April 13, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:48
Aaron Maté : Why Israel Is Losing the War
Aaron Maté argues Israel employs the "Dahiya Doctrine" to target civilians in Lebanon, aiming to punish Hezbollah and infuriate Iran while disrupting peace talks involving JD Vance. He contends this strategy mirrors Gaza tactics, with Mossad's David Barnea allegedly influencing President Trump toward a failed regime change in Tehran. Maté asserts Netanyahu lacks accountability for October 7th attacks facilitated by redeploying soldiers from Gaza, while criticizing Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as untrustworthy negotiators who deceived the US about Iranian nuclear capabilities. Ultimately, he suggests these deceptive neocon policies, compounded by Trump's unhinged ego, are driving the conflict deeper rather than securing a diplomatic resolution. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Ceasefire Talks Explode00:15:10
Undeclared wars are commonplace.
Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.
To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
What if sometimes, to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government?
What if Jefferson was right?
What if that government is best which governs least?
What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?
What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?
What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, April 14th, 2026.
My dear friend Aaron Mate joins us now.
Aaron, a pleasure as always.
What does Israel gain by slaughtering civilians in the streets of Beirut?
They blew up the ceasefire, or at least they were trying to.
And they're implementing a longstanding doctrine known as the Dahiya Doctrine, which just says to the people of Lebanon that if you harbor a group, Hezbollah, that resists our aggression, our regional hegemony, you'll pay the price.
We will target civilians.
That's what the Dahiya Doctrine is.
It's named for an area of Lebanon where support for Hezbollah is strong.
And what Israel did with US support in the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon.
Was just target civilian homes in Dahlia to teach the people a lesson, just as they did in Gaza, just as they also did in Iran.
Their target always is civilians because that's how they see their goals.
That's their path to their goals being achieved.
That if someone's going to resist us, we're going to make civilians pay the price.
So the goal is to infuriate the Iranians by targeting.
Lebanese civilians, so the Iranians won't talk to JD Vance.
I mean, a part of a strategy to disrupt anything that might lead to peace or a ceasefire in the Israeli American war on Iran.
Yes.
And also, by the way, to foment a civil war inside Lebanon, just as they hope that blowing up Iran's infrastructure would foment a civil war inside Iran, that in the chaos of the rubble and people now lacking basic services, that is ripe for internal fighting, just as it was in Syria.
That was the policy pursued there, where the U.S. and Israel and their allies exploited sectarian divisions, flooded the country with weapons, destroyed its infrastructure, and in that chaos, you had the conditions for a civil war.
So, given that Israel and the U.S. didn't achieve regime change in Iran as they naively thought they would, this is the next best step just destroy infrastructure, kill civilians, and hope that the chaos leads to internal fighting that leads to a failed state.
Has David Barnea, the head of Mossad, who apparently came up with the idea?
That was referred to by some people around Trump as farcical and as BS.
Has he been discredited after talking Trump into saying this war will last?
It'll be over in 96 hours.
The Ayatollah will be dead.
The people will revolt in the streets.
You'll have a regime change in Tehran.
He's still around.
He's still around.
And even when you're criminally wrong in positions of power, especially if you're Israeli, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't impact your career.
I mean, look at Netanyahu.
He's presided over.
Not only a genocide in Gaza, but it was his hubris that led to October 7th.
Recall that he took soldiers away from guarding the or enforcing the siege of Gaza to put them in the West Bank to steal more Palestinian land there.
And that left Israeli forces shorthanded when Hamas launched that surprise operation on October 7th.
So, no, there's never any accountability.
The one thing approaching it, I guess, was that if you saw that New York Times last week about how Israel helped sell.
Trump on going to war.
It was clear that the US sources who were feeding the New York Times that story were all blaming Israel and trying to make it seem as if Israel here was the main culprit.
So, in that respect, maybe there's some bitterness behind the scenes that the Israelis promised all this and none of it materialized.
They said that Iranians would come out to the streets to protest the government.
Iranians came out to the street, but to protest the US and Israel for destroying their country.
Do you think that Barnay tricked or threatened Trump?
I don't believe in the threatened part.
Look, you can't rule anything out.
And Trump is a complicated figure.
So maybe the Israelis have something there on him.
But I just don't think it works like that.
I think, look, Trump has been an opponent of diplomacy with Iran for a very long time.
Even back in the 1980s, he was talking about supporting regime change.
So I think he has his own.
