Read the full transcript of economist and public policy analyst Prof. Jeffrey Sachs’ interview on Judging Freedom Podcast with host Judge Napolitano on “Netanyahu Stumbles: Analysis of Trump-Netanyahu Agreement”, September 29, 2025.
Introduction
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, September 29, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be here in just a moment on Netanyahu stumbling.
Professor Sachs, welcome here, my dear friend. Let’s get right to the news of the moment, which is an announcement by President Trump, standing next to 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 – 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 fully support Netanyahu’s efforts to destroy every living person in the Gaza Strip. Where is this going to go?
The Path to Real Peace
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: We’re, of course, in a typical Trumpian confusion moment. It’s clear what would bring peace. What would bring peace is a state of Palestine created alongside the state of Israel and the end of Hamas as a military force alongside that end of 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 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 of Hamas, because Hamas would not have any backers at all in the context of a political settlement.
Trump’s Flawed Approach
Typically, what Trump is offering is something that doesn’t do that. What Trump is saying is Hamas should surrender entirely, release the hostages and politically – well, we’ll see. 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, unfortunately, because the US is a dishonest broker, it’s a Zionist backer. What is on offer here is that Hamas should end its resistance. And what comes politically, we’ll see.
Now in that context, Prime Minister Netanyahu 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. Hamas should disarm, Israel should keep control over Gaza. Yes, maybe it’ll agree 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.
The “Board of Peace” Proposal
Now Trump has said, well, we have an agreement with Israel on the basis of the end of the fighting, a phased withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and some vague mention of a political future, but all very vague and unbelievably some kind of committee that’s going to govern Gaza chaired by none other than President Trump and reportedly including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. So we can bring the British Empire back into this story. They created the entire mess and now we’ll bring them back to prolong the mess. It’s almost a joke, but here we have it.
So what is discussed today is vague, ambiguous language which rightly calls for 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 clear, and it’s been stated that Hamas was not in any way a party to this so called agreement between the US and Israel. There were no negotiations. In fact, of course 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 US and Israel.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: In other words, this is so typical of 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 not interested in or capable of clarity in almost anything that he does because that requires then following through consistency, diplomacy and so forth. And he doesn’t operate that way.
And so we have a half faked agreement. That may mean no agreement whatsoever. 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 disagrees with a certain point. So Israel has reserved the right to not 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 then, 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 with an 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.
Trump’s Press Conference
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: 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 are 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, Smotrich and Ben Gvir. 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.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: To ensure the success of this effort, my plan calls for the creation of a new international oversight body, the Board of Peace. We call it the Board of Peace. Sort of a beautiful name, the Board of Peace, which will be headed – not at my request, believe me, I’m very busy. But we have to make sure this works. The leaders of the Arab world and Israel and everybody involved asked me to do this. So it’ll be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States. That’s what I want, is 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.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I don’t think that illuminates your thinking. It just shows the absurdity of all this. Tony Blair as what, a colonial overlord?
Colonial Mentality Returns
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: 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 attempt to rule over and to enable Israel to rule over the Palestinian people.
Of course, all of this is in a context where there’s a mass murder going on. So we want there to be a ceasefire, 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 going to happen? A process, a process that has gone on for more than a century now in which Israel has basically done everything that it can to expunge the Palestinian people. Well, that seems to be what this is about. I hope I’m wrong. We all want a ceasefire, but this seems like another setup for failure because it’s at best half baked.
It’s just like the Ukraine situation. Words that don’t really mean much, that don’t get to the bottom line, that are not specific. I suppose it’s the telltale sign that Trump would not answer any questions, because it’s all questions. There’s no specifics. And so they walk out of the press conference in this cloud that is so opaque and bizarre. You have the one headline which says that Netanyahu saying, “I support the President’s plan.” Okay, that’s the headline that Trump wanted. But all the rest is complete fog.
Israel’s Economic Crisis
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: How bad is the Israeli economy after what Netanyahu has put the country through in the past two and a half years?
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: Israel is hemorrhaging people. It’s hemorrhaging talent. Young people don’t want to live there. And so there have been hundreds of thousands of people leaving. Tourism is, of course, in collapse. I think more and more countries in the world will simply stop economic relations with Israel.
