Sept. 29, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:04
| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. | |
| Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025. | |
| Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be here in just a moment on Netanyahu stumbling. | |
| But first, this. | |
| My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this. | |
| From October 10th to 12th, Mikhail Thorpe, host of the Expat Money Show, is bringing together top experts from around the world for the Expat Money Online Summit, and it's completely free to attend. | |
| You'll learn how to legally protect your wealth, secure second residences and citizenships, reduce your tax burden, and own property abroad, all to safeguard your freedom. | |
| This year's focus is on Latin America, where opportunity is booming. | |
| Argentina is shifting to free markets. | |
| El Salvador is undergoing a dramatic transformation. | |
| And Panama and Paraguay are offering simple residency programs. | |
| A plan B is no longer optional. | |
| It's essential. | |
| Reserve your free ticket at XpatmoneSummit.com. | |
| And if you want VIP access with special perks, including lifetime replay access and exclusive VIP panels, use promo code Judge for 20% off your upgrade. | |
| That's expatmone summit.com, promo code Judge. | |
| Professor Sachs, welcome here. | |
| Uh, my dear friend. | |
| Let's let's get right to the news of the moment, which is an announcement by President Trump standing next to uh Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu of an agreement. | |
| Of course, it's an agreement between the United States and Israel. | |
| It's not an agreement between Israel and its adversaries. | |
| Um a plot to lure Hamas into God knows where, and they have no choice but to agree. | |
| If they don't agree, President Trump will uh fully support Netanyahu's efforts to destroy every living person uh in the Gaza Strip. | |
| Where is this going to go? | |
| We're of course in a typical Trumpian uh confusion moment. | |
| It's clear what would bring peace. | |
| What would bring peace is uh a state of Palestine created alongside the state of Israel and the uh end of Hamas as a military force uh alongside that uh end of uh the denial of Palestinian statehood. | |
| In other words, there would be a political outcome, and then there would be a security outcome linked to it. | |
| The political outcome would be the state of Palestine. | |
| The security outcome would be the end of militant uh resistance movements to Israel that are based on the denial by Israel of a state of Palestine. | |
| And so by linking the political and the security, you would get the agreement of all of the countries in the region, and you would actually end up with the disarmament uh of Hamas because Hamas would not have uh any backers uh at all in the context of a political settlement. | |
| Typically, uh, what Trump is offering is uh something that doesn't do that. | |
| What Trump is saying is Hamas should surrender entirely, Release the hostages and politically, well, we'll see. | |
| Uh what's essentially said is that Israel by agreement would step by step withdraw from Gaza, but would have overall security arrangements with Gaza and in due time with suitable reforms. | |
| There may be a process that then would lead to Palestinian statehood. | |
| In other words, um, unfortunately, because the U.S. is a dishonest broker, it's a Zionist uh backer. | |
| What is on offer here is that Hamas should uh end its resistance, and what comes politically, we'll see. | |
| Now, in that context, uh Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said last week in the UN that under no circumstances is there ever going to be a state of Palestine. | |
| So the Israeli position is we know what comes, nothing. | |
| Uh Hamas should uh disarm. | |
| Uh Israel should keep control uh over uh Gaza, yes, maybe it'll agree uh with the United States to some kind of phased semi-withdrawal, but don't ever expect a Palestinian state. | |
| And that was reiterated today by Israel's ambassador to the UN in a UN Security Council meeting. | |
| Now Trump has said, well, we have an agreement with Israel on the basis of a end of the fighting, uh, a phased withdrawal of Israel from Gaza, and some vague mention of a political future, | |
| but all very vague, and unbelievably, some kind of uh committee uh that's going to govern Gaza, chaired by uh none other than President Trump and uh reportedly including uh former uh British Prime Minister Tony Blair. | |
| So we can bring the British Empire back into this story. | |
| They created the entire mess, uh, and now we'll bring them back to prolong the mess. | |
| It's almost a joke, but uh here we have it. | |