Personal hatred of Iran.
You know, he's in that class of people who feels embarrassed that Iran was able to free itself from a US backed dictator in the 1979 revolution and has tried to punish Iran ever since.
I think Trump falls into that camp and he's full of hubris.
He thought that he got away with something really special in Venezuela when he kidnapped the president and essentially at gunpoint to steal their oil.
And I think he thought he could do the same thing in Iran and Israel came along.
Hold him on this plan, it sounded great.
Presented him with this vision of him being a hero who would liberate Iran and be the guy who finally took care of the Islamic Republic.
And I think, given he's just completely unhinged and driven by ego and a desire to spread a hegemony, he went with it.
And of course, as we're now seeing, it was a, at least from the point of view of regime change, it was a failure.
To what lengths will Netanyahu go?
To disrupt any efforts, whether they're substantial or performative, we'll get into that in a minute as to what really happened in Islamabad, but to disrupt them.
Well, he'll kill civilians, as we saw on Black Wednesday in Lebanon last week, launching these attacks at hundreds of residential civilian sites, killing well over, I think in one day the toll was over 300 people.
And he did that specifically to provoke Iran because he knows that.
Iran is not going to abandon Hezbollah and just let Israel continue to run wild and accept and meanwhile have Iran accept a ceasefire.
So that's the main thing he'll do is just commit violence and aggression.
It's what he always does.
He's done that in Gaza where there was a ceasefire.
Remember, last a year ago, last March, he broke that ceasefire despite no violations by Hamas.
He's continued to break it.
So I think that's his main mode aggression.
And then you have the Israel lobby, they'll come through with a pressure campaign.
If they need to.
And we know, I mean, Netanyahu even bragged about this that JD Vance was reporting to him from Islamabad.
So I don't know what Netanyahu was telling him, but certainly Netanyahu does not want to see any diplomacy coming out of those talks.
Here's the clip of Netanyahu in which he said, JD Vance reported to me.
He also says, you'll hear this early on, as the people of this administration do every day.
Watch this, number three, Chris.
I spoke yesterday with Vice President JD Vance.
He called me from his plane on the way back from Washington.
He reported to me in detail, as the people of this administration do every day, on the development of the negotiations.
In this case, the explosion in the negotiations.
The explosion came from the American side, which was not willing to tolerate the blatant violation of the agreement to enter negotiations by Iran.
Essentially, the agreement was that there would be a ceasefire and Iran would immediately open the crossings.
They didn't do that.
The Americans were not willing to accept it.
He also conveyed to me that the central issue on the table from the perspective of President Trump and the United States is the removal of all enriched material and ensuring that there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and this could be for decades.
He probably didn't assure Netanyahu of anything.
Netanyahu told him what to do and think.
I mean, that's the way it looks.
Why Trump continues to tether his political future, his presidency, to this.
Supremacist, this Jewish supremacist apartheid state is beyond me.
But yeah, the way Netanyahu talks, it's often as if him and Trump are co presidents.
And one of the details in the New York Times story last week was that in the Situation Room, Trump and Netanyahu sat across from each other as if they were sort of co leading the meeting.
And the account is that, yeah, it was Netanyahu who was decisive in convincing Trump to do this.
Now, he lies all the time.
So it's hard to say anything he says seriously.
But what he says there about a long-term pause on enrichment that has now been reported in multiple outlets, that actually still is under discussion, which means there is still faint, and I stress faint, hope for a deal because the JCPOA, that was essentially a long-term pause on enrichment of, it was about still at a civilian level,
but still there was a cap for a long period of time.
Now it's reported that the US wants 20 years.
Iran has proposed five years.
Maybe they'll split the difference and go to 12 years or something.
But it shows that at least there is some discussion.
And as long as the US can recognize that Iran's right to enrich, which is very important for Iran because Iran developed that enrichment capability, maybe if Trump can find a shred of good faith inside himself, which is a very big if, maybe there actually can be an agreement here because Iran does have leverage.
As we're seeing with the Strait of Hormuz, it's causing major problems.
The IMF today is now warning of a global recession because of the economic fallout from Trump's war of aggression.
So Iran has its leverage, it's using it.
Maybe that actually leads to something concrete in terms of a deal.
Is Iran still attacking Israel or have they understood the ceasefire to prevent all military action?
As far as I know, they've not attacked Israel in recent days.
They've respected the ceasefire.
