Natasha Hausdorff is a British barrister (lawyer) specializing in international law, and also the legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel. She’s also smart as hell, eloquent, and never loses her cool. I see her as the female equivalent of Douglas Murray: what a team they’d make in a debate over the war in Gaza! Treat yourself to an hour or so of perusing her videos on YouTube, especially when she’s engaged in a debate and gets heckled because she’s pro-Israel and Jewish.
Here is a ten-minute video on Sky News in which Hausdorff discusses why she refused to sign a letter from UK lawyers, academics, and judges (there are now 1101 signers) asking, among other things, for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The moderator, as she should, asks tough questions, but Hausdorff answers them cooly and accurately. The material about aid trucks, as far as I know, is spot on.
I don’t think that was a good performance (well, it might work for a group of lawyers) because it took until 3:25 for her to state her case. Fort me, everything before that was just restating “there is something wrong with this letter” or just legal fluff.
What she said from 3:25 should have been her opening statement.
The opening section perhaps referred back to some earlier segment that would have made it more intelligible (such as what the misrepresentative statement actually said) but the rest of it is excellent. Like Tom Gross, she doesn’t allow any mis-statements of fact or verbiage to pass uncorrected.
Whether her response was good or bad, as long as the media response is Hamas figures and pictures of bulldozed land the public will not get an accurate view of the war. As has been pointed out in WEIT it’s been distorted this way from the beginning. You might think Iran attacking Israel might make a difference (it should).
But in the Free Press on Saturday an anti-war group in Chicago after hearing of the attack shouted out “hands off Iran”. And earlier they were taught how to say “death to Israel” and “death to America” in Farsi. They consider Iran as part of “the axis of resistance”.
These people are the very definition of “useful idiots”.
And chanting death to America…in America. That’s like rooting for someone to demolish your own house and leave you homeless. Also, “death to America” would seem to involve some…war. How then is this appropriate for an “anti-war” group?
Excellent job. Sleazy job by reporter (interrupting) and her media (showing images to undermine, detract, and distract [probably the intent?] from points being made). I thought a very telling argument was to question how many trucks have been stopped from entering Gaza? Surely, there should be huge line-ups of aid trucks on the Israeli and Egypt entry points if the problem is Israel stopping entry to Gaza. Even if aid workers were afraid to enter Gaza right now because of fighting, there is no reason the trucks and workers couldn’t be ready to enter when feasible. Indeed, one would think that a priority should be to have the material aid and workers ready to go en masse at a moment’s notice. Doesn’t appear to be the case?
She doesn’t come up for air, that’s for sure. I think that her rejoinders were very good on the facts—and she both effectively dismisses the casualty numbers provided by Hamas and rightly challenges the reporter to show her the lines of aid trucks waiting to get in that are being blocked by Israel. My only criticism is that this interview demands quite a bit from the listener. In order to evaluate the two positions—hers and the interviewer’s—one has to be pretty well versed on the topics already. This is not an interview for the casual observer.
I’m with you Norman. My plaque-filled brain really had trouble following, especially or made worse with the dynamic visual images always there.