| So what is discussed today is uh vague ambiguous language, which uh rightly calls for uh ending the fighting, but as is typical with Trump, does not get to core political issues, which are at the heart of the real conflict. | |
| It's also uh clear, and it's been stated that Hamas was not in any way a party to uh this so-called agreement between the U.S. and Israel. | |
| Uh, there were no negotiations. | |
| In fact, of course, uh Israel tried to kill the Hamas negotiators that were considering the terms for ceasefire. | |
| So this is not really an agreement to end fighting. | |
| This is an agreement between the U.S. and Israel. | |
| Right. | |
| Oh, in other words, this is so typical uh of uh how things work right now. | |
| Basic issues are faked or denied or not discussed or left on the side. | |
| Things are left ambiguous because Trump is politically uh not interested in or capable of clarity uh in almost anything that he does, because that requires then following through consistency, uh diplomacy and so forth, and uh he doesn't operate that way. | |
| And so we have uh a half-baked agreement that may mean no agreement whatsoever. | |
| Uh it may, by the way, just be turned down flat by Netanyahu by the time he gets on the plane or lands in Israel, or claims that Hamas uh disagrees with a certain point so Israel has reserved the right to not uh abide by any of this most likely the fighting will continue I don't think the fighting is going to end if the fighting ends uh then uh which which would be | |
| wonderful. | |
| The real question at hand will be whether the world community outside of Israel and the United States, the world community which overwhelmingly recognizes that there needs to be a state of | |
| Palestine, not a nonsense so-called negotiating process within Israel that completely rejects even the possibility of a Palestinian state, whether that takes hold or whether the United States continues its decades-long role as guarantor of Israel's unilateralism and dominance over the Palestinians. | |
| That was pretty long-winded. | |
| I don't know if I was clear. | |
| No, no. | |
| Professor Sachs, it's almost impossible to put your finger on what they agreed to. | |
| It's absurd to call it an agreement because Hamas is not going to agree to it. | |
| You're quite correct. | |
| It's just an agreement between the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the United States. | |
| It's been condemned by Netanyahu's two most prominent hard right cabinet members, Ms. Motrich and Ben-Gavir. | |
| So who knows where it's going to go. | |
| But he really looks bad in this and exhausted. | |
| But here's the President of the United States making the announcement. | |
| President of the United States making the announcement. | |
| everybody involved asked me to do this so it'd be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States that's what I want to some extra work to do but it's so important that I'm willing to do it. | |
| One of the people that wants to be on the board is the UK former prime minister, Tony Blair. | |
| Good man. | |
| Very good man. | |
| And some others. | |
| And they'll be named over the next few days. | |
| Working with the World Bank and others, it will be responsible for recruiting and training a new government that will be made up of Palestinians, along with highly qualified experts from all around the world. | |
| Hamas and other terrorist factions will play no role in the board, but they'll play no role in the governance of Gaza at all, directly or indirectly. | |
| I don't think that illuminates your thinking. | |
| It just shows the absurdity of all this. | |
| Tony Blair as what, a colonial overlord? | |
| Tony Blair, of course, remember, was the great champion of the war in Iraq. | |
| The great reflection of basically British imperial thinking that continues to this day. | |
| When you hear Donald Trump, Tony Blair and the World Bank, oh, God help us. | |
| This is basically, at most, a continuation of 100 years of British-American history. | |
| uh uh attempt to uh uh rule over uh and and to uh uh enable Israel to rule over the Palestinian people uh of course all of this is uh in a context where there's a mass murder going on so we want there to be a ceasefire uh and the ceasefire is urgent. | |
| But it's just so typical that there is no reality on the politics according to international justice, law, standards, honesty. | |
| It is at best a mess on that. | |
| And it's asking the world, just trust me, I'm Donald J. Trump. | |
| I don't want this job. | |
| I just want a Nobel Peace Prize. | |
| Just give me the peace prize already. | |
| And I'll chair the peace committee. | |
| But peace committee for what? | |
| What's what's going to happen? | |
| A process? | |
| A process that has gone on for more than a century now, in which uh Israel has uh basically done everything that it can to expunge the Palestinian people. | |
