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Sept. 22, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
32:46
Larry Johnson : The Country of Palestine.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Monday, September 22nd, 2025.
Larry Johnson is here on Donald Trump and Palestine and Donald Trump and Venezuela.
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Larry, welcome here, uh, my dear friend.
Do you think that the um now nearly universal recognition of Palestine as a sovereign country has any significance geopolitically, or is just symbolic?
So far it's just symbolic.
There's been no teeth put into it.
Um, but you know, I you start looking back at this, and you know, I think most Americans are just completely ignorant of uh of the region and the history, and they don't appreciate the fact that while there are you know many prominent Zionist uh commentators that will insist that Palestine's just an artificial creation, and there are no such thing as Palestinians.
Well, that's a lie.
Uh it couldn't be further from the truth.
But you know, the fact of the matter was that the the even the term Palestine goes back into uh thousand years before Christ was born.
So, you know, it's not like the concept of Palestine is something that has just been created in the last 20 years.
Number one, number two, Palestine as an actual territory.
Yeah, it was not an independent country because it was part of uh it was a territory occupied by the Ottoman Empire, by the Turks.
Before Turkey was known as Turkey, it was uh you know the Ottoman Empire.
And before that, by the Romans.
Yeah.
And uh there was never a state of Israel for more than two thousand years.
Once so once the Romans uh uh drove uh the the Israelis out in 70 AD.
So you know, this Israel as a country is an artificial creation coming after World War II.
And when you look at the population of the area, you know, you know, back in 19, I think it was 22, they did a did a census, and uh the Muslims in and the area of Palestine uh accounted for uh uh oh this was 1931.
The the Muslims then accounted for 760,000.
Uh Jews were at 174,000.
They had actually doubled in size from 1922 to 1931.
Why?
Well, there was a lot of mayhem Going on in eastern Europe and Russia, as the Soviet Union uh was being born, and uh uh there were pogroms and a variety of things.
So uh you had a you had a rapid influx of uh migration of Jews.
Uh there wasn't another actual census done of uh Palestine, uh uh because in 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel, the Israel then conducted its own internal uh census of its uh of the number of people,
and what you find is that there was a massive massive influx of European Jews that came in to um uh uh into Israel between 19 uh 31 and uh by the census in 19.
So if you go back 1931, there were 174,000 Jews.
Uh by 1955, that number stood at 1.8 million, so almost uh more than a million Jews had come in from eastern Europe had come in.
So this notion that these were like natives of the area, nonsense.
The the Palestinians were the actual natives.
Um, and and you know, in addition to the Jews, there were Christians, there were Druze and other uh ethnic minorities.
So Palestine is and should be an actual country, uh, but uh the this recognition by a variety of European states doesn't bring with it the teeth where they're willing to tell uh Israel to get the hell out of Palestinian territory, and um the people that settled in what is now Israel after 1948.
Did they buy the land on which they settled or did they steal it?
Uh yes.
So some was purchased, uh most was stolen, most was taken, as is happening, you know, as we're seeing today with the settlers, the so-called settler movement.
And I mean, it's a 800,000 of them uh that are taking over uh Palestinian land in the West Bank, and you know, the world world's sitting back.
I mean, look, this is not the first time this has happened in history.
We did it here in the United States, correct to the uh Native Americans.
We took their land, uh, so it just you know were might makes right in this case and and through force, but uh this this notion that these that these Europeans, you know, uh uh Netanyahu, he comes out of Poland, his family's out of Poland, he's not a native of Israel.
Uh and you know, even there's so many uh evangelicals that I know they get all wrapped around the the biblical story, but and they don't fail to at least acknowledge that those original 12 tribes of Israel, you know, you know,
well, ten of those disappeared, and so you know it's not even clear that the two that were left over uh are in any way connected genetically to these uh current group that uh you know they're there are indications they come out of a well, but Larry Larry, wait a minute.
According to Senator Ted Cruz and Ambassador Mike Huckabee, God the Father intended that Netanyahu's government would survive and uh prosper, and Netanyahu is a direct descendant of the people to whom God spoke in the old testament.
You can't make this up, yeah, yeah.
