TRIGGERnometry - "There is No Genocide, No Apartheid, No Occupation" - Natasha Hausdorff

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

Natasha Hausdorff is a barrister in London and a Director of UK Lawyers for Israel. She holds law degrees from Oxford and Tel Aviv Universities and was a Fellow in the National Security Law Programme at Columbia Law School. Natasha previously worked for Skadden Arps, in London and Brussels and clerked for the President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Chief Justice Miriam Naor, in Jerusalem. She regularly briefs politicians and international organisations and has spoken at Parliaments across Europe and at the United Nations. Go to https://gdefy.com and use code RELIEF24 for an exclusive $20 off orders of $100 or more Go to https://CozyEarth.com and enter promo code TRIGGERNOMETRY at checkout for up to 35% off Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc  Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is a two-state solution? Is that even possible? I've heard some people referring to it as the two-state delusion. And until we deal with indoctrination and with incentivisation to terror, I would also agree that there is nothing to talk about in the context of this empty phrase. The context for the use of both genocide, apartheid, and many other terms that have a legal origin, but no legal basis in terms of their application to Israel. The use of the term genocide

is unbelievably pernicious. Their military tactic of using civilians as human shields to drive up the civilian casualty count, which forms part of their overall strategy of using public opinion and pressure on Israel to try and achieve its aim of survival. This doesn't happen overnight. It is as a result of generations of brainwashing,

and I say that the international community is complicit in it. Natasha, welcome to trigonometry. We've got a lot to talk about. You've been one of the people giving legal context on many of the discussions around Israel and Palestine over the last many months. And what we really wanted to do with you is just to kind of ask you the normal person's question about, because, you know, most people are just like, they look at their phone or they turn on the TV for 20 minutes at the end of the day and they, you know, genocide, apartheid, like all of these linguistic terms. And no one really knows what they mean and some people are using it. And some people are saying that's not what's happening.

So first and foremost, can you talk to us about the genocide conversation that's being had and what your perspective as a lawyer is on all of that? I think the first thing to understand is the context for the use of both genocide, apartheid, and many other terms that have a legal origin, but no legal basis in terms of their application to Israel. I'd say no legal or factual basis. And the reasons that these terms are being deployed. I've talked about this in other contexts as the modern blood liable. So if you think about scholars who talked about the evolution of anti-Semitism,

something that started in the Middle Ages with a focus on the Jews as a religion, evolved. And when science took over from religion as the order of the day, the hatred of the Jews, anti-Semitism, manifested itself in a hatred of the Jewish race. And that was a time when the pseudoscience of eugenics was used. in order to justify that hatred. But today, we've moved away from that in the context of international law and human rights being the order of the day.

The late great former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Lord Jonathan Sachs, talked about how anti-Semitism today manifests itself in a hatred of the Jewish state in that context of international law and human rights. And what we see with the terms that you've raised is modern blood libel. being deployed. So while in the 18th or even before that, you know, in the Middle Ages, Jews were

accused of killing Christian children to use their blood for religious rituals. Today, we have these notions of Israel targeting children, which is abhorrently false. We have these notions of genocide being propagated, another blood liable. We can come on to apartheid, perhaps, in due course. Let's stick with genocide, though, because I hear what you're talking about in a understand why you link it to blood, libel, and antisemitism. But what I'm trying to get at is if I'm an average Gen Z with TikTok, and I open my TikTok and I see kids being blown up in Gaza, and then I hear someone saying genocide, and then I see these pictures every day on my TikTok for eight months, you merge those two things together in someone's head who doesn't know much about

what's going on. And a fairly reasonable, uneducated, uninformed, but fairly reasonable person might then be like, well, I don't know what genocide means exactly, but it seems like killing lots of people who, by definition, would be innocent if they're kids. So you say that's not what's happening. Can you just explain more of that? In terms of, I'll come back on to the legal definition of the term, because I completely accept what you say, which is that the images that so many people are basing these false conclusions on are horrific. And they need to be understood in their proper context. So this is footage coming out of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, and is serving a very clear propaganda aim of an internationally prescribed terrorist organization that is abusing its

own people and using civilians as human shields and celebrating any civilian casualties in Gaza. So quite apart from the fact that we will not know the story behind the images that you're referring to simply because Hamas controls Gaza absolutely. and no information that is not approved by Hamas is making it out into the international discourse at the moment. Quite apart from that, the attribution of these horrific images is to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations because this is their aim.

