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Feb. 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:06
Aaron Maté : Trump and Ethnic Cleansing
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, February 12th, 2025.
Aaron Maté will be with us here in just a moment on Donald Trump and ethnic cleansing.
Oh, and the Senate just confirmed Tulsi Gabbard.
And that's a surprise.
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Aaron Mate, welcome here, my dear friend.
I want to spend a fair amount of time discussing Donald Trump and ethnic cleansing with you.
But first, your thoughts on the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.
I have many criticisms of Tulsi Gabbard, foremost being her reversal on the issue of Israel-Palestine.
When she ran for president a few years ago, she said some very fair-minded things.
Ever since joining the MAGA camp, she's abandoned all that and smeared protesters against the genocide as being Islamic extremists and all those smear tactics that are used against people who are just simply opposed to Israel's mass murder.
Incidentally, the same kind of smear tactics that Tulsi Gabbard has received, For taking brave stances.
And so even though I have my disagreements with her, I also have to recognize that previously, at times in her career, she's taken some brave stances, including calling out the deceptions that led to the Iraq War, calling out the scandal that was the U.S. backing an al-Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria.
And to her credit, although she has reversed herself on some issues that I find very important, especially Israel-Palestine, she has stuck to...
Her principles and other issues.
At her confirmation hearing, she refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor, and she called out the Syria dirty war, and she called out the cover-up at the OPCW, in which brave dissenting inspectors challenged the censorship of their investigation, in which their own findings undermined the claims that the Syrian government committed a chemical attack.
And those claims, just like Iraq WMDs, were very foundational to the pro-war narrative.
Right. There's a certain justice here in people
who have weaponized intelligence to take the U.S. off to war to kill so many people and then have smeared people like Tulsi Gabbard as apologists of a foreign government or assets of a foreign government for opposing their agenda.
Then now Tulsi Gabbard is now in charge of the nation's intelligence.
You know, the nation's intelligence community, in my view, was behind the smear tactics against her.
The nation's intelligence community, in my view, is one of the greatest threats to human liberty that we have today.
So in that respect, I'm happy she was confirmed.
I did write a lengthy piece on her views on Section 702, which is a roundabout around the Fourth Amendment that allows the nation's intelligence community to spy on Americans without search warrants under the guise that they or somebody they know or somebody they once knew.
This goes out to the sixth degree of separation, literally spoke to a foreign person.
She railed against 702, voted against its extensions every time she was in Congress and the vote came up.
Then she did a flip-flop on it.
We'll see.
Maybe she'll flip-flop back.
She's probably the best we're going to get in this environment.
But those people beholden to the intelligence community, like Senator Mark Warner, The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee just ranted and raved on the Senate floor this morning.
It was a party-line vote with the exception of former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who without making a speech voted against her.
All right, we'll see where all of this goes.
Let me say quickly, the one vote I was most interested in was Bernie Sanders, because Tulsi Gabbard...
Pretty much risked her future in the Democratic Party when she resigned from the DNC to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016 and who called out the corruption, the bias, the rigging of the primary against Bernie Sanders and shares many positions with Bernie Sanders despite her reversal on the issue of Israel-Palestine.
Bernie Sanders voted against Tulsi Gabbard.
So even though Tulsi Gabbard took a huge risk politically and career-wise to stand with Bernie Sanders, And even though previously they've worked together, Bernie Sanders, I think, out of total deference to this partisan climate, even though he's an independent, supposed to be beyond Democratic Party politics,
even he'd been the Democrats.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Especially after he voted to confirm Marco Rubio, with whom he shares zero.
I just find that so sad.
Bernie is an enigma trying to figure out when he's going to be the principal Bernie and when he's going to be the political hack Bernie.
And this morning, he was the political hack.
Let's transition.
To what you have been writing and speaking about on Trump and ethnic cleansing.
What is the geopolitical effect of Trump's nonsensical offer about the United States purchasing Palestine, purchasing Gaza, expelling the Palestinians, developing the property,
and not allowing them to return?
Well, one geopolitical effect is just to remind the world that the U.S. doesn't care about international law.
The fact that Trump can openly advocate ethnic cleansing and talk about just taking control of Gaza.
And when he's asked under what authority, Trump responded under the U.S. authority.
I didn't realize that there's a provision in international law that says the U.S. can do whatever it wants.
That's supposed to be...
Just as Trump can proclaim that we can take Gaza under the US authority, Joe Biden could go and denounce Russia's invasion of Ukraine while still occupying one-third of Syria and stealing its oil and valuable...