And it's it's it's it's utterly ridiculous, um, because it's not even it doesn't even uh uh line up with what is actually written in the old testament, uh the promises made to Abraham, who was the father of both Jacob and Ishmael.
Well, if the but the blessings that were promised to Abraham were you know uh that would extend as well to the Muslims, not just the Jews.
So the promises about this land is yours, you know, uh all of that was written by Jewish scholars who were being held captive in uh the you know ancient Babylon, and you know, they came up with a nice story that would justify their ability to go back and kill people on the land.
Will Russia or China do anything to stop Netanyahu's slaughter and starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in Larry Johnson's opinion.
No, uh, they should.
They're capable of doing so, if nothing else, just cutting a complete total economic embargo uh on Israel.
Uh heavens, the the Arab Islamic countries, the 54 that met in Doha, they could do the same.
It would it would put an end to this, but uh there is so far no stomach for concerted action, and uh the the Zionists continue to you know attack the you know, I think as Alistair Crook commented on your uh earlier interview today with him.
They're just uh they're like a thug nation, they're completely out of control, attacking everybody.
But at some point, someone or something needs to put a stop to it.
I mean, we have to wait until Thomas Massey gets elected president of the United States for this to stop.
Well, no, I you know, I think it's ultimately ultimately gonna stop, if nothing else, either out of exhaustion on the part of Israel.
Uh again, they're they have finite resources, and including even even with the American pipeline, there you can characterize the resources as finite.
Yeah, the human resources, personnel.
Oh god, yeah, putting putting people in uniform and sending them out to get killed.
Uh they could they you know, they've it's now more than a week, uh coming up almost two weeks since they launched uh the operation into Gaza City.
They haven't taken Gaza City yet, they haven't secured it, and they're still uh and the and uh uh Hamas fighters, the different Palestinian fighters, not just Hamas, uh, are inflicting casualties on the Israelis, and the the reservists they've got some real morale problems with the Israeli reserve.
Well, and they're extending their reach, they're trying to conduct operations in the West Bank and in Lebanon and in Syria.
So, yeah, that's what I mean that exhausts those human resources.
You can pump all the money and weapons you want in, but even on the U.S. side, there are limitations.
We we can't give them unlimited supply of patriot missile battles, batteries or thad missiles for air defense, because we don't have them.
So uh there are limits to what people can do.
And then you get to the issue of the economy in Israel, it is in terrible shape.
Uh you know, they used to we get a significant amount of income from tourism.
That's died off.
And so um if they if they pursue it, it it certainly appears that the United States and Israel are intent on attacking Iran and renewing that war.
Uh, if that happens, I think the devastation that'll be visited on Israel is beyond anything that they can imagine right now.
Who uh controls whom?
Does Netanyahu control Trump or does Trump control Netanyahu?
I think Netanyahu controls Trump.
Trump's a weak man, uh talks, you know, in some areas can talk a good game, but he's completely beholden and under the under the thumb of this Zionist uh lobby, Zionist uh cabal.
You know, look at if you've listened to Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens uh over the last week discuss the kind of pressure that was being brought to bear on Charlie Kirk and Kirk didn't even run a government.
I mean, yeah, he was politically influential, but the threats using money as a as as leverage, uh, but also the fear that they could, you know, there could potentially be violence.
You know, that's always in the back of minds.
Israel cannot go around and claim that, oh, yeah, we don't have a track record of assassinating people overseas.
Really?
Uh tell that to Hunya, uh the Hamas negotiator.
Tell that to the recent Hamas negotiators that were in Doha that you attacked.
Tell that to Sheikh Nasrallah.
So, you know, Israel Israel has a uh an earned reputation in this regard.
And so, you know, I can see there's some have claimed that there's a fear factor on the part of Donald Trump.
Trump is not serious about bringing about peace in uh Gaza or in Ukraine, is he?
No, he's focused on what he called it, Iberbaijan and uh uh Albania.
Right, a one-pointing corporate Albania, right?
So it's actually Azerbaijan and Armenia, and then he also actually said it was Cambodia, who were they fighting?
Was it Albania or Iberbaijan?
You know, so yeah, he doesn't even know.