You have, right now 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 in the coming days on this so called peace plan, whatever it is, there’s going to be very aggressive and hard feelings and isolation of Israel.
And one can only imagine under any circumstances the ugliness we’re going to hear. I spoke to one official who was predicting this afternoon that the war will not only continue, but it will extend to the West Bank and Israel will do whatever it can to end the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank because already it has started a propaganda campaign that the West Bank is the hotbed of terrorism and armaments and lots of propaganda that seems clearly aimed at ending any hopes of the Palestinian state.
Long-term Economic Consequences
So to come back to your question on the economy, I think Israel will be more and more isolated and I think more and more people who might have lived in Israel will leave Israel. So I think that the consequences are very bad. Looking over 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 that there actually is an end to Israel’s domination and purging and murder and apartheid rule over the Palestinian people.
Unfortunately, none of that is ending, according to what we heard this afternoon. And so 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 very good at murder and at weapon systems. But I think most of the rest of the economy, the service sector, the tourism sector, what can you say about a place that’s in war?
Iran’s Nuclear Position
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What is your take on President – you and I were with him last week – President Pezeshkian’s sincerity about not building a nuclear weapon and sincerity on the significance in Iranian government and Iranian society of the fatwa against it?
Iran’s Nuclear Policy and Western Response
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: Well, there is a fatwa, a religious ruling that was made a long time ago that Iran should not build a nuclear weapon. And they have honored that. But that, of course, was taken as weakness by Israel and the US. So an invitation to attack Iran and to attack Iran repeatedly, including assassinations of Iran’s scientists, its military leaders and its political leaders.
And I have no doubt that Israel will try again to assassinate more Iranian leaders. And unfortunately for Iran, these professions of peace, which are made repeatedly and have been made for, well, more than a decade. And we have to remember that the last agreement with Iran was just ripped up by Donald Trump a decade ago. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, when Iran says that they want peace. Israel says, “Great, now we’ll kill you. You know, you’re weak. It shows you’re weak.”
And so this is what worries me is we heard something, I think quite sincere. It happens that the President of Iran also is a medical doctor who takes very, very seriously his 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. And he went on at great length, and clearly it was a very personal statement 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 mainstream media, and by the actions of the CIA and Mossad and others is, “Well, if they’re not going to make a bomb, that’s great. We really will just take them out.” I think that that is no doubt what’s in planning right now.
Netanyahu’s Political Survival Strategy
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: 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 engage in something towards peace without a total elimination of the Palestinian people. In other words, will Ben Gvir and Smotrich and their colleagues leave the government?
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: Netanyahu won’t let that happen. He is not in one iota a person of peace. He’s a man with blood on his hands, and he has absolutely no intention of losing his job. So he will easily find a way to say that, “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 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 jeopardizes this coalition will not be pursued by Netanyahu. And he’s gearing up for his next 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 going to run on. And 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 is not going to let any agreement get in the way of his election, his power, his and his coalition.
Netanyahu’s UN Speech and Surveillance Admission
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Chris, do we have the clip from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in which he admits that the Mossad has hacked into the cell phones of the Gazans?
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: 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. If you do, you will live. If you don’t, Israel will hunt you down.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: 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, expropriated by him. It’s such a perversity, but that is what we’re seeing.
And yes, he chortles about Mossad’s ability to infiltrate everybody’s phones. And of course, he carries on with the absolute childish delight in the booby trapped pagers that maimed and killed lots of innocent people in Lebanon in this attack to try to assassinate the leaders of Hezbollah and did so also by murdering women and children standing in shops and in stores and walking on the street and so forth through this booby trapping of devices.
Well, this is Murder, Inc. And they’re very proud of it. They’re very proud of the technology.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Professor Sachs, thank you very much. These are such gloomy conversations we have, but they need to be aired. 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.
PROF. JEFFREY SACHS: Excellent. See you soon. Bye bye.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Thank you. Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday at 8 in the morning, Professor Chaz Freeman at 2 in the afternoon. Aaron Mate at 3 in the afternoon. Colonel Karen Kwadkowski, Judson, Nepal Channel for Judging Freedom.
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