Trump is making plain the prevailing policy, not only of just ignoring international law, but also ignoring the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, the fact that he wants them not to come back to Gaza after the U.S. takes ownership of it.
And it also reminds Arab states in the region that the U.S. sees them as a client and that their whims and wishes are just completely worth ignoring.
Trump humiliated King Abdullah of Jordan sitting there.
And claiming that the US will take Gaza.
And the King of Jordan just had to sort of whimper in his seat and not really forcefully push back.
Egypt has canceled a visit by Sisi to Washington because this whole thing is just so humiliating.
But it underscores that the US has contempt for international law and contempt for the people that it calls its allies.
Is the...
Trump foreign policy just towards Israel, Gaza, Zionism, the Middle East, just a continuation of Joe Biden's.
100%, except the difference is Trump appears to be putting even less constraints than the pitiful constraints that Biden put on Israel, because Biden paused symbolically one 2,000-pound bomb shipment to Israel.
And Trump's just more willing to say openly the...
I keep hearing that Netanyahu is miserable.
Do you have any insight into this?
I don't know if it's Physical, medical problems, legal problems, or if he somehow really feels humiliated that Trump seems to be taking over Gaza from him, or wants to take over Gaza from him.
He does have some health issues, and obviously he has the ongoing court cases, but when it comes to Palestinians, I think he's thrilled.
Trump is basically giving Netanyahu a rubber stamp on the Israeli policy that Palestinians have no rights.
And that they should all leave.
In 1967, when Israel took control, occupied the West Bank and Gaza, Moshe Dayan, who was a top Israeli general, who was considered to be sympathetic, actually, to the Palestinian plight within the context of the Israeli establishment, he had a line that Noam Chomsky wrote about because Chomsky read about it in a book written in Hebrew,
and Chomsky translated it.
And Moshe Dayan said that basically the Israeli policy to Palestinians in the West Bank is going to be that you will live like dogs, and whoever doesn't like it will leave.
And that's been the policy ever since.
And so Trump, by saying that, yes, Palestinians and Gaza are going to leave and not come back, he's just newly affirming what's been Israeli policy for decades.
He's putting an official U.S. rubber stamp on it.
Rather than previous U.S. presidents who have quietly supported that policy, while not openly admitting it, Trump is openly admitting it.
So Netanyahu, I think, has every reason to be thrilled with Trump openly endorsing Israel's foundational commitment to ethnic cleansing.
Here's Trump.
On Air Force One on Sunday, either going to or coming home from the Super Bowl, on buying and owning Gaza.
Chris, cut number one.
Steve Whitcoff said that process would take 10 to 15 years.
Does your commitment to rebuilding Gaza extend beyond your time in office?
I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza.
As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it.
Other people may do it through our auspices.
But we're committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn't move back.
There's nothing to move back into.
The place is a demolition site.
By what authority could he possibly own it?
None. Owning it implies a sale.
Who would sell it to him?
At one point he said Israel would sell it to us.
Israel doesn't own it.
Israel can't conquer it.
Israel can't defeat Hamas.
Hegs says American troops will never be there.
I don't know if these people have even thought this stuff through.
I don't think they've thought it through either, but when you're guided by what fundamentally is racism, where you don't see Palestinians as equal human beings, you...
Are fully devoted to Israel's conception of itself as superior, as having the right to all that land and Palestinians having no rights, then you'll be willing to disregard Palestinian existence, ignore that they've been there for thousands of years.
And it's Israel that's actually a settler colonial state created by European Jews who came in and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians.
There's always been a tiny portion of Jews in the land of Palestine, but the vast majority for a long time were.
What would happen to me, a Roman Catholic, if I lived in Gaza?
Well, your church might be bombed, as happened during the genocide.
A church in Gaza was bombed and destroyed, along with all other places of worship.
Israel does not recognize Palestinians as equal, especially in Gaza, because Gaza has long been the center of Palestinian resistance.
And when you're a supremacist state, you can't tolerate any resistance to your rule.
It has to be wiped out.
And I think that's what drives Trump here as well.
The U.S. and Israel insist on having a monopoly on force, and Hamas disrupted that with October 7th.
So therefore, in the eyes of a fanatic like Trump and Netanyahu, Gaza just has to be wiped out, and all the Palestinians who live there have to go with it.
Chris, cut number seven, and Aaron, I'm going to ask you, after we listen to this, if you think that Trump is trying to sabotage his own ceasefire agreement written by his own emissary, Steve Witkoff.
Number seven.
As far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by...