| Well, that that seems to be what this is uh uh about. | |
| I I hope I'm wrong. | |
| Uh we all want a ceasefire, uh, but this seems like uh uh another setup for failure because it's at best half baked. | |
| Uh it's just like the Ukraine situation. | |
| Uh words that don't really mean much, uh, that uh don't get to uh uh the bottom line that are not specific. | |
| I suppose it's the telltale sign that uh Trump would not answer any questions because it's all questions. | |
| Uh there's no specifics. | |
| And so they walk out of the press conference in this uh cloud uh that that uh is uh so uh opaque and and bizarre. | |
| You have the one headline line which says that Netanyahu Netanyahu is saying I support the president's plan. | |
| Okay, that's that's the uh the headline that Trump wanted, but all the rest is uh is complete fog. | |
| How um bad is the Israeli economy after what Netanyahu has put the country through in the past two and a half years. | |
| Israel is uh hemorrhaging people, it's hemorrhaging talent. | |
| Uh young people don't want to live there. | |
| Uh and so there have been hundreds of thousands of people leaving. | |
| Tourism uh is of course uh in collapse. | |
| Uh I think more and more countries in the world will simply uh stop uh economic relations with Israel. | |
| Uh you have uh right now uh more than three-quarters of the world's countries recognizing the state of Palestine, which Israel has sworn to oppose. | |
| So almost no matter what happens uh in the coming days on this uh so-called peace plan, whatever it is, there's going to be very uh aggressive and hard feelings and isolation of Israel, and one can only imagine uh under any circumstances the ugliness we're going to hear. | |
| I spoke to one official who was predicting this afternoon uh that there the war will not only continue, but it will extend to the West Bank, and Israel will do whatever it can to uh end the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank because already it has started a propaganda campaign that the West Bank is the hotbed of terrorism and uh and uh armaments and uh lots of propaganda that seems uh clear, | |
| clearly aimed at uh and ending uh any hopes of the Palestinian state. | |
| So to come back to your question on the economy, I think Israel will be uh more and more isolated, and I think more and more uh people who might have lived in Israel will leave Israel. | |
| Uh so I think that the consequences uh are very bad looking over uh any kind of foreseeable future until there is Real peace and a state of Palestine, | |
| because that's the only way there can be peace, is uh that uh there actually is an end to Israel's uh domination and purging and murder and apartheid rule over the Palestinian people. | |
| Unfortunately, none of that uh is ending according to what we heard this afternoon. | |
| Uh and so I I think you have to give a very negative verdict to the Israeli economy. | |
| What does it have right now? | |
| Well, it has spying, it's very good at spying, it's uh very good at uh uh at uh murder and uh at um weapon systems, but I think uh most of the rest of uh uh the economy, the service sector, the tourism sector, it what what can you say about a place that's in dependent war. | |
| Uh what is your take on uh President I were with him last week, President Pazeshkian's um sincerity about not building a nuclear weapon and sincerity on the significance in Iranian government and Iranian society of the fatwa against it. | |
| Well, there is uh a if well, a religious ruling uh that was made uh a long time ago that uh Iran should not uh build a nuclear weapon, and uh they have uh honed to that, | |
| but uh that of course uh was taken as uh weakness by uh Israel and the U.S. So an invitation to attack Iran and to attack Iran repeatedly, uh including uh assassinations of uh uh Iran's uh scientists, its military leaders, and its political leaders. | |
| And I have no doubt uh that uh Israel will try again uh to assassinate uh more Iranian leaders. | |
| And unfortunately for Iran, these uh professions of peace, which are made uh repeatedly and have been made for uh well more than a decade, and we have to remember that the last agreement with Iran was just ripped up by Donald Trump uh a decade ago, the uh joint comprehensive plan of action. | |
| Uh when when Iran says that they want peace, uh Israel says, great, now we'll kill you. | |
| You know, you're weak. | |
| Uh it shows you're weak. | |
| Uh and uh so this is uh what worries me is we heard something I think quite sincere. | |
| Uh it happens that the president of Iran also is uh a medical doctor who takes very, very seriously uh his uh responsibility, his ethical responsibility. | |
| I've heard him talk about it at length, that when you have a patient on the table and you're operating, you don't care who that is, it's your duty to save that person. | |