They have, at the moment, only one objective, and that is survival. And the way that they ensure, in their minds, their survival and their ability to continue to threaten Israeli civilians and carry out this specific threat of conducting the 7th of October over and over again. The way that they seek to ensure being able to do that is by driving up international pressure against Israel with these propaganda images and messages. And the use of the term genocide is unbelievably pernicious. This was a term that was coined, in fact, to give terminology to the Jewish experience

from the Holocaust to provide a legal lexicon to describe the targeting of Jews as Jews by the Nazis. The definition of genocide is specific to include the intention to eradicate a group, an ethnic, religious, or racial group in whole or in part. And it's that intention to eradicate part or whole of a group, which is certainly what Israel, well, certainly what the Jews experienced in the Holocaust, Certainly what the acts of genocide on the 7th of October were aimed at, Hamas and other terrorists that crossed the border were clear about their intention. An intention is central to the whole concept of the international crime of genocide.

That this is now being used as an allegation against Israel is the epitome of a blood liable. It is inverting reality. Is it though, Natasha, sorry to interrupt, but when Pierce Morgan was sitting in that very chair only a couple of weeks ago, he said, look, I don't think what Israel is doing is genocide, but there are people. in the Israeli government who are using genocidal rhetoric about cleansing Gaza of the Palestinians, etc. Would you not accept that maybe one of the reasons people are sometimes persuaded to that point of view is some of the things that Israeli officials are saying? I think we need to be clear about the quotes that people have deployed to advance that

argument. The vast majority have been utterly misrepresented. In particular, those that have been made by any members of the war cabinet or anyone with an input to policy, including military officials. One of the prime examples of this was the way that South Africa's application to the International Court of Justice, which made this obscene allegation of genocide, was misrepresenting these quotations. For example, suggesting that these Israeli officials were talking about all Palestinians, when it's very clear, from the original Hebrew, from the context of which these quotes were taken from, that they are talking about Hamas. And it is entirely legitimate to talk about eradicating Hamas because of the

the threat that they pose, not just to Israel, of course, but the threat that they also pose to our Western liberal democratic values. I think we have to fundamentally understand that Israel is not just fighting its own war against Islamist extremist groups, but is also fighting on behalf of the West in many respects. But when you take into account the way that both the images, the quotations and the facts on the ground have been so badly misrepresented, I mean, all of this ultimately feeds into what we have seen in terms of this blood liable taking hold. And I agree with you, Constantine. It is extremely effective.

And it is based not just on what we've seen over the last eight months, nine months now, but on decades of anti-Israel propaganda already in 1975, we had the United Nations passing that infamous Zionism is racism resolution. we have had deeply ingrained anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist propaganda pervasive throughout the Middle East, throughout the Soviet Union, of course, in the past, and now increasingly on our television screens on a daily basis because of the tragedy that is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, a tragedy that I have to insist and reiterate is ultimately fully, wholly, entirely the responsibility of Hamas and their apologists around the world. And if we unpack that for just one moment, we need to come to terms with the international

community's responsibility for what we have seen on the 7th of October and subsequent, because 3,000 terrorists don't just wake up one morning and decide that it's a good day to slaughter Jews. It takes something extra special to brainwash thousands of people to commit the sort of atrocities that we saw on the 7th of October. And I know that you've had previous, you know, apologists for Hamas on with you who've denied rape that occurred, who've denied what was not only celebrated by Hamas and documented by them, but also transmitted around the world, sometimes live streamed from the very victims' phones who were suffering these unspeakable, unspeakable atrocities. But what is it? I think we have to ask ourselves that causes people to be capable of such medieval barbarism. This doesn't happen overnight.

It is as a result of generations of brainwashing. And I say that the international community is complicit in it. Because we have been funding UNRWA and three quarters of those terrorists, according to UNRRA statistics, UNRSA. Can I just stop you there? Because there will be people listening who go, I don't know what UNRWA is, what is this? So if you could just explain that for the layman, and by layman, I mean, me. The UN Relief and Works Agency is a special body that was set up.

