Professor Jeffrey Sachs joined Judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss U.S. complicity in supporting Israel’s criminal policies under Netanyahu, highlighting the severe humanitarian crises in Gaza and violations of international law. Sachs emphasized the need for the U.S. to reclaim its independent foreign policy, focusing on peace in the Middle East through a two-state solution. He criticized the Biden administration for enabling Israel’s actions and expressed hope that President Trump might leverage diplomatic pressure to foster true peace in the region, potentially marking a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy and achieving lasting stability.
Published on January 14, 2025
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Judge Andrew Napolitano: Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now. Professor Sachs, always a pleasure, my dear friend. No matter where you are in the world, you always seem to find time for this show and for the viewers who admire your work.
You may very well have changed the course of history with your comment at the Cambridge Student Union a few months ago, which resonated with the President-elect, who posted it and which obviously had some kind of an effect. Prime Minister Netanyahu has declined to attend President Trump’s inauguration. I don’t know if he’s afraid to fly, afraid to fly here, or afraid that his plane may have to land somewhere where he could be arrested. But clearly, the criticism that you leveled—so soundly accepted by so many people around the world—was embraced by the President and used as a negotiating technique.
So now, if there is a deal to release Israeli hostages and to release Palestinian hostages, Joe Biden will take credit, and Donald Trump will take credit. I’m talking to the man who caused this to happen.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs: No, but I would say that if there is a deal, by the way, it shows that there is leverage—that the United States doesn’t have to follow the foreign policy of some other country. The United States can follow its own policy. If there is a deal, this is Donald Trump’s accomplishment. Joe Biden, I’m sorry to say, for years has just gone along with what other countries have told the U.S. to do.
This ceasefire should have happened a long time ago. If it comes—and it should come—it is coming through pressure that should have been applied a long time ago. This is a basic point. We’ve been discussing it not only about the war in the Middle East but also the war in Ukraine. If you give your foreign policy—that is, the United States’ foreign policy—to some other government, to say, “Well, everything that we decide is going to be determined by the Ukrainians or it’s going to be determined by the Israelis,” believe me, we will not get what is in the interest of the United States.
And by the way, we won’t even get what is in the real interest of those other countries. We’ll get what is in the interest, perhaps, of a few politicians in those other countries who suddenly have the U.S. at their beck and call. But that doesn’t mean that they’re serving their own countries properly. And certainly, a President of the United States should be saying to other governments: “No, you don’t determine our foreign policy.”
So this is what I hope is now starting to happen. It’s been a long time where the U.S. has been absurdly manipulated to the U.S.’s disadvantage. Now: diplomatic isolation, endless wars, and so on. Maybe something is going to change at this point.
Napolitano: I ask this firmly with tongue in cheek, but have you heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu or from President-elect Trump?
Sachs: Well, that is very much tongue in cheek. I heard from President Trump only indirectly, being on Truth Social, so that was an interesting way to hear. I did not hear from Prime Minister Netanyahu, although I did hear from one of his ministers who roundly attacked me following an interview that I had with Tucker Carlson. And I responded. I was happy to respond in the Israeli media that the things I am saying are not even against Israel. The criticisms that I’m making are against a government that is not serving the purpose of its people and is a disservice to world peace. And that, unfortunately, has been what Netanyahu has been for a very long time.
Napolitano: What you said was to articulate the truthful observation that Netanyahu personally has been behind every war the United States has recently fought in the Middle East—as fruitless, useless, and destructive as they have been. And that he is, as you put it, a “deep, dark SOB.” That is the part that Trump posted. So, he was obviously sending a message to Netanyahu: “I may be Israel’s best friend, but you’re not going to tell me how to run, unlike you do with Joe Biden, how to run American foreign policy.” For that—when did you say this? When was the talk at Cambridge? Was it a while ago? Was it in 2024?
Sachs: It was in 2024. I don’t remember exactly the dates. It was a quick visit through the UK, so I had a chance to go to Oxford and to Cambridge and to meet with students there. They were interested in foreign policy: “Why are there so many wars? Why does this danger continue to escalate?” That was the context in which I spoke. But we do know a lot now from participants in the Iraq War. We do know how Netanyahu came and was a great cheerleader of this war. We do know, unfortunately, the role that the Israel lobby played in stoking that war—a war of false pretenses. We do know, unfortunately again, of a basic political strategy that dates back to a document called Clean Break in 1996, when Netanyahu first became Prime Minister in Israel with American political advisors tightly linked to the American political system. And the Clean Break was the break with the international process of “land for peace.” In other words, the idea that there would be a Palestinian state alongside Israel, as determined by international law, and that peace would come in that context.
