Judge Andrew Napolitano
Judging Freedom Podcast
Streamed live on September 26, 2025
In his UN speech, Netanyahu declared unequivocally that there will never be a Palestinian state, framing Israel’s war not against Hamas but against Palestinian political rights. Sachs condemned the speech as vulgar, mendacious, and genocidal, pointing to Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza, mass civilian deaths, and fabricated atrocity claims from October 7th. Netanyahu boasted about Israel fighting seven wars and sought U.S. backing for more, including confrontation with Iran. Israel survives only through U.S. arms, funding, and diplomatic cover, meaning Washington could halt annexation, mass starvation, and ongoing destruction if it chose to. Trump’s statement opposing West Bank annexation showed U.S. leverage, yet America remains complicit in genocide by failing to act. Over 150 nations already recognize Palestine, defying U.S. pressure, while Netanyahu isolates Israel except for U.S. support. Sachs described Netanyahu’s strategy since the 1990s as permanent war, regime overthrows, and repression, rejecting any negotiation. He contrasted this with Iran’s expressed willingness for peace and diplomacy, frustrated by U.S. sabotage under Israeli influence. U.S. foreign policy is hijacked by Israel, driving endless wars and moral collapse while enabling mass murder in Gaza.
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Judge Napolitano: Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, September 26th, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now.
Professor Sachs, this is double duty for you and I thank you for it. But you were as outraged as I was, and as I would imagine everyone watching us now was, at the speech given by Prime Minister Netanyahu to a nearly empty hall. I counted no more than a dozen people on the floor—nearly empty General Assembly chamber today. Before we run the most incendiary part of what he said, did any of what he said surprise you?
Jeffrey Sachs: Well, the vulgarity of it surprised me, and I think he put Israel into a direct confrontation with almost all the world. That’s why the seats in the General Assembly were empty. He told it like he sees it.
The most important point of his speech is that under no circumstances, according to him, will there be a Palestinian state. So he made clear what we’ve known for a long time but some people have denied. The war against Hamas, as he terms it, is not really a war against Hamas. It is a war against the possibility of a state of Palestine. It is a war to expunge the political rights of Palestinians once and for all.
And today’s speech put that very clearly. He didn’t say, “Once we get rid of the terrorists, then we will sit down and negotiate a state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.” He said it will never happen. And he said that is the will of not only himself and his government, but also of the parliament, the Knesset in Israel, and of the Israeli people.
So he took a very clear stand which, in my view, makes clear that Israel has no possible direction for peace other than killing and war all the time. And throughout the speech, he endeavored to draw the United States again and again into his endless wars. He actually pointed out that Israel is engaged in seven wars right now and he wants the United States to be engaged in all of them.
He made clear that nothing will allow a state of Palestine. And this is very important for people to understand. Israel has thrown down the gauntlet. It’s not a surprise, it should not be a surprise to anybody, but it will be a surprise to some because I still get people telling me every day up until today, “Oh, it’s about attacking the terrorists. He’s not ruling out a Palestinian state.” Well, he certainly is. And the only way that Israel can have this answer that Netanyahu wants is endless war and endless mass murder. And he wants the United States to sign up for that.
Judge Napolitano: Even though his absurd and disgusting claims about the events of October 7th have been totally debunked by Max Blumenthal, by Haaretz, by nearly everyone that’s looked at them, he repeated that disgusting nonsense today:
Benjamin Netanyahu: “They beheaded men.
They raped women.
They burnt babies alive.
They burnt babies alive in front of their parents.
What monsters?
And these monsters took more than 250 people hostage.
And those included Holocaust survivors, grandmothers, and their grandchildren.
Who takes hostage grandmothers and grandchildren? Hamas does.
So far, we’ve brought home 207 of these hostages, but 48 still remain in the dungeons of Gaza.”
Judge Napolitano: And that has been totally debunked. It’s an outright lie. The Israeli public knows that it’s a lie. Hey Bibi, why didn’t you mention the stand-down order? Who gave that?
Jeffrey Sachs: Almost everything that he said in the speech was a lie. Every number that he cited—the claim that the deaths of non-combatants relative to combatants is less than 2:1, when it is probably about 5:1 at a minimum. Most of the people dead in Gaza are women and children. Children alone are 40% or more of the deaths. This man is a mass murderer. He doesn’t count the lives of anybody but Israelis, and the rest for him is non-existent.
It is a kind of derangement, but it is a derangement that has led to a genocide, despite what he said. By the way, of course, the UN Human Rights Commission issued a very detailed report explaining why, by law and by fact and action, this is a genocide.