| Uh and he went on at great length, and clearly it was uh a very personal statement uh that he was making in this regard. | |
| But I'm just afraid that the way that all of that is received by our propagandized media, the the mainstream media, and by the actions of uh the CIA and Mossad and others is well, if they're not gonna make uh a bomb, that's great. | |
| We really will just take them out. | |
| I think that that is uh no doubt what's uh in planning right now. | |
| Is Netanyahu in danger of losing his government and thus his job, and we can speculate as to what will happen to him if he loses his job as a result of an effort to um engage in something towards peace without a total elimination of the Palestinian people. | |
| In other words, will will Ben Gavir and Smokich and their uh colleagues leave the government? | |
| No, we won't let that happen. | |
| Uh he is not in one iota person of peace. | |
| Uh, he's a man with blood on his hands, uh, and he has absolutely no intention of losing his job. | |
| So uh he will easily find a way uh to say that uh well, Hamas didn't dot the I or didn't cross the T or sneezed at the wrong moment and this was a signal for more terrorism. | |
| He'll make up whatever he wants, not to lose his extremist murderous coalition that is dedicated above all to Israel's complete control over Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. | |
| In other words, to no possibility at all of a Palestinian state. | |
| And if there is any doubt about that, just listen again. | |
| I in I suggest to anybody, listen again online to Netanyahu's speech at the UN because he was as clear as can be that under no conditions, Hamas, no Hamas, nothing, there will never be a Palestinian state, according to him, because Palestinians are evil, and we will never allow a Palestinian state. | |
| Okay. | |
| There will never be peace, but Netanyahu will never allow any distance with his extremist colleagues because he's equally extreme. | |
| And whatever was said today won't matter by tomorrow in that regard. | |
| Anything that uh jeopardizes this coalition uh will uh will not uh be pursued by Netanyahu. | |
| And he's gearing up for his next uh election campaign at some point, and he is going to run as the person who made the Palestinian state impossible forever, whether that's by killing all the Palestinians or doing whatever he does, that's what he's gonna run on. | |
| And um you can be sure that whatever is agreed right now between Israel and the United States is going to have that as a subtext. | |
| And Netanyahu's not going to let any agreement get in the way of his uh election, his power and his coalition. | |
| Chris, do we have the uh clip from Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech in which he admits that the Mossad has hacked into the uh cell phones of the Gazans? | |
| They beheaded men. | |
| Thanks to special efforts by Israeli intelligence. | |
| My words are now also being carried. | |
| They're streamed live to the cell phones of Gazans. | |
| So to the remaining Hamas leaders, and to the jailers of our hostages. | |
| I now say, lay down your arms. | |
| Let my people go, free the hostages, all of them, the whole 48. | |
| Free the hostages now. | |
| Thank you. | |
| If you do, you will live. | |
| If you don't, Israel will hunt you down. | |
| What a disgrace that man is. | |
| Let my people go, he says, the man who is enslaving, imprisoning, and murdering millions of Palestinians. | |
| He says, let my people go, referring to the 20 or so hostages, not to the millions of people who are being starved, brutalized, locked in their place, Uh expropriated by him. | |
| It's such a perversity, but that is uh what we're seeing. | |
| And yes, uh, he chortles about uh uh about uh uh Mossad's ability to uh infiltrate uh everybody's phones, uh and of course he carries on with the absolute uh childish delight in the booby trapped uh pagers uh that uh maimed and killed lots of innocent people uh in Lebanon uh in this uh attack to try to uh | |
| assassinate uh the uh leaders of Hezbollah, uh, and did so also by murdering uh women and children standing in shops and uh in stores and walking on the street and so forth through uh this uh booby trapping of uh of devices. | |
| Well, this is uh this is murder inc, and they're very proud of it. | |
| They're very proud of the technology. | |
| Professor Sachs, thank you very much. | |
| These are such gloomy conversations we have, but they need to be aired. | |
| Uh our viewers deeply appreciate them, as you know, from the vast numbers that flock to this show when you're on. | |
| Thank you, Jeff. | |
| Thank you for everything. | |
| Safe travels. | |
| We'll look forward to seeing you next week. | |
| Excellent. | |
| See you soon. | |
| Bye-bye. | |
| Thank you. |
Export Selection