In fact, if you read the book that Inat Wilf and Ali Schwartz wrote called The War of Return, it is a seminal piece of work that documents how and why UNRWA was established and with what motivation, what the aims were. Essentially, it was established to perpetuate this phenomenon of refugee status amongst Palestinians uniquely, that it is passed down generation to degeneration. So there is a general UN body that looks after refugees all around the world. And then separately there is UNRWA. And they run schools that teach the Palestinian Authority-approved curriculum.

From kindergarten up, these children have been indoctrinated to believe that the highest calling in life is to become a martyr and to kill as many Jews as possible. Are you saying they teach this in their schools? I do. And that is well documented by NGOs, ImpactS.E. has done many, many studies of textbooks. It's been recognized by governments around the world. Now, some of these textbooks existed elsewhere in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia has done a phenomenal amount of work to de-radicalize

and to address and entirely reform the content in its textbooks. But you will have Palestinian Authority-approved curricula taught in UN-run schools that teaches mathematics according to how many Jews are killed plus a few more, or teachers physics according to how a slingshot might be used to fire rocks or stones at Israelis. I mean, that is pervasive. Not only that, they celebrate the so-called martyrs. They name football teams after them, schools even.

So if you are familiar with what has been happening over many decades now, then the atrocities of the 7th of October and what happened, albeit shocking that 3,000 terrorists managed to, break Israeli defences and cross the borders, the repercussions of that, what followed, has been in no way surprising, because those of us that were alive to these issues had our eyes open, not just to the textbooks and what is taught in schools, or on television children's programs, or the nursery rhymes and songs, or what has been found now in the context of these operations in Gaza in homes, quite apart from the many, many copies of Mind Kampf board games

that talk about attacking Israelis. You know, children's, books, nursery rhymes. It is a whole culture that has been developed to underpin what happened on the 7th of October. And the only reason that that hasn't happened prior is because of the very stringent security measures that Israel has taken. And there are many, many who criticize a lax approach,

an over-degree of confidence, even a naivety by the government of Israel, to believe that Hamas might have put aside its genocidal aims. Because they didn't participate in barrages of rockets in 2021 that were in fact fired by a separate Palestinian terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic jihad. They were fired from Gaza, into Israel, onto Israeli civilian communities. That was the last major exchange between Gaza and Israel.

Hamas didn't engage. And there were many in Israel that thought, oh, well, maybe they've ordered their priority. differently. Maybe now they are finally looking at state building, they are finally looking at the interests of their people. Well, in the context of what has followed, that was devastatingly naive because Hamas, from the very inception of their charter, have had their genocidal aims on full display for the world to see. These are not in any way hidden. On the contrary, these are celebrated. And in that context, when you understand the educational aspects, the indoctrination, and also separately, and this is the other major factor to take into account, the incentivization

to terror, then I think everything starts to make an awful lot more sense. And what I mean when I say incentivization is the terror salaries that are paid by the so-called moderates in this equation, the Palestinian Authority. So this is the autonomy that governs the West Bank, because it's a very common. important to understand that the Palestinians have autonomy. We can come on to the separate blood liable of occupation and why that is entirely false. But as a matter of fact, the Palestinians have autonomy in the West Bank since the Oslo Accords in the 90s and they have self-governance in the Gaza Strip since Israel's withdrawal in 2005. But the Palestinian Authority that so many

people now are touting as the potential future rulers of Gaza that are presented as the moderates in this equation, they pay the salaries of terrorists, no matter what banner they coalesce under, including the Hamas terrorists, the Nukhba force individuals who planned and executed the 7th of October, they pay the salaries of these terrorists dependent on how many Jews they have slaughtered, dependent on the severity of their sentence. And the organizers of the 7th of October, some of whom were released in the 2011 Kilajali deal, Ali Kadi included, by all accounts, planned for two years what was executed on the 7th of October while he was collecting a monthly stipend. He didn't have to work. He was looked after by the Palestinian Authority and went through the meticulous planning process.

So when you start to understand the indoctrination and the incentivisation to terror, the two eyes, if you will, let's call them the two eyes. which are critical to everything that we have seen over the last nine months, critical to understanding the situation on the ground, but also where it is that people are having the wall pulled over their eyes when they look at these horrific images coming out of Gaza and they don't understand the context. Another aspect of that context when we talk about the images is Hamas. I mentioned that they use civilians as human shields.

