Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - MATT HOH : Ukraine Military Near Collapse. + OCT-7 What We Know Now!

All Episodes

Previous Next

Oct. 8, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

23:22

MATT HOH : Ukraine Military Near Collapse. + OCT-7 What We Know Now!

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
	Today is Tuesday, October 7th, 2025.
	Matt Ho joins us now.
	Matt, it's a pleasure.
	Thank you very much for joining us.
	I want to talk to you about both Israel and Ukraine.
	But before we get to what appears to be the collapsing uh Ukraine uh military, a little bit on October 7th, uh Prime Minister Netanyahu is still repeating lies about the events of October 7th, claiming that horrific events occurred and describing them in detail, events that have been totally debunked by Israeli media and uh and in the West.
	What is he hiding?
	Well, Judge, thanks for having me back on.
	Uh, you know, the need to lie.
	Uh what occurred on October 7th, it was there are war crimes, uh there were uh massacres, there were murders um that occurred alongside though uh justified illegal attack by the Palestinian resistance on Israeli military and security forces that were uh occupying the Palestinian people.
	Uh so the reality though, as we've seen it play out with the need to uh fabricate events that didn't occur, such as the beheading of 40 babies, the mass rape uh uh of women, the uh, you know, just the things are just absolutely horrific, hanging dead babies on clotheslines, things like that.
	Um, you know, the need for the Israelis and the Americans to utilize such uh uh stories and and and and falsehoods uh shows the paucity, you know, shows the shallowness, the emptiness uh of the the of what they're standing on here.
	You know, so when you're standing on an occupation, when you're standing on mass violations of international law, when you're standing upon decades of ethnic cleansing, and you are in you are carrying out a genocide, then you have to fabricate things.
	You have to make things up.
	You have to tell extremely lurid and horrific tales in order to try and maintain some semblance of uh moral uh moral uh uh uh direction in all this, uh, which, you know, of course, those of us watching this the last two years know there's none, but it's still quite amazing uh among the American establishment, the American ruling class, uh, the media, the politicians, uh, etc.
	Um, these lies, as we you know, we're just describing, still hold some weight.
	Do you think that Netanyahu and his regime knew about uh October 7th before it happened?
	Well, the Israeli uh military intelligence services were uh in possession of uh the plans for Al-Aqsa flood, you know, for the attack on October 7th.
	Um, you know, there's uh you know, reporting whether it was they actually had the actual physical copies of the plan uh through to the uh intelligence officers serving for you know, serving Israel, uh, you know, maintaining surveillance on the Palestinians in Gaza who were aware that something was happening.
	Um so you know, whether or not uh there was uh an instance of the Israelis saying, hey, let's let this thing go forward because we can utilize it.
	This will be the provocation.
	This will be the excuse we need to launch this campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza to pick up where we shouldn't have left off in 1967 and finished the job, or it was just incompetence, uh, you know, a bureaucracy uh Where the information just didn't get to need to go where it had to go.
	Or, you know, uh thirdly, uh the you know, we have to recall that uh Hamas, I don't want to call it a project of Benjamin Netanyahu and many in Israel, uh, because certainly it is the embodiment of the Palestinian resistance against occupation,
	but we have to recall that Benjamin Netanyahu and others in Israel saw Hamas as a way to ensure friction, to ensure war, to ensure that there never be a two-state solution, that there would never be a Palestinian state,
	that if you could keep a uh monster like Hamas, this is how they would describe it, uh, as the viable and leading uh uh uh power in Gaza, they can always make the case that we can never talk to these people, we can't make peace with these people.
	The idea of a Palestinian state is impossible because look who's ruling them, Hamas.
	While you were sending or allowing the Qataris to deliver them brief cases of money, millions of dollars, you know, every month or annually or however often that exchange occurred.
	Do you uh think there was a stand down order once they realized what was happening?
	No, I don't think so.
	I I think the Israelis have become complacent.
	I think that their military, much like their Mossad, uh, you know, in other security uh services, are uh their reputation is overblown.
