimed to have seen it.
And I think it's just a bare outline of the three or four steps that they expect to take place for the transition to where Gaza will be.
Or at least some of the residents of Gaza will be able to go home and Israel will have certain prerogatives in terms of maintaining security.
The interesting thing, Aspen, I think I found that one of the Israeli newspapers I was looking at yesterday was saying that the United States will be kind of the monitoring power.
In terms of, you know, who is breaking the accord or not breaking the accord and where it's going and that kind of thing.
Now, that opens the door for all kinds of mischief.
Has Amos Hochstein effectively been replaced by Stephen Whitcoff?
That would appear to be the case, although I haven't seen in writing.
Anyone saying that that's occurred.
Hochstein obviously was a creature of the Biden administration, and one would think he went out with them.
Since we all, I think, agree, or many of us agree now, that the Biden administration on this whole business in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, and the West Bank was colluding with the Israeli government on behalf of Biden.
Do you think when Trump said they'll be hell to pay, he had that in mind bilaterally?
Hey, Bibi, they'll be hell to pay if you don't start releasing those hostages, or did he just mean it to Hamas, which has already endured hell for 18 months?
Well, I've seen two interpretations of it.
One of them, obviously, is very favorable to Israel, which is saying that there would be hell to pay because he's admonishing Netanyahu because Netanyahu is doing such a bad job of selling this genocide.
It's bad for Israel.
It's bad for the United States.
It's bad for everybody.
That's one theory.
Of course, the other one is that the hell to pay would be Hamas.
Were you surprised when Trump posted that clip of our friend and colleague Jeff Sachs?
Speaking of Netanyahu in very dark, very critical terms.
I was indeed surprised.
Though again, this kind of, to a certain extent, fits the first interpretation, which is that Trump was sending a cannon shot across the bow of Netanyahu and telling him that he had better do something to make this thing more palatable.
And then, of course, we had the visit from Trump's own man, in which a similar narrative is being expressed, that there was a pressure, considerable pressure put on Netanyahu to come to this agreement, which has been sitting on the table, as we know,
for 13 months.
And why was Netanyahu not invited to the inauguration after his wife had made preparations to come?
Well, possibly because if his plane had to stop somewhere else for refueling, he might get arrested.
It's a story I've been seeing because of the ICC warrant.
And that's one theory.
But, of course, I think there were, you know, obviously issues of saving face on his side because there is, you know, if you go to the Israeli media, which I know you've been watching.
There is a narrative going around very strongly inside Israel that this was a defeat for Israel, having to accept this at all.
So maybe Netanyahu was not wanting to show the flag too much.
I don't know.
How can you examine what goes on in the head of somebody like Bibi Netanyahu or Joe Biden?
Is Netanyahu trustworthy or does he have a history of going back on his word?
Oh, he's a complete liar.
I mean, virtually everything that he says is spun.
Does he go back on his word?
Well, what has his word been?
I mean, every time he gets involved in another part of the Middle East and there is some kind of agreement going on, as there was With the truce in southern Lebanon, all of a sudden, Netanyahu is interpreting this to be a violation of the truce by Hezbollah.
And again, the action in Syria.
Now he's occupying part of southern Syria.
And again, there are fake narratives to support what he's doing.
And anything he does in Gaza will have a fake narrative, just like what's going on today on the West Bank.
Where the Israeli military and the settlers are continuing to harass and dispossess and kill Palestinians.
Here he is on January 18, talking about a second phase of war.
Cut number five.
...
are holding on to some significant assets so that we can bring back all of the hostages and in order to accomplish all the goals of the war.
Both President Trump and President Biden have provided full backing to Israel's right to resume fighting, to resume combat if Israel reaches the conclusion that the negotiations over the second stage are pointless.
I truly appreciate that.
I also appreciate the decision of President Trump to...
Lift all the remaining restrictions on the providing of essential munitions and weapons to the state of Israel.
If we need to resume combat, we will do so in new ways and we will do so with tremendous force.
There you have it.
My understanding of the side deal, please correct or modify it, is that there are three parts to it.
The first is...
That even if the IDF illegally re-enters Gaza, Trump will back them up.
The second is that if the Jewish settlers resume settling the West Bank, Trump will back them up.
And just as pernicious, in my view, I suspect in yours as well, though below the radar, because most of the American public doesn't know what the hell this is.
We're good to go.
Yeah, that's my understanding.
But the first phase also includes what Netanyahu just outlined, which basically is if Israel will have a free hand to resume combat operations as part of this response.
But the Pegasus thing is important.
I mean, this is a...
A software that was developed uniquely by Israel to enable governments to spy on their citizens.
The FBI was using it.
And the fact is now it was sanctioned by Biden, one of the only decent things he did, because of this ability to go after anyone at any time with no indication that you have been gone at.
Right. Yeah, so that's what it was all about.