Saturday at 12 o'clock.
I think it's an appropriate time.
I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out.
I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o'clock on Saturday and if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two.
Saturday at 12 o'clock and after that I would say...
All hell is going to break out.
And I don't think they're going to do it.
I think a lot of them are dead.
I think a lot of the hostages are dead.
I think it's a great human tragedy what's happened.
One and two and three and four and two.
That's the deal authored by his guy, Steve Witkoff, for which he claimed credit.
Probably accurately, and President Biden claimed credit as well in the middle of January.
What does he want to do now?
Sabotage his own deal?
He knows Hamas cannot release all the hostages on Saturday and is only obliged to release three.
Yeah, he's blowing up his own ceasefire deal.
He's blowing up his own mandate.
He went to Michigan and campaigned on a platform of bringing peace to the Middle East.
That's what he promised the Arab and Muslim community there.
He promised his own voters, the MAGA base, that doesn't want to be fooling all these foreign wars to put America first.
But now he's so devoted to Israel, he's willing to blow up the ceasefire that he helped negotiate.
It doesn't make any sense.
Judge, I'm curious your thoughts.
I mean, you know the guy.
Is he this macho?
Is he this impulsive that just the sight of Israeli prisoners being freed and the fact that you had Hamas celebrating?
Is this what you think maybe set him off that he just can't tolerate this resistance group getting any sort of credibility or any sort of attention?
What's going on here?
I think he's so impulsive, Aaron.
We can play that clip again, and you'll see a slight pause before he says Saturday at noon.
The idea just...
As far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time.
I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out.
I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o'clock on Saturday, and if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two.
Saturday at 12 o'clock.
And after that, I would say all hell is going to break out.
And I don't think they're going to do it.
I think a lot of them are dead.
I think a lot of the hostages are dead.
I think it's a great human tragedy what's happened.
He made up the numbers off the top of his head.
No question about it.
And he gave carte blanche for Netanyahu to say the hostage without saying whether he meant three or all.
The president at least was clear when he said all.
Unrealistic. But that's what he said.
Netanyahu was not clear.
He said, I want the hostages returned at noon on Saturday.
So we don't know if he's talking about precise compliance with the ceasefire agreement that he signed off on reluctantly, but he did.
Or if he's talking about Trump's new command.
I'll give you the last word on this, but I think they're both trying to sabotage the agreement.
I suspect, or at least I'm hopeful, that the White House will find a way to lock this back, that they all recognize this was just Trump being impulsive, and they're not going to.
Go all the way with this.
This thing he said about there will be hell to pay or hell will break loose, that to me is just him being a tough guy, him being impulsive.
But they know that this deal is important.
It's one of their biggest achievements so far.
So are they going to blow it up just for the sake of catering to Trump's impulses?
I really hope not.
And there are a few other things to mention.
Trump has talked about how horrible it was to see these emaciated...
Israeli prisoners coming out of Gaza and how they look like they went through the Holocaust.
Well, why is that?
It's because the US under Joe Biden was helping Israel block all food and aid to Gaza, as Israeli officials openly bragged about.
So what else is going to happen when you deny?
Did you see on mainstream media any of the Palestinian prisoners that were carried out of Israeli jails on stretchers and gurneys?
Well, there you go.
Exactly. And so, meanwhile, by contrast, Palestinians coming out of Israeli prisons, they look just as emaciated.
In fact, in some cases, worse, because they've suffered much worse ordeals than people.
And on that front...
Even the New York Times has recently acknowledged that Hamas' complaints about Israel's implementation of the ceasefire deal are correct.
Hamas has said that, you know, Israel is supposed to let in critical humanitarian supplies, including tents for people to sleep in.
You know, recently there was heavy rains in Gaza and some people have, like...
No tents to sleep in.
And their tents, if they do have them, are being flooded.
So they find whatever shelter they can.
It's horrible.
Israel's supposed to let in more tents than they haven't.
And even Israeli officials, speaking to the New York Times, have acknowledged that Hamas's complaints were accurate.
So you know things are bad when even the New York Times, and of course they bury this at the bottom of an article.
This wasn't the headline, although it should have been.
It was buried in an article that even the New York Times is admitting that Hamas's complaints about Israel blocking the terms of the ceasefire deal are accurate.
Aaron Monte, thank you, my dear friend.
No matter what we talk about, it's always enlightening, and I appreciate your letting me pick your brain.
All the best.
We'll see you again next week.
See you then, Judge.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up later today at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi at 4 o'clock from Midnight in Moscow, Pepe Escobar.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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