	Uh, I mean, this was an Israeli military that for decades their only combat experience was primarily shooting uh teenagers who were show throwing stones.
	Uh so I think the Israelis were uh taken by surprise on October 7th.
	They were overwhelmed by a well-prepared, well organized, well, you know, uh just justifiably motivated Palestinian resistance.
	Um, and uh so I I don't believe that there was a stand down order, and I've not seen anything uh to to uh argue for that.
	Uh there certainly was, of course, the extension of uh of this conversation, I guess is uh the Hannibal Directive, where you know what occurred on October 7th in terms of how the Israeli military reacted to the attacks and the consequences of that was the mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, uh numbering in the the dozens, maybe even in the hundreds.
	Is there any question but that that Hannibal directive uh was issued and complied with?
	No, there's no question at all.
	I mean, the Israelis themselves have stated this Israeli media has uh verified this.
	You've had great journalists, you know, like Max Blumenthal and Aramate, you know, uh, who have uh documented this, uh, there are uh uh, you know, just uh the the flora of evidence, whether it's eyewitness statements,
	whether it's statements from the military, whether it's our understanding uh knowledge of how the Israeli military operates, uh, you know, the the forensic evidence, the fact that Hamas simply didn't have uh the the weaponry to destroy the buildings or the vehicles and the manner in which they were destroyed, they had to have been destroyed by say Israeli tanks or Israeli Apache helicopters.
	I mean, so the evidence is there.
	The question I think remains how many were killed?
	You know, are you talking uh dozens or you're talking hundreds?
	Uh and you know, the the injustice in this, of course, of course, there's the the propaganda value of it, right?
	The the fuel for the narrative to hide this, to keep this October 7th attack uh firmly rooted in a narrative of just simply barbaric massacre, an unprovoked attack, the region was at peace, etc.
	etc.
	All that right, all that nonsense we've heard for two years now.
	Um, but also too uh, you know, to to hide uh you know, I I guess the injustice, what I'm trying to say, the injustice of it is to the Israeli people themselves.
	The fact that their government will not own up, will not recognize except through leaks and through investigative journalism, uh that many of their own people were killed by their own military.
	Can a Moral argument be made that the events of October, that on October 7th, Hamas was engaged in a the execution of a military procedure designed to repel illegal occupiers who had suppressed and starved the people that elected them.
	absolutely judge.
	The Palestinians had every right under international law or under natural law to carry out these attacks.
	A People have a right to resist uh violently occupation.
	There's no argument against that.
	And that is found, I believe, in both international law and natural law.
	So what the Palestinians carried out on October 7th was justified.
	Now, certainly the attacks on civilians uh was uh horrendous.
	Uh those are war crimes, that's reprehensible.
	Uh and it's also strategically counterproductive.
	Uh but uh certainly the Israeli the I'm sorry, the the Palestinian resistance attacks on uh Israeli military bases and on security posts.
	I believe the Palestinians attacked eight Israeli military bases, as well as uh the more localized or smaller guard posts and patrol bases and uh vehicle checkpoints, um, those are entirely justified.
	And there's there's there's uh you know, I will make the argument that until the justification, the righteousness of the Palestinian people in their resistance is recognized, uh there can be no political uh solution to this conflict.
	Just as this deliberate misunderstanding or this this incorrect and unjustifiable assertion that the Israelis are engaging in self-defense as they carry out occupation, as they carry out apartheid,
	as they carry out ethnic cleansing throughout Palestine, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, uh, that as long as as that you know that incorrect assertion is made, there also cannot be uh political solution found because those are the two things that are most foundation foundational to understanding the relationship between occupier and occupied.
	And if they're reverse, if they're flipped, uh then how can you ever have a process moving forward that will always be dictated and determined by the Americans if that relationship of occupier and occupied, a right to resist,