The FBI bought this stuff from this Israeli manufacturer during the Trump administration without telling Trump.
They used it.
When Biden found out about it, he ordered them to stop using it.
He told them to destroy it.
They didn't destroy it.
I know this sounds like it's out of The Sopranos.
They are storing it in a warehouse in New Jersey.
But he also, and this is where I fully agree with you, instructed his Department of Commerce to ban the importation and the licensing of this stuff.
Why in his right mind would Trump want to lift the sanctions on this?
If this stuff proliferates in the United States, they'll spy on Trump himself.
It's because it was...
My feeling is it was a...
An incentive item thrown into the basket of gifts to Netanyahu, coupled with warning that he had to behave in this case.
And this is a big incentive item for the Israeli government because this company is a Mossad Israeli military intelligence front.
And they use this, they sell you this software, and they also use it on you.
They use it on countries like the United States of America.
And so this is, they were being troubled by the fact that the U.S. sanctions made it more difficult for them to market the product and to sell it to third countries.
So this is in a way a big...
It's a big gift, and it enhances their intelligence capabilities considerably.
But won't Mossad use this on the White House?
Yes. That's the humorous side of this.
They now have the capability to tap into the White House and tap into Congress, all their big buddies in Congress, and every of that to make sure everybody's towing the line.
Is there any way to repel this?
Is there any software that resists it?
Well, if it exists, it's top secret.
I don't know of it.
I've never heard of it.
Someone like Larry Johnson might have a better ear for that kind of thing.
Certainly, one would hope that if you're letting this kind of lethal intelligence capability into your country, you better have some kind of remedy for it.
But we don't know that.
Well, we do know that Mossad spies on the White House.
Sure. And the White House must know that American intel must inform the White House, or at least American intel is aware of what Mossad spies on.
Yeah, that's right.
In fact, there was that spy case a couple years back where they were wiring all the lamps, do you remember that, on Capitol Hill?
Right. With transmitters and receivers, so they were picking up all the phone conversations and other conversations.
In secret.
And this was the Israelis.
Wow. Will Trump be as subservient to Netanyahu as Biden was?
And bear in mind, Chris, you have the picture?
Seated on the dais of his inauguration was a Mossad asset right behind Hillary Clinton.
We'll see her in a minute.
There she is, the lady with her hands clasped.
You know who that is, don't you?
Of course.
Miriam Adelson.
Correct. Correct.
The Mossad itself was right there.
One person behind Hillary, two people over from Bill, four people over from Biden, five people over from Trump.
Trump himself chose the seating arrangements.
Are you sure Bill and Hillary weren't part of the Mossad delegation?
Who knows?
Here's the fact.
American politicians in large numbers, as Tom Massey pointed out, have been controlled by the Israeli lobby in the United States.
Most of them have been bought, and many of them have even a staff member.
On their staff that essentially is an AIPAC representative.
So this is where we're at with Israel in the United States.
And if anyone expects it to go anywhere else, that's why Miriam Adelson is there to give $100 million to the Trump campaign.
This is the reality of life in Washington.
And Trump is not going to...
Disrupt this in any way as long as the cash is flowing.
And here's the trick about Trump.
Trump has a huge ego and he's basically fairly ignorant, really, about what goes on in a lot of these other countries.
So he'll put up with a lot of stuff as long as those countries.
Make it look like he's the boss.
He's the man in control.
Yeah, but he claims he wants to be a man of peace.
Do you think he's going to allow Netanyahu to drag him into a war with Iran?
That's a good question.
I don't have an answer to it.
We know that Netanyahu, through his ambassador and others, have been discussing the Trump administration going along with the incentive.
To go after Iran or to destroy.
They phrase it in a way, or they bag it in a way, which is that we're going after their nuclear capability, which of course Israel already has.
Are Israel and Iran preparing for war as we speak?
I would say it's inevitable that both assume it's going to come to that at one point or another.
Of course, now has helped its own potential defenses by coming to an understanding with Russia and also its relationship with China.
So that certainly would be a disincentive for Israel or for the United States to go after.
The United States has no Secretary of Defense, no Director of National Intelligence, and no...
My experience in the government doing transitions from one presidential administration to another was that the career people pretty much do take over.
Bear this in mind, even the career people at the top of the organizations are very political in terms of their instincts, and they're not about to do anything that the president or the people he eventually brings in are going to disapprove of.
We haven't heard Sebastian Gorka threatening Vladimir Putin in the past month.
I wonder if he's been silenced.
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
I was just talking to someone earlier today who had seen an interview with Sebastian Gorka, and they were astonished by the fact that he didn't threaten war against six or seven countries in a matter of two minutes.
Wow. Phil, it's always a pleasure.
I didn't see Rupert, but it's still a great pleasure to chat with you.
Well, thank you.
All right, my friend.
We'll see you next week.
All the best.
Okay, thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye. And coming up at four o'clock, rounding out this busy day, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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