And then he made absolutely shockingly absurd, I would say even obscene, statements about how they’re protecting the Gazans by telling them to leave their homes because they’re about to be bombed, and they’re so good that they give them advance notice. And we know that not only have hundreds of thousands, more than a million, basically almost the entire population, been displaced by the mass destruction of every means of survival, but when the Gazans have been sent to a supposedly safe place, they’re bombed there as well.
Everything he said was a lie about all of these facts. But the main point is that he explained very clearly the political point of view. The political point of view, as we have discussed many times, you and I, is that there will never be a Palestinian state. That will lead to resistance among people who are oppressed and suppressed and jailed for no cause, or expelled from their homes, or expropriated, or tortured, or murdered in cold blood by settlers and by IDF and others.
There will never be a Palestinian state. There will then be resistance, and Israel will see to it that it overthrows every government that supports the Palestinian cause. And that’s why Israel is in seven wars. And he bragged about it. He bragged about the seven fronts that Israel is fighting. Well, Israel is fighting everybody because what Israel is doing is monstrous. Because it has no answer—because there is no politics in it other than murder and repression.
And his idea since 1996 has been that Israel will assert ownership of every bit of the Palestinian territory, and when the resistance comes it will overthrow the governments. He bragged about that as well. He bragged about overthrowing the governments in Iraq, which the US poured blood for in Netanyahu’s war. He bragged about overthrowing the government in Syria, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives over many years. He bragged about fighting Yemen. He bragged about fighting Iraq. He called again for the overthrow of Iran.
He wants nonstop war to assert his vision of complete Israeli control over Palestine. And that’s what he explained today very clearly. Israel is a rogue state backed by one country only—the United States of America.
What we had this week was a revulsion and a rejection of everything that Netanyahu claimed this afternoon. There are now well over 150 countries that have recognized the state of Palestine, despite the extreme pressure put on by the United States that those countries don’t do that. But they do it anyway because they know that’s international law and that’s basic morality. And it might help to save the lives of millions of people who are being murdered right now by Netanyahu and his gangster cronies.
So this is what today’s speech really came down to.
Now it’ll be interesting—can the United States politicians understand that they are complicit in a genocide right now every day? I’m not talking only about Trump. I’m talking about the Senate and the Congress and our cabinet members. Do they understand that it is the United States which enables the mass murder of the Palestinian people, and for what end? For Israel to assert complete control over all of Palestine and over parts of Lebanon, Syria, and who knows what else they’re going to claim.
Judge Napolitano: Do you think that Netanyahu plans to annex the West Bank?
Jeffrey Sachs: I think that this is, of course, his intention. It is reported that yesterday President Trump told Arab leaders that this would not be allowed by the US. This is interesting because first of all it makes clear a basic point: the United States can stop this. And Trump was very clear: we can stop the annexation of the West Bank.
Judge Napolitano: Let me just interrupt you for a minute because he said the same thing to the press—and I know you’re on the other side of the globe right now. He said the same thing to the press today. I was quite surprised to see this, but here’s President Trump today in the Oval Office on this topic:
Reporter: Did you promise leaders this week that you would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank? And is that something that you—
Donald Trump: I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope. I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen. There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now.
Judge Napolitano: Can he stop Netanyahu from doing that?
Jeffrey Sachs: Of course. Israel survives only because of the United States. The United States arms Israel. The United States finances Israel. The United States provides the veto in the UN to prevent the overwhelming majority of the world from being able to act because the US uses its veto. So yes, President Trump isn’t bragging, he’s making a point. The US can stop annexation.
But I’ll make another point: the US can stop mass starvation of the Gazans. The US can stop the mass slaughter of the Gazans. The US could have stopped the complete and total destruction of the houses, the churches, the mosques, the hospitals, the water stations, the power stations, the roads, and all of the rest of the facilities that made it possible for 2 million people to live in Gaza. The United States could have stopped all of that as well.
So, President Trump is telling the truth, but he hasn’t stopped the mass murder. And that’s why history will record that the US is complicit in a genocide. And I hope that for the sake of the people who are dying, and for the sake of our own security and survival, and for the sake of human decency, that he will say today just what he said about annexation of the West Bank: that he will not allow a continuation of mass starvation, that he will not allow a continuing destruction of the people of Gaza.
And if the United States had a shred of awareness—which sometimes it seems it doesn’t, in the political class I’m talking about—the United States would join every part of the world, and international law, and common sense, and common decency, and recognize a state of Palestine based on peace and the two-state solution. Trump could do that also today.