They use, of course, mosques, schools, hospitals. and by all accounts, every second house in the Gaza Strip as part of their terror infrastructure. So when you hear people talking about the widespread destruction in Gaza, there is a reason for that. And that is because all of Gaza over 16 years had been turned into a terror base for Hamas, the thousands and hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels that they have built, which, of course, they do not use to protect civilians. They put their forces in the territ tunnels and their civilians on top of them to protect.

their terror infrastructure. But when you consider how widespread the Hamas terror infrastructure is in the Gaza Strip, you start to see those photographs in a bit of a different context. But why is it important then that Israel waited for so long after the 7th of October before going into Gaza? Why is it important that it has taken this war in stages that it has moved so slowly and meticulously because it has afforded the opportunity for as many civilians as possible to evacuate these areas, which had to be targeted because they are the terror infrastructure of Hamas. We've heard people talking about how impossible it is in the context just before Israel began

the Rafa operation, how impossible it was to afford these civilians an opportunity to move. Many of them had already moved before. Well, about a million of them were successfully moved or assisted with moving away from that new location of intense fighting between Israel and the terrorist forces, terrorist army. I think it's important that we understand that the battalions and brigades that Hamas has established within this terror statelet that Israel is engaged in fighting with, doing its utmost at every stage to prevent civilian casualties. and as we see very tragically, losing soldiers in the process,

it is sacrificing its own in order to try and minimize harm to Palestinian civilians. Otherwise, this war would have been over a long time ago. And Natasha... Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. What do you say to those people? Because I remember I went on social media a couple of weeks ago, and maybe a little bit longer than that.

And it seemed on Instagram, every other post on a story was talking about Raffer, the refugee camps, raising awareness. What is going on in Raffa? And because there will be people arguing that that is a refugee camp and by bombing it, that is a war crime. What you have to understand is the terminology of a refugee camp here is also deeply misleading. These are towns that have been established.

They still carry that term for historical reasons. So firstly, we're not talking about tent cities here. Where we are talking about tent encampments as a result of civilians having been evacuated, unfortunately we also have footage of terrorists spying from within those supposedly safe areas also. But this idea that the world seemed to support Israel in the first few weeks of this war, understood Israel's war objectives, which were to defeat Hamas, prevent them from ever posing a threat as they did on the 7th of October. again and recover the hostages. And while those aims seemed to garner international support at the outset,

the moment it came to rougher, those aims were thrown out of the window. This notion that Hamas could be defeated without Israel going into raffa as it had done with other parts of the Gaza strip was simply nonsensical. So I think again you've got logic and facts been left behind and people feeling under increasing pressure, if we're talking about policymakers, to adopt this propaganda narrative, these falsehoods, which in the context, as I've described, of decades of the groundwork being laid for this, of this being essentially the oldest hatred in the world in a modern manifestation, the new acceptable face of anti-Semitism.

I mean, that underpins why you've got, I think, so many people taking leave of their censors. When you actually listen to the experts here, and actually Rafa is a case in point, John Spencer, who is the head of urban armed armed armed conflict at West Point, has written and spoken extensively about the measures that Israel has taken, including in Rafa, to prevent civilian casualties. Now, he talks about it from the perspective of a professional soldier, and he's also been embedded with the IDF on the ground in Gaza. But if you step back from that, and, you know, I'm not a professional soldier, but I am a aware, and I have dealt with the law of armed conflict for many a year, there are key rules

of international law that govern how armies conduct their operations, including in Rafa. Amongst them, the key principles are necessity, distinction, proportionality and precaution. And what we see in terms of the misrepresentations, I'm afraid, is both the factual situation on the ground being misrepresented, but also the applicable law. A case and point is the principle of proportionality. It is perhaps the most misrepresented, or indeed misunderstood, aspect of international law, period. And proportionality is not about totting up casualty figures. It is not about comparing figures on both sides. That would be utterly macabre. It's not how international law works, but also it would simply incentivise Hamas to continue.

their tactic, their military tactic of using civilians as human shields to drive up the civilian casualty count, which forms part of their overall strategy of using public opinion and pressure on Israel to try and achieve its aim of survival. But when you consider what proportionality actually means in international law, which is a requirement on the individual military commander to conduct a balancing exercise, to weigh up the anticipated, the anticipated military advantage of a strike, a strike that is necessary, and that also distinguishes between civilians and combatants, to weigh up the anticipated military advantage of a strike against the expected civilian or collateral damage. Now, there's no strict formula for that. It will

vary on a case-by-case basis. But the idea that anyone, outside of that calculation process, who does not know the significance of whatever target was the subject of a strike, who does not know even the numbers in terms of real casualty figures that came out. The idea that anyone on YouTube or a podcaster or on social media can determine whether or not the principle of proportionality has been upheld is ludicrous and legally illiterate. Ultimately, those that know how the Israeli defence forces work and know what role military lawyers play understand the importance that Israel places. not just on upholding international law, but I have to stress also going way above the requirements of the laws of armed conflict.