I mean, it's it's really it's sad.
Um, you know, and each other, as we get older, we uh you can tend to misspeak at times, you know.
I'm doing it.
But uh, you know, what we're seeing with Trump, he's got his he's got his finger on the button, so to speak, and if he doesn't even realize that he's making those kinds of errors in describing the situation.
And you know, the United States is moved into uh a mood to be quite provocative with respect to Iran.
You know, Iran signed that Cairo agreement uh on September 9th, in which they basically were agreeing to let IAEA come back in, even though they knew that IAEA had been a uh an arm of the spy agencies for spying on Iranian scientists, identifying their names, addresses, locations.
Nonetheless, Iran did that in a bid to show not just to the West, but to show to other BRICS nations that hey, we're still trying to play by the rules.
It's the West that has violated JCPOA, not Iran, because under that original JCPOA, that meant that there had been like seven or eight different sanction packages that have been approved by the UN.
Those were all to be lifted, and Iran was now no longer to be sanctioned under that.
Well, Donald Trump withdrew from JCPOA, and England, France, and Germany, they've they turned around and said, Well, okay, we'll keep it.
They kept the sanctions in place.
So even though this JCPOA agreement was in place on paper, in terms of actual effect, Iran was still getting the sanctions.
So here's Iran now saying, okay, yeah, we'll go along with IAEA coming in to inspect in accordance with JCPOA.
And Russia, China, Albania, and uh Pakistan, uh, or excuse me, Algeria and Pakistan.
Uh, they submitted a resolution last Thursday to the United Nations Security Council, basically saying, hey, uh uh Iran's gonna have has this Cairo agreement in place, so let's keep the sanctions relief under JCPOA in place.
United States led the charge with Germany, France, and England.
Hell no, we're not gonna do that.
So they snap back.
In other words, the sanctions that were in place prior to JCPOA, those are now in full force, except they never went away.
But Russia and China do something very important, and and uh and Alistair pointed this out uh correctly, that they stood up and said, your actions of the UN Security Council are illegal, invalid, and we're going to do business with Iran.
So they did, you know, they basically told the UN go shove it.
Good for them.
Yeah, and and it, but this is you know, this may be the first time this has happened at this level where they've they've united and said, no, this is going to stop.
Now it remains to be seen if the US and Israel are crazy enough to want to start a war with Iran again, because Iran has had significant material uh support from both uh Russia and China, and as recently as last week, uh the chief of staff of the Iranian army was in Moscow, and he met with their equivalent of the Secretary of Energy, the guy's in charge of all Russia's energy programs.
And and the Russian told him, he said, you know, we need to continue to strengthen our, and this is the Russian saying this, our economic and military cooperation.
So there definitely is when you've got the chief of staff of the Iranian army talking to the Russians about military cooperation, you can be sure that that's in fact what's on the table.
You were uh talking earlier about Trump confusing countries.
Here's something else he didn't know.
He was sort of caught flat footed with a reporter's uh question on Air Force One last night flying back to DC from Arizona, Chris cut number one.
You've been calling on Europe to stop buying Russian oil.
The U.S. has imported 755 million dollars worth of Russian uranium and plutonium so far just this year, and that's up from the Biden administration last year, about 100 million dollars.
Can you ask Europe to cut off purchasing those kinds of products?
Yeah, do you know anything about it?
Well, yeah, absolutely.
But uh this goes back not only drill baby drill, we've got a mind-baby mine.
We allowed ourselves to fall in underdependence of both China and Russia for critical minerals.
Uh us America buying uranium from Russia is not acceptable.
And so we're working very hard in Sector of Energy, Chris Wright, myself to make sure that we've got a plan so that the United States can get back into domestic and rich radium production as quickly as possible.
Trump didn't even know about the almost a billion dollars.
It's like it's a it's a clown show.
I mean, it it's all but this this it'd be look, it's not an entertaining clown show because people are dying.
And this is this is putting the world at the brink of a of a global war.
Uh because it's not, you know, the hypocrisy of this is the United States.
If we were if we were sincere, yeah, we'd cut it all off, except the reality is we depend upon some things that Russia supplies.
We don't have an alternative source.