So yes, this can be done today. The president is not bragging. They’re not doing it because of the power of the Israel lobby, and maybe even, Netanyahu said, because of the tight connections of the CIA and Mossad. Maybe because of Mossad and Epstein, maybe because of the campaign contributions. We don’t really know why, but we do know that the overwhelming majority of the world that isn’t caught up by the Israel lobby understands full well what is happening.
Judge Napolitano: Is the Israel lobby in the United States strong enough to overbear what we just heard President Trump say he wouldn’t allow?
Jeffrey Sachs: It could, because we know that President Trump changes day by day. So yes, it could do that. We don’t know what threats, what blackmail, what cajoling, what other tools it may have, but it could. I would not rule that out. But I want to make clear that that would be a choice of President Trump.
In other words, President Trump has the power. The United States is the backing of Israel, not the other way around. And so if we actually have an American foreign policy, not an Israel foreign policy, then he will stay with what he said. And this is what his followers supposedly elected him for. It’s what any American would want, which is we want the American interest, not the Israel interest. Not America to be part of endless wars, which Netanyahu has pulled us into time and again. Not to be part of a genocide, not to be part of a blackmail or bribery operation, not to be isolated from the rest of the world.
And now we have today, I think as clear as can be: Netanyahu says there’s no path to peace other than through war, because Israel will never allow a state of Palestine. Well, the point is that if the United States changed, that too can be imposed by the world community. That’s called the UN Charter. That’s called Article 7 of the UN Security Council. Even the UN General Assembly will be able to find the power to do this. Netanyahu has put his country into almost total isolation but for one remaining country, and that is our country.
Judge Napolitano: Netanyahu bragged today about the seven wars that Israel is fighting. And of course we both know, and everybody watching us now knows, that he wants to start an eighth. And you and I were invited to lunch—although we both left before the food was served—with the people that he wants to attack and kill: the president of Iran. He wants to turn Iran into another Syria.
What was your impression after listening to the give and take between the president and the foreign minister of Iran and the 20 of us that were in that room?
Jeffrey Sachs: I’ve been hearing from the Iranians for a very long time, and in many detailed discussions that go back a long way, that Iran wants peace. It wants normality, it wants no nuclear weapons, it wants monitoring, but it wants its sovereignty and its protection from Israel and Israel backed by the United States.
Donald Trump did something shocking, extraordinarily disturbing, and extraordinarily debilitating of America’s interest. And that was to enter into negotiations, announce an upcoming negotiation, and then bomb Iran a couple of days before that negotiation.
So he did that, of course, at the behest of Netanyahu. But he sent again a very clear statement that the United States does not understand the idea of diplomacy. Like Netanyahu, it is interested in dropping bombs, not in actually reaching diplomatic agreements. And we talked just recently about the fact that it was Donald Trump who ripped up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA, with Iran back in 2017.
So what you and I heard was the desire, the intention for peace and for a peaceful diplomatic solution to this. It could not have been put more clearly. The main point I’m making is that that’s been true for a long time. From Netanyahu’s point of view, anytime another side says negotiate, he aims to kill the negotiators.
This is literal. I’m not being rhetorical. He kills the negotiators on the other side because his aim is not negotiation, in which the rights of the Palestinian people would have to be recognized, but rather to use force and the overthrow of governments to impose Israel’s will on the region.
Judge Napolitano: I was very impressed with the sincerity of the president of Iran and the foreign minister, and I wish that the American officials could have heard what we heard without their Netanyahu-tinted glasses that they always seem to wear.
Jeffrey Sachs: Of course they could, if they would sit down and talk, right? And if they would do so honestly rather than kill the negotiators of the other side.
And by the way, Netanyahu’s speech is filled with the bravado of having assassinated all these people all over the region. He brags about this. And this is the one who wants to get the United States into yet another war with Iran in particular. And it could happen. It all shows the absolute dire state of American politics, because a country of 340 million people has let itself be overtaken in its Middle East foreign policy by this tiny country, and to use the American military machine for the purpose of absolutely outrageous purposes of extremism and murder.
Judge Napolitano: Professor Sachs, thank you very much. Three times with you in one week is a joy. Once in person, of course, at this lunch, and twice on the air. But thank you very much. Very, very informative. I know it’s almost the crack of dawn where you are, but you’re very gracious and generous to share your thoughts with us at a moment like this. Thank you, Jeff.
Jeffrey Sachs: Great to be with you. See you next week.
Judge Napolitano: Of course.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
