What the world is getting wrong on Israel: An interview with Natasha Hausdorff
Natasha Hausdorff, the British barrister who has become an outspoken defender of Israel's legal rights on global news networks, warns that a 'vicious cycle of disinformation' — fuelled by media self-censorship and terrorist propaganda — has warped the world's understanding of the Gaza conflict, and put Jewish lives at risk.
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More notably, the expert in international law has popularized one such law, Uti possidetis juris. It states that newly formed sovereign countries should retain the borders that their preceding area had before their independence. Therefore, at the time Israel declared itself a state, Mandatory Palestine – which included what today is known as Israel, Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank) and Gaza – would by law be legal territorial boundaries of Israel. It is a lynchpin argument, she believes, against the charges of 'illegal occupation' and 'illegal settlements.'
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She regularly briefs politicians and international organizations and has spoken at parliaments across Europe.
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After her law degree at Oxford University, she clerked for the president of the Supreme Court of Israel in Jerusalem in 2016. In 2018, Hausdorff was a Fellow at Columbia Law School in the National Security Law Program.
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Dave Gordon interviewed Hausdorff prior to a talk she delivered at Toronto's Nova Exhibition on June 12, hosted by StandWithUs Canada.
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I can fully appreciate that Israel's official stance is constrained by diplomatic operations and political pressures. It's a rule that applies automatically, whatever Israel says about the situation.
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There are other examples of Israel not standing on ceremony, as far as international law is concerned. One of those relates to Egypt's obligation to open the border to Palestinian civilians, fleeing civil disorder in Gaza. That's in accordance with Egypt's obligation under the Organization of African Unity Convention on (governing the specific aspect of) Refugees, which it signed in 1980.
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This is a convention that has a much broader definition of refugee than the international convention. Nobody has been calling on Egypt to open the border from October 2023. But Israel can't pressure (that), because Egypt threatened to tear up the peace agreement with Israel.
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If the BBC were reporting from North Korea, there would be some indication somewhere that we are not free to report without censorship — controlled in what we're able to say by the regime. I have not seen a single piece of reporting from Gaza that has acknowledged that: nothing comes out of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Hamas.
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So for a start, the notion that the international media would be parroting Hamas propaganda in this fashion is deeply shameful, and indicates to me a complete absence of journalistic integrity. That's quite apart from the devastating impact that this is having.
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When I talk to policy makers, officials around the world, they tell me they're basing their determination on what to do, on the basis of the Gaza pictures they see in the media.
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Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear weapons program but has never acknowledged it. Leaders in Iran have blamed Grossi's statements about the status of Iran's nuclear program for prompting Israel's attack. On Saturday, a senior adviser for Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, Ali Larijani, said in a brief social media post without elaboration that Iran would make Grossi 'pay' once the war with Israel is over. Rising reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul and Farnoush Amiri in Dubai contributed to this report. David Rising And Sam Mednick, The Associated Press