What Netanyahu came to power determined to do was to prevent a Palestinian state. This was against international law. This was a claim of territory that Israel would continue to rule over millions of Palestinian people. But his assertion was: “We can do this because we will, with you, the United States”—I should add—“overthrow governments that support opposition to our policies. And when Hamas, Hezbollah, or other groups fight Israel, well, the governments in the region that support them, we will overthrow them. You should go to war with them.”
That was the idea. What an idea!
Instead of saying there should be diplomacy, there should be an agreement based on peace, Israel said: “No, no. We will have it all, and you will go to war so that we have it all.”
Now, we have an incoming U.S. government that has expressed, in the past—with President Trump—very strong, unreserved support for Israel. Many people around President Trump have said in the past: “Well, yes, we can ignore the Palestinian question, because other governments in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, will make peace with Israel. They don’t care about the Palestinians. They don’t care whether there is a Palestinian state. They don’t care whether Israel is occupying a territory or fighting absolutely brutal, unnecessary wars, killing tens of thousands of people. They don’t care.”
But that’s false.
What president Trump is going to find—and I think he knows this—but what he’s going to find when he comes into office in a few days is that the Saudi government, which is an important ally of the United States, is saying absolutely clearly: We can have peace in the Middle East. We can, of course, have normal relations with Israel. We can end this bloodshed. But it requires a state of Palestine living in peace next to the state of Israel.
This is what all of the world has been saying for years—except the government of Israel under Netanyahu and the United States government, which under Biden did every single thing that Netanyahu said. And so, we gave up our foreign policy. Israel, under Netanyahu, pursued a radical foreign policy. War has spread. Netanyahu was betting that when President Trump comes in, not only will the war spread, but the United States will go to war against Iran. That’s the last one on Netanyahu’s list that the United States hasn’t fought so far.
But what President Trump will hear from every country in the region—from the Saudis, from all of the countries in the Gulf, from Egypt, from Jordan, from the new government in Lebanon, from Turkey, and from Iran—yes, from Iran (I know it because I hear it directly in my conversations with the leadership of that country)—is that: There can be peace. There can be normal relations with Israel. But only with a state of Palestine alongside Israel, so that the region can go to peace.
So this is what I’m really hoping—not just for a ceasefire in the next days, which would be wonderful news, but true peace in the Middle East. And I would like nothing more than a tremendous success of President Trump at the start of his administration to help guide, for the first time in decades, a real peace in the Middle East.
But it requires that the United States exercise its own foreign policy to say to the Israelis: Whether you like it or not, international law, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the G20, the BRICS, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the whole world is saying: We want peace. No more of these wars on behalf of an untenable Israeli policy.
If President Trump will do this, this would change history for the good. This would make the world tremendously safer. This would achieve peace in the Middle East. And it’s not impossible that this could happen.
Napolitano: We may see a historic change sooner than we think because ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich are threatening to resign from the Netanyahu government. As I understand it, that might bring him under the 61 votes he needs in the Knesset, which will collapse his government and force elections in Israel.
Sachs: People should understand who Ben Gvir and Smotrich are. They are not only core to Netanyahu’s government right now; they are complete extremists. They are the ones that say—without any scruples, without any recognition of international law or any morals, as I would say it: We will control everything—all of the occupied lands. Annex them. Push out the Palestinians, the ones that aren’t killed under the US bombs that the US has been giving to us under Biden, to kill tens of thousands of innocent women and children. Destroy the hospitals. Destroy the infrastructure of Gaza.
Those are the two that have been the most extremist in the government. If they leave because they can’t even accept a ceasefire, this is what we are really facing.
During the Biden Administration, it was that extremism that was U.S. foreign policy. Until today, even Blinken, when asked about this in his recent interview, said: I can’t see anything wrong with what Israel was doing. Basically, they were just defending themselves.
No. What they were doing was destroying a population in order to assert full illegal control over occupied territories and to prevent a state of Palestine living in peace side by side with Israel. That’s what they were doing.
So if these two leave, this is the breakthrough.
Napolitano: Chris, I’d like you to look for that clip of Secretary Blinken being asked about by the New York Times reporter: “Are you worried that history will view you as having presided over genocide?” While Professor Sachs and I speak…
Was Benjamin Netanyahu involved in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin?
Sachs: I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But what I do believe is that the extremism and the zealotry were responsible for the death of a peacemaker.
Yitzhak Rabin was the last Prime Minister of Israel who really tried to have a state of Palestine and a state of Israel as the basis of peace. And he was killed—not by an Arab jihadist—no, he was killed by a Jewish zealot of the kind that is in power today. Many of the political supporters of the government in power today, one could say, cheered or approved. Some even celebrated the death of a peacemaker.
Well, this is known throughout history. I don’t think Netanyahu—God forbid—but it wouldn’t cross my mind that he himself played any role in that. But the extremism in Israel became real, and that extremism has been the base of the Netanyahu policies for years, which is to say: “There is no way to peace. They just want to kill us on the other side, so we have to do what we have to do.”