	uh no right to self-defense uh is not understood uh does Israeli society uh, whether politically elites or professional class, whatever recognize that Netanyahu,
	who doesn't want, no matter what he says, doesn't want and cannot afford an end to the war, that the consequences to him personally would be so catastrophic that he will do anything he can to continue the war.
	I I think judge that's the that's the the pretty much uh uh you know uh acceptable or or rational or reasonable understanding on that.
	I mean, if he leaves office, he goes to jail, uh, you know, let alone his own personal ambitions, his his desires to be the greatest among all the Israeli leaders.
	Uh, you know, I have to believe that that this man uh who is uh a narcissist of the first order, maybe he is not as much a narcissist as our uh current president is, but it's pretty talking shades of difference that don't really matter here, right?
	You know, I mean, but you know, I mean, for a man like him, do you tell me that that Netanyahu doesn't go to bed at night envisioning himself as being hailed as the greatest of all Israeli leaders?
	Uh the man who could get done what Bengurian could not get done, right?
	You know, I mean, like that type of thing, the man who fully realized Greater Israel.
	So I think there certainly are is that cold uh calculated political aspect of it, uh, where I gotta stay in power or else I'm going to the clink.
	Right.
	As well as though this greater messianic uh vision of himself that dovetails with his very sincere beliefs about Greater Israel, uh as well as his hatred for the Palestinians.
	So I think you put those together and you put together you couple that with his understanding of Israel's relationship to the United States, and he believed that Israel can be a super Sparta, that it can be Fortress Israel, that it can be Israel against the world, and they will survive uh as long as that asterisk is included that it's Israel and the United States against the world, and so Israel will survive.
	Wasn't the entire Zionist project, now we're back in 1947 and 48, premised upon a total rejection of the idea of collective punishment based upon characteristics of birth, condemning the concept that a Holocaust would ever exist again.
	And now it's been perpetrated by the descendants of the very people that created this state, this Jewish state, supposedly to be free of this type of cancer.
	Yeah, I mean, what you have is you have an ethno-theocratic nation state.
	You have a a state that is uh a state built upon the concepts of Jewish supremacy.
	Uh this originates uh as a Zionist movement builds uh in the late 19th century.
	Uh it becomes more concrete uh as uh the 20th century develops, uh, and then it's giving a moral backing, uh, a moral justification by the horrors of the Holocaust.
	Uh, so that by the time uh 1947 rolls around, you not only have an understanding within uh the broader Jewish community that such uh an acquisition of land is not just necessary but moral, but that also is extended throughout Western governments, uh, and you know, I should say throughout many governments.
	Um, but the the uh there was no righteousness in it, of course.
	Uh I mean, uh there was no justice in any of it.
	Um, and so much of the early aspects of Western support, such as, say, the British Balfour Declaration of 1917, which gives, you know, real momentum to this, gives uh uh uh a national uh an inertia uh uh uh pushed by uh nation states to achieving uh uh a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
	Well, that's many ways motivated uh by anti-Semitism, you know, this this twin thing of the Jews want their own home, and we want the Jews out, so let's have them get a place in Palestine, right?
	So all this is just you know, uh just just sinister, it's corrupt.
	Um, and you know, you could have this understanding of the plight of the Jewish people uh throughout their existence.
	Uh you can have a sympathy with them.
	Uh, you could have uh uh an understanding that yes, they should have been giving their own uh land, uh, but that should have been in Bavaria, you know, not in Palestine.
	Right.
	Let's uh switch gears and let me prevail upon your military expertise and analysis and observations.
	What kind of condition is the Ukrainian military in as we speak now in early October 2025?
	Um it's it's a you know, facing the manpower challenges that we've been aware of uh for for years now, essentially.
	Uh it is uh facing uh shortages of weaponry, uh, particularly uh air defense missiles, uh armored vehicles, uh, and you know, it is being outmatched uh by superior Russian weapons, uh both uh in terms of quantity and quality.
	So two reports that came out recently that show uh not just uh where Ukraine is at, but the overall failure of the Americans and the Europeans was that last month in September, uh the Russians launched nearly 6,000 drones against uh Ukraine.