So when you got in that situation, it's like can't we figure out a way to get along instead of wanting to threaten uh the other?
Which is which is what the United States has been doing.
Uh but also in tandem with this are the provocations that are taking place all along the northern border, uh, Russia's northern frontier with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, then uh to the west with Poland, where these false flags of drone penetrations and claims that uh Russia's flying uh uh into national territories of these countries,
all designed to try to create a causal bell-eye where the West will attack Russia.
And you know, Russia's done everything in its power to try to avoid that.
But the the uh as the war worsens on the ground in Ukraine for the Ukrainians and the and by extension NATO, then they become more desperate, and in their desperation are doing some absolutely crazy reckless things.
Uh shortly before uh he left Moscow for New York, your friend and mine, Prime Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a very long and fascinating interview to another mutual friend of ours, uh Dmitry Symes.
Here's a short clip from it, and I I know you will recognize the venue in which the interview took place.
Chris cut number eight.
But in Alaska, this approach was fully confirmed.
As you know, the visit to Alaska was preceded by several visits to Moscow by Stephen Witkoff as President Trump's special envoy.
And as a result of these visits, he also met with President Putin.
And following these visits, the Americans formulated their approach to the issue of resolving the situation in Ukraine and how they see their own role, unlike all other prominent Western political figures, uh, especially, of course, such influential European leaders as Kirstarmer, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, and Friedrich Merz.
Alexander Stubb is also very actively involved in this significant campaign.
And of course, Mark Rutte.
How could we possibly forget him?
And you know that magnificent uh residence, the same building in which you and I were privileged to interview him for a couple of hours uh a few months ago.
Um I think he's trying to say Trump finally understands the origins uh of the special military operation uh in Ukraine, but his crazy European buddies don't.
Yeah, um what's becoming very clear is no matter what Trump says, he is quite weak politically.
Um, somebody who's weak and insecure always reacts as Trump does with uh this bombast and over uh overhyped uh responses.
Um I think Trump has just decided to try to do nothing and let the war wind its way down.
Uh and and then it's in that context that we see the Europeans becoming more desperate, both in terms of what they say and what they're trying to do.
Um Russia is expanding its attacks.
And in fact, uh Putin said yesterday in a speech or the day before yesterday, made it very clear that the Russian forces are moving forward all along the line of contact.
And and they're creating they're creating a military crisis for the Ukrainian forces, and by extension, uh setting off a crisis within the NATO countries because NATO's desperate to stop Russia, but they don't know what to do.
And there's nothing that they practically can do.
Um, you know, they talk about confronting Russia, but then when it comes time to throw the first punch, nobody wants to do it.
So uh, you know, I think uh but but what's gonna take place in the next couple of months is gonna be very, you know, it's it's it's very dangerous because we can't rule out the possibility of someone in NATO deciding to there would be a good idea to fire on Russia, and I and I think Russia's of the of the mind now.
They're not the they're they're they're not gonna put up with this anymore.
They're going to uh hit back and hit back hard.
What do you think is gonna happen in the next couple of months in Venezuela?
Well, you know, number one, what Donald Trump's doing is criminal, it's a violation of all international law.
Hell, it's a violation of just God's law.
You don't no president has the right to kill people just because I think they're bad, I think they're doing bad things.
No, you got to have a level of proof or intent.
Now, it'd be one thing if these boats that they were being approached by U.S. Coast Guard vessels or U.S. naval vessels, and these boats started firing machine guns or RPGs at the at the approaching U.S. vessels.
Okay, then now they're firing at you, you can fire back because they're taking action that could threaten the lives of you and your crew.
Uh I I I did a I did a training course for some students yesterday.
One of them is just recently out of the Coast Guard, young guy in his 30s.
But he he was describing to me, he'd been on several of these drug interdictions.
And you know, he described times at which like his his M4 uh or an AR uh rifle, you know, malfunctioned and and couldn't be fixed, and he had to switch the pistol because they were engaged in a firefight.
But he he described what Trump is doing as just immoral, illegal, and counterproductive.
Because number one, that the narrative that's being pushed, I can't believe the media is so stupid as to repeat this nonsense.
