Natasha Hausdorff Refuting Miliband Misrepresentations

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Natasha Hausdorff, legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel Charitable Trust, provides a sharply worded response to the desion by the British government to apply sanctions to Israeli settlements while also imposing a trade ban on Jewish Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Hausdorff highlights that the policy comes at a price of harming not only Jewish Israelis but also Arabs working in related industries, with the additional problematic consquence regarding Britain’s own international trade obligations.

Hausdorff clarifies that the British government’s policy is grounded upon falsehoods about both Israel and the Jewish people. The libel raised by the British govt regarding humanitarian aid to Gaza in particular has been shown to have no basis even by the work of UNICEF. Hausdorff emphasizzes that these false assertions have contributed to an increasingly distorted portrayal of Israel fueling hostility toward the Jewish state and Jewish communities.

A central issue raised in the interview is the status of E1 and Area C under the Oslo Accords. Hausdorff points out that the Palestinian Authority was granted self-governance in Areas A and B, while Area C was to remain under Israeli administration. She further notes that Palestinian construction in Area C has been completely ignored while Israeli communities are portrayed as the only point of conflict.

Rejecting the characterization of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as inherently illegal, Hausdorff explains that the legal arguments against Jewish residences rely on false assumptions regarding both the territory’s status and the untethered characterization of voluntary movement being equivalent to forced population transfer.

Hausdorff simultaneously describes the current dispute within the historical context of the illegal Jordanian control of the territory following the 1948–49 war. Recalling that the forced displacement of Jewish communities under Jordanian rule was later followed by the subsequent return of Israelis to their communities which had previously been eradicated, Hausdorff demonstrates this historical basis  as an essential underpinning to the current dispute over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, which the British govt entirely ignores.

Acknowledging that individuals who attack Palestinian Arab civilians are criminals and should be dealt with as such, Hausdorff rejects any characterization of such incidents as being widespread.  Importantly, she notes that the focus being placed on alleged settler violence only serves to obscure the far larger concern which emanates from Palestinian terrorism, including shootings, car rammings, bombings and all manner of attacks on civilian in the Jewish communities.

She also challenges the way in which UN statistics classify incidents as “settler violence,” providing examples in which Jewish visits to sites such as Shilo and the Temple Mount, as well as an incident involving an Arab Palestinian being bitten by a dog, are characterized as acts of “settler violence”. There is no good faith basis for adopting classifications process which entirely mischaracterizes non-violent events taking place in the region as being acts of “settler violence”.

The interview concludes with Hausdorff raising the importance in which the Labour government’s approach toward Israel being motivated by domestic politics and an effort to appeal to its voter base. Hausdorff clarifies that this is the only feasible possibility to explain the falsehoods underlying the government’s justification for its sanctions. She also warns that this policy is damaging to the British national interest by undermining proper use of international law, thus compromising Britain’s trade obligations.