This is the big lie right here, which has brought us so many of these wars.
Napolitano: Here’s Secretary Blinken on genocide. Please watch. It’s a short clip. Please watch his body language, Jeff.
Interviewer: Do you—Secretary Blinken—worry that perhaps you have been presiding over what the world will see as a genocide?
Secretary Blinken: No, it’s not, first of all. Second, as to how the world sees it, I can’t, um, I can’t fully, um, answer to that. Um, but they, everyone, has to look at, um, look at the facts and draw their own conclusions from those facts. And my conclusions are clear.
Napolitano: He’s digging a hole deeper.
Sachs: Well, it’s not “everyone has to look at the facts and draw their own conclusions.” There is, of course, an urgent, globally watched case being adjudicated right now in the International Court of Justice, brought by the government of South Africa and joined by many other governments. They argue, on the basis of extraordinarily detailed briefs, that Israel is in rampant, gross, and flagrant violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
So, Secretary Blinken isn’t going to be able to just say, “Well, that’s your opinion, and my opinion is different.” We will have careful, detailed scrutiny of this, which is underway right now. It’s shocking to read the briefs that have been submitted on this issue because they are detailed, harrowing, and extraordinarily unpleasant to read. They describe the intentionality of Israeli leaders to make Gaza completely unlivable, the celebration of Israeli Defense Force troops posted on TikTok and other platforms as Gaza is destroyed, and the targeting of hospitals, schools, clinics, mosques, water supplies, power, and basic infrastructure.
The denial of the most urgent relief—food supplies, medical supplies, and even anesthetics for surgeons operating on children without anesthesia—further highlights the severity of the situation. Surgeons are operating on children who have been wounded in Israeli bombings, and then the doctors themselves are being killed, even as they send messages to their loved ones saying, “I have to continue my duty until the end.”
Israel is destroying these hospitals, and this is not hidden. It is posted on videos day by day. So no, Anthony Blinken, it’s not true that, “Well, you have your opinion, and someone else has a different opinion.” There is evidence. This is happening before our eyes. This is recorded, collected, collated, and being reviewed by the justices of the International Court of Justice. This is a real charge. This is not just a word being bandied around; this is about a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
I believe that the court will rule soon. If it does rule that Israel has committed acts of genocide—and it’s quite possible that it will—one thing is also certain: U.S. leadership, including Blinken, President Biden, Jake Sullivan, and other security leaders, have been complicit in these actions.
This is what is shocking for me as an American. What Israel does, I find despicable in this context. But the fact that the Biden Administration, to this moment, as we just saw from Anthony Blinken, says, “Nope, I don’t see the harm there,” is an unbelievable abnegation of responsibility.
Napolitano: Here’s what the highest-ranking person to resign over this from Blinken’s Department of State told 60 Minutes two days ago. Cut number 10.
Joseph Paul: Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets—all of Israel’s fixed-wing fleet—come from America. There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S., because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane.
Interviewer: These Israeli airstrikes, you could say, are made in America.
Joseph Paul: They are.
Napolitano: True.
Sachs: Israel could not fight one day without the United States. Funding, arming, providing diplomatic cover, using its veto in the United Nations, providing intelligence—in other words, complete and total engagement in what has happened.
We don’t really know—and I think we will find out more—whether President Biden has even been in the state of mind to be president during this period fully. He is in responsibility, but I don’t know who’s been making the decisions. The decisions that have been made have allowed Israel to do what Netanyahu has said.
While there have been murmurs of unhappiness or concern expressed by Mr. Blinken over the past months, those concerns have meant nothing in practice because the U.S. has given a blank check. It’s been Blinken who has certified that Israel is operating within international and American law—a false certification.
So, the complicity is very intensive. It’s not a casual complicity; it’s a deep complicity.
Napolitano: Professor Sachs, thank you very much. My dear friend, you are a living example that intellectual honesty and personal courage can sometimes bend the arc of history. Looking forward to seeing you.
Sachs: Thank you. Let’s just hope that President Trump comes in and does what he has said, which is to make America sovereign again so that we have our own foreign policy, pursue our own interests, and our interests are in peace in the Middle East—with two states living side by side: Palestine and Israel.
If President Trump does this, I want to be at the front of the parade to get him a Nobel Peace Prize first thing. It’s within his reach. I so dearly hope that he’ll follow the path of peace.
Napolitano: Same here. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. Safe travels. We’ll see you next week.
Sachs: Thank you. Great to work with you.
Napolitano: A great man whose personal courage and intellectual honesty have reached into Mar-a-Lago and soon into the Oval Office, and who will probably have a profound effect on the saving of innocent human lives and hopefully bringing a lasting peace.