Now, if Israel attacked Iran, Which is a very real possibility at any moment.
Of course, Iran would retaliate.
But as far as I know, Iran has not attacked Israel in recent days.
Do we know from any sources, notwithstanding the IDF censors, how badly Israel was damaged in the war?
I know that Israelis are constantly going into bomb shelters, which for Netanyahu is a political problem because Israelis aren't used to absorbing violence.
They're just used to, you know, meeting it out on Palestinians and Lebanese and Iranians and not facing any consequences.
And it's not a society built for that.
So if constant running into bomb shelters is an indication of the rate of Iranian attacks, then yeah, you can say that Israel did suffer.
Some losses.
But I think Iran's strategy was always to play its best card, which is to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and also target the Gulf countries, the U.S. military assets in Gulf countries that surround it, which are a lot closer and a lot easier for Iran to hit.
And I think that strategy for Iran has worked.
Iran does face a problem, though.
Israel and the U.S., again, when they go to war, they don't go to war on a military so much.
They go to war on civilians.
So what did Israel and the U.S. do in Iran?
They Caused hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage.
The estimates of Iranians who will lose their jobs as a result of Trump's war of aggression is over a million.
And there's a lot to rebuild.
There are industries that were wiped out, people that won't have jobs anymore.
And Iran does have to deal with that and does have to go through the process of rebuilding.
So it's in their interest to make a deal as well.
I think they're doing everything they can to try to convince this Trump team.
But unfortunately, I mean, as we've been discussing, it's not just Trump they have to convince, they have to convince Trump to finally.
Stop listening to Netanyahu, which so far he's refused to do.
Was the Vance meeting in Islamabad substantive or performative?
I think it was substantive on the Iranians' part.
They sent a very high level delegation.
They came with serious proposals.
They had their teams of experts there.
If you look at the U.S. side, it's JD Vance and then two Israeli assets, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who've been responsible for Outright deceptions in previous rounds of aggression by the US and Israel and pretending.
Didn't the Iranians say to the Americans, don't bring these two creeps?
I know that was conveyed, yes, that they did not want to talk to JD Vance and Wickoff and Kushner for good reason, because Kushner and Wickoff have pretended to engage in diplomacy before and then used those fake talks as a cover for aggression by the US and Israel and then lied about it afterwards.
Like the last time, if you remember, Steve Wickoff was saying that the Iranians were bragging to him.
That they could build 11 nuclear bombs, and that essentially was their plan.
It was just a complete lie on his part.
Steve Wyckoff, though, once said that peaceful enrichment at 3.67% is fine with the U.S.
So he did once have that position.
But then, after the Israel lobby threw a fit, he backed down on that, which shows, again, who he's really working for, or at least where his loyalties really are.
Twenty-One Hours of Stalling00:02:01
It's with Israel, not with his own country.
But look, JD Vance.
Did engage in some talks.
They went on for 21 hours, which, you know, like you can't just talk about nothing for 21 hours.
So I do think there was some element of substance to the talks.
Unfortunately, one side was a lot more serious than the other.
Right.
I mean, the Americans did not have serious negotiators there.
The vice president is not a serious or experienced diplomat.
I'm sure that Foreign Minister Arachi and the speaker of the Iranian parliament knew a lot more about the U.S. and the strength.
For the military and our culture, and the people on the other side of the table, then Vance and company knew about them.
But even, why do you talk for 21 hours?
Why don't you extend it over the course of a couple of days?
Why did Vance have to call Trump 11 times in the 21 hours?
Well, in that respect, it's totally performative.
And it's a fair point to make in the sense that JD Vance came in not hoping to reach a deal, but certainly just to make it appear as if he was open to one.
But Arachi did say that on the issues themselves, they were inches away until there was a shift in the US side.
If you read between the lines, it's just clear again that the U.S. went back to its Israeli promoted position of zero enrichment, which for Iran is a non starter because Iran has the right to enrich.
They feel as if denying the right to enrich is an infringement on their sovereignty.
They need enrichment for civilian purposes, which they've developed the capacity to do.
So that's a non starter.
So demanding that is a poison pill.
But before that, Position was sort of reimposed by the US, or actually said they were inches away that they actually made some progress.
So there is the basis there if somehow Trump decides for the first time to engage in good faith to reach an agreement.
The Pope and Crime00:06:19
What does Trump gain by attacking the Pope?
That's just another example of someone whose ego is out of control and who has no respect for.