And other military professionals in other armies will frequently say, you know, the British army, we wouldn't be in a position to uphold the standards that Israel is in this unprecedented military context, you know, urban armed conflict where their enemy has spent 16 years embedding themselves in civilian infrastructure. That is unprecedented. And the way that Israel weighs up these delicate exercises and has banks of targets approved by the military advocate general corps, the army lawyers in advance, is critical to the way any law abiding state and army needs to conduct its armed conflict. But Israel goes even above that because it issues warnings of strikes before these happen. These are warnings that, of course, give Hamas the opportunity to ready themselves as well as civilians. the opportunity to escape. These are warnings delivered by loudspeaker, by text message to individual

householders, by phone calls, by leaflets, by setting up humanitarian corridors with indications of where civilians should flee through. Now, all of that does take the principle of precaution that Israel is adopting to, I think, unprecedented levels in the history of armed conflict. But the flip side of it is what is Hamas doing in this context, despite these unprecedented measures that Israel is taking. We have reports of Hamas shooting civilians as they sought to flee, according to these instructions right at the start of this war. We've had reports of them bombing, fleeing convoys of civilians. And when we come to think about the images that you have rightly raised and these casualty figures which are being touted around the world, this is an important

matter of context, factual inputs to take into consideration. Because those images and these propaganda, Hamas propaganda casualty figures that are being circulated without qualification, they don't provide the context. They don't tell you how many civilians and how many combatants out of those total numbers. They also don't tell you how these civilians or combatants are said to have been killed and how many of them have been shot by Hamas or how many of them have been killed by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets that fall short in the Gaza Strip, killing civilians indiscriminately. Because unlike the targeted strikes that Israel conducts, which is subject to that proportionality analysis and subject to distinction, precaution,

military necessity, Hamas's rockets fall indiscriminately. They kill civilians, they kill aid workers. More recently, Fata, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, again, the so-called moderates in this equation of accused Hamas of deliberately shooting aid workers in order to manufacture a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They have also Hamas now in the last few weeks been videoed attacking civilians who are seeking either to access aid or even distribute it. So one of the other massive canards here is that Israel is restricting humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip. I mean, you just need to look at the stats that are put out by Kogat. Kogat is the unit of the Israeli defence forces that is responsible for the provision

of the civilian communities in any armed conflict. Natasha, so I suppose the next question for me is, when you fight a war, there are various aspects to war. There's obviously the conflict, but there's also the propaganda war, the perceptions of both of the participants in the war. Do you think that Israel is losing the propaganda war? I don't think that's a difficult question to answer at all. I mean, you just need to look at how public opinion has embraced wholly the narrative of the terrorists here.

No, absolutely. And I was interviewed very early on, I think even on the 8th of October, when the world was seemingly with Israel. And I said to the sky presented, remember this time, because it won't last long. And at some point in the not too distant future, the propaganda narrative will have taken over and we will have forgotten, not just how this recent war began, but also, you know, the 76 years that came before it. because the 7th of October wasn't new.

This is just the latest, in a long line of genocidal acts that were committed against Jews in the Middle East, even before the establishment of the state of Israel, the Hebron massacre in 1929. I mean, there was no propaganda narrative then on there being an opposition to the existence of Israel. No, Jews have been killed because they are Jews. for thousands of years. But of course, all of that has been eradicated by what we have seen in terms of the social media discussions, in terms of, you know, the Al Jazeera narrative, which has been circulated as though it is a responsible news agency without regard for the fact that it is the Hamas propaganda arm. So undoubtedly, yes, that propaganda law at war,

forgive me has indeed, I think, already been lost. But that's not to say that those of us that know better shouldn't continue to be standing up for the truth and the reality and seeking to do our utmost to educate against that very propaganda. Do you think one of the reasons, if we follow the logic of everything you're saying, let's just for the sake of argument as we deal with all, I guess, to interrogate the argument, assume everything you're saying is true.