	Uh Ukraine launched uh less well, less than 3,000 drones, about 2,500 drones.
	So three and a half years into this war, with all the statements, Trudge, right?
	All the beating of the chests, all the proclamations uh and and assertions that the United States and the Europeans were going to arm the Ukrainians so that they could defeat the Russians.
	We see the results of that.
	You know, the success of Russian industrial capacity versus the failure or weakness of American and European manufacturing industrial capacity.
	The other thing is we report, I believe it was the Financial Times, uh had an article on how uh whereas you had uh over the last couple of years, uh the Western uh missile interceptors that were provided to Ukraine had success rates of 30, 40, 50, maybe even 60 percent, but pretty high success rates of engagements against Russian ballistic missiles.
	And now because the Russians have uh, just as you you you in any war, the Russians have advanced uh their weaponry, uh, their ballistic missiles uh now uh say the the Western air defense missiles only shoot down about eight percent of the Russian ballistic missiles.
	So you have this this this reality where you have a uh Ukrainian state that is continually getting weaker, not just militarily uh but also economically.
	Uh the IMF uh just said Ukraine is in vast needs of tens of billions of dollars.
	Uh they have uh not just a manpower shortage in terms of personnel, but a manpower shortage in terms of their economy and their society.
	Does the does the West recognize this?
	The West around Trump know this, or are they still whispering uh General Kellogg style nonsense into his ears?
	They still are are uh uh uh uh they still uh are are obedient to the neoconservative view of the world.
	They still are uh uh you know obedient to the idea of American primacy or hegemony and and that the the ideas that were are or were laid down by the George H.W. Bush administration and Bill Clinton administration, that anything that resembles uh any type of threat to our primacy must be destroyed.
	Uh and so you can say whatever you want about Russia, but as long as uh it is understood to be something that the United States cannot subjugate, that it will not become either a voluntary involuntary vassal, then it must be destroyed.
	And the Europeans are wrapped in a madness of their own.
	You had last week Ursula Vanderlei and the head of the EU come out and make a statement where she said the EU's priorities are building its armies, right, and winning the war in Ukraine.
	This as Europe across the continent is beset with energy, uh uh uh with regard to energy, housing, uh, wages and jobs, their industry is uh in decline.
	I mean, the migration problem, their politicians and governments are incredibly unpopular.
	Uh, you know, so as this is besetting the Europeans, these nations are under this incredible strain.
	And as they continue to uh uh bear the results of not investing in themselves, not taking care of their own people, um, you have the head of the EU saying what we need to focus on is building our armies and winning the war in Ukraine.
	Right.
	Both things, as we've just spoken about, are near impossible.
	Yeah.
	Oh Matt, it's a pleasure to chat with you.
	Neither of these, of course, is uh is a uh pleasant topic.
	We all thought Ukraine would be over by now.
	None of us thought that Netanyahu would uh stop by now unless we had an American president who would stop him, but that doesn't seem like it's in the cards.
	Right.
	And the thing that's so both these things either the genocide going forward, I'm I'm a believer that whether or not this Trump plan holds, it's going to result in the same thing for the Palestinians, just different style of ethnic cleansing, you know, and then of course you're gonna have the annexation of the West Bank and in Ukraine.
	If and when Ukraine loses, what does that mean?
	Do you have a failed state?
	Right?
	You have a Syria or an Afghanistan in Eastern Europe, what type of victory is that for the Russians, let alone the loss then?
	You know, and not just in terms we lost one of our countries on the map, we lost one of our pieces on the chessboard, but in terms of this is what we have wrought, this is what we have brought to Europe is a failed state adrift with warlords.
	right banderists whatever they call themselves yeah matt thank you very much my dear friends great to We look forward to seeing you next week.
	All right, thanks, Judge.
	Sure, all the best.
	Coming up at three o'clock on all of this, she has a fascinating piece on Judge Snap called Coach BB Leaves a Mark.
	Well, you'll find out, Colonel Karen Kwadkowski at three o'clock.

▲