People of faith and is willing to throw anyone under the bus if he dares to, you know, defy the grand leader.
That's just Trump's ego at work.
And I mean, this whole incident of him posting out that meme of him as Jesus, he did delete it, which is the close I've ever seen him come to an apology.
Of course, he hasn't apologized, but even the act of deleting a post for me is a rare trace of accountability from Trump.
And of course, he had an excuse.
He claimed, I believe, that he thought that the picture was of him as a doctor, not as Jesus.
But yeah, this guy's out of control.
I mean, Judge, what are your thoughts on this as a Catholic?
I thought it was profoundly insulting, sacrilegious, blasphemous, and the product of a mind that is seriously degraded.
Trump took a lot of heat from traditional Catholics, from conservative Catholics, from middle of the road Catholics, from the Catholic hierarchy, and I think that's why he had to take that thing down.
Here's what the Pope himself said in response to Trump's comments.
Chris, number two.
I would simply say once again what I said in the Urbi et Urbi message on Sunday, asking all people of goodwill to search always for peace and not violence, to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.
In fact, we have a worldwide.
Economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.
So come back to the table.
Let's talk.
Let's look for solutions in a peaceful way.
And let's remember, especially the innocent, children, the elderly, the sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.
And to remind all that attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Is against international law, but that it is also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction that the human being is capable of.
And we all want to work for peace.
People want peace.
I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always.
Thank you very much.
I could really disagree with that.
We have a version of what Trump said about the Pope, which we'll play now.
It's actually his voice, and it is what it said, but it shows him and the Pope as babies.
But you'll get the point, Chris.
He's doing a very good job.
He likes crime, I guess.
He hit us.
Think of it.
He's worried about fear.
What about the fear when the ministers and the priests and all of those great people that were arrested during COVID, and in many cases they're outside 10 feet apart and they were arrested.
So we don't like it.
We don't like a pope that's going to say that it's okay to have a nuclear weapon.
We don't want a pope that says crime is okay in our city.
I don't like it.
I'm not a big fan of Publio.
He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime.
He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.
I'm not a fan of Publio.
Could you compare those two statements?
What is he talking about?
The Pope is in favor of crime.
You know, I try to avoid listening to Trump's statements because he's just so completely unhinged and it's embarrassing.
Unfortunately, he is the leader of the free world.
So we're all subject to him.
We're all forced to listen to him.
Yes, we are.
But, you know, look what also just happened in this war of aggression against Iran.
Israel bombed a synagogue in Tehran.
So, which shows even the level of respect they have for their own religion that the so called Jewish state has.
And did that get much attention here in the US media?
Not really, because of the impunity that Israel's just been given.
But the fact that they're even bombing their own synagogue, it just shows that this is not about religion so much.
This is about supremacy.
And Trump is in that same class.
He sees himself as superior to everybody, and he identifies with those who feel the same way.
They are willing to use unconstrained aggression against anyone, especially civilians who stands in their way.
So it's a very, very scary time.
I do think Trump had the potential, if he lived up to his campaign rhetoric, to really unite people across party lines who were against war.
I mean, that was a major selling point for him in 2016.
And then also in 2024, again, when he won, he was portraying the Democrats as the party of war.
So he had a chance, if he wanted to, to actually.
Especially because he didn't come from the traditional beltway class to actually chart a new path, but instead he's taken US aggression and supremacy and he's deepened it in ways that his predecessors didn't.
He's made the world a lot more dangerous.
Before we leave, how is your book on Russiagate coming along?
Russiagate Book on Ukraine00:01:15
It's coming.
It's taken me a very long time.
I'm sorry to say, but it's a good book.
And when it comes out, it will put.
A lot of the crises of recent years, especially the Ukraine war, in context.
It sort of traces the interplay between Russiagate and the escalation of the Ukraine war and how both these major incidents damaged everybody, especially the people of Ukraine, but also the US as well, because it deepened this neocon way of running the world and also keeping people in line through deceptions.
And Russiagate was a major one.
I look forward to reading it and, of course, discussing it with you when it comes out.
Aaron, my friend, thank you very much.
Thanks for all your insight, as always.
Have a good week.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you, Judge.
You too.
Sure.
Coming up later today at 2 o'clock this afternoon on All of This, Matthew Ho at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski.
Tomorrow at 9 from Tehran, Professor Mohammed Morandi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.