You've got a 60-foot cigarette boat, high-speed boat with four outboard motors coming out of Venezuela, and it's quote, going to the United States with fentanyl.
Number one, that you'd need 330 five-gallon gas tanks on that boat in order just to get the boat to say key west, number one.
And if you put that many on the boat, there wouldn't be any room for the drugs, much less the 11 people that were there in the first strike.
So these boats aren't carrying drugs to the United States.
This is the United States showing.
We if we don't like you, we can kill you.
And no president should have that power.
No president.
With the exception of Rand Paul and uh Thomas Massey, nobody in the Congress is complaining about it.
Yeah, no.
That's why the the United States has become a rogue nation.
We think that we can use we're we're, you know, we shouldn't blame Israel for doing what Israel does.
They're just following our example.
You know, um I uh I watched Trump's speech last night.
I didn't watch the whole thing.
It was you know, it was on all day.
The the Charlie Kirk memorialslash funeral.
And I was not surprised, but was angered at Trump, who in one breath can praise Christianity, and in the next breath can say how much he hates his adversaries.
We'll play the clip in a minute, but his murders of these people legally innocent, no matter what they're doing, they're legally innocent.
They haven't been charged with anything, they haven't been arrested, they haven't been indicted, is based on hatred.
Here's Trump on hatred.
I don't know if this was in his original text or just his meandering, but here he is.
Cut number six.
Charlie Kirk truly was.
He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose.
He did not hate his opponents.
He wanted the best for them.
That's where I disagreed with Charlie.
I hate my opponent.
And I don't want the best for them.
I'm sorry.
I am sorry, Erica.
Yeah, I mean what a dumbass.
I mean, really, to you know uh someone uh who's claimed that God saved his life.
Um assassination in July of 2024 in Pennsylvania, and then as you said, to be filled with that kind of hatred.
Uh it's you know, Trump is becoming a sad, sad spectacle.
And uh, but unfortunately, damaging the security of the United States and damaging our reputation overseas, and damaging the constitution every time he does something like put troops on the streets or murder innocents on the high seas.
Erica Kirk was the one who showed that she was the adult in the room, right?
When she claimed that she forgave the man who is alleged to have killed her husband, right?
And she she could have called for vengeance, she could have called for retribution, but instead she said, I forgive him.
Donald Trump, Donald Trump may be years older, you know, 40 45 years older than she is, but boy, he could learn a lot from her in terms of how to conduct himself as a human being.
Here's the core uh of what she said last night.
Chris got number three.
Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West.
The young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live.
My husband Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life, that young man,
that young man on the cross, our savior said, Father, forgive them for they not know what they do.
That man, that young man, I forgive him.
I forgive him because it was what Christ did.
Amen.
And is what Charlie would do.
Yeah, but it's the core.
Uh she's a great human being to bring herself to do that.
That is the core, the essence of traditional Christianity, and uh as an old-fashioned Roman Catholic myself.
Uh I was deeply moved when I heard her say that.
I praise her to the skies for it.
It's just an extraordinary statement.
Nothing like that came out of the mouth of the president.
Could you imagine Ronald Reagan there, Larry?
He would have united the country, not divided them at a at an emotional moment like this.
Yeah, he would have found you know, he would have found a way to uh elevate it.
Instead, Trump just took it down to uh to a very low level.
And you know, it's all it's almost as if he's wanting to help, you know, pour gasoline on a fire.
Right.
It's just it's very, very uh um sad.
Yeah.
All right, Larry, thank you very much.
I didn't know we were going to go there, but um I'm happy we agree on this.
And these two uh clips that we've won that we ran, Trump saying he hated and uh Erica Kirk saying she forgives her husband's murderer, these are the talk of the country uh this morning.
Thank you for your time, Larry.
We'll see you Friday with that youngster uh Ray McGovern.
I'll be there.
Thanks, Judge.
All right, thank you.
All the best.
Coming up at two o'clock this afternoon, a new guest whom I think you will enjoy listening to, an investigative reporter who's done terrific work on the CIA and how it is assaulting your liberties.
Oh, and who is going to be controlling the new algorithm at TikTok?
I don't think the answer will surprise you.
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