Part of the problem I see is the logic of what you're saying is this. Gaza is round by Hamas. Hamas are terrorists. They've spent 16 years building up terrorist infrastructure everywhere. They've made it essentially so that the entire area of Gaza is a terrorist base. Every mosque, every hospital, every area, every tunnel is can be and is being used for that. The logical conclusion of that, following international law, proportionality and all the rest of it, Israel is going to have to flatten all of Gaza. And some people would say is flattening all of Gaza because they have the objective of eliminating Hamas. But if Hamas controls everything and is using every facility in Gaza to do so, the inevitable consequence is you're going to have no buildings left.

You're just going to have rubble and millions of people displaced. And however proportional or appropriate that might be in the context of whatever, it's kind of hard to win a propaganda war on that basis if your objective is to flatten an entire area. and move it to all the people there nowhere because they're not being allowed into Egypt or into neighboring countries. Well, I'm not suggesting that Israel should be winning a propaganda war here. I'm saying that we need to defeat the propaganda war

that is subverting. All I'm saying is like, I don't see how, if we're following the logic of what you're saying, then that has to be Israel's military objective. I don't see how that's ever going to be palatable to people who are looking at that situation. Well, the logical conclusion is, I accept, that Israel is stuck between a rock and a hard place,

because the situation has got so bad in the Gaza Strip that it is having to make very difficult decisions. And this war has been dragged out, not just because of the enormous precautions that Israel is taking, but also because of the repercussions of what you've described as the propaganda war. Undoubtedly, and this has been remarked on by many officials, American pressure on Israel has drawn this conflict out.

It has said, you have to pull this tooth very, very slowly. And that has caused more casualties undeniably on both sides because of the manner in which Israel has been held back from achieving some of its military objectives here. I completely accept what you're saying, but those are the realities of the situation. And I come back to my earlier point about the international community's contribution here. that is the unfortunate result of what happened after Israel's withdrawal in 2005 from the Gaza Strip. Again, this is also not just about Hamas firing onto Israeli civilians, it's also about what they do to their own people.

In 2007, when they violently took over the Gaza Strip, they threw their opposition, Fatah members off of the roofs of buildings. They have used children to dig the tunnels, some of whom have died. They have subjugated their people for 16 years. They are also executing them in the street. I mean, all of this is an important facet of what it is that you're rightly picking up on in terms of how on earth, you know, where do we go from here? But the starting point has to be, and I think this has been proven to be correct now on multiple occasions. If you are going to have any chance of releasing further hostages, then you have to apply military pressure to Hamas. Only in the last few days, even Associated Press, I think, had been acknowledging that Netanyahu was correct in this respect.

It achieved the first deal at the end of, what, it was in November. The ceasefire fell apart on the 1st of December. And it has, on several occasions now, caused Hamas to come to the negotiating table because they are starting to feel the military pressure. On each of those occasions, however, lots of the international rhetoric that we have been talking about, which plays into Hamas's hands, seems to have, you know, in various respects, caused those negotiations to fail. But I completely accept, you know, the difficulties of the situation that you're presenting. This is, in many, many respects, a lose-lose situation for Israel. And it is because the IDF in particular is so committed to minimizing civilian casualty and to doing its utmost that Hamas has been taking in advance.

of this. Sure, but I guess what I'm saying, Natasha, and I think you're very smart and clearly very logical person, you must see what I'm saying. If the end result of what Israel has to do in this line of argument is to destroy all of Gaza, you can see why there'd be a lot of people who'd be uncomfortable about that. Well, I'm not, I don't think Israel has ever said that that is what it is intended to do. But the logical conclusion of your arguments is that that's what's going to happen.

I don't, I also don't quite accept that constantly because you and I, neither of us know you know, the intricate nature of the situation on the ground to be able to make that assessment. We, in many respects, have to accept what Israel is saying, which is that there are military plans that it can follow through on in pursuit of those objectives. One aspect of this that you actually did touch on that would make it clearly a lot easier to do is the possible evacuation of civilians through to Egypt. That's something that I just don't hear people talking about. It is actually in accordance with Egypt's obligations under international law,

under separate Convention on Refugees, the African Union Convention on Refugees, which Egypt acceded to in 1980, which has a much broader definition of refugee than the international convention. Egypt has an obligation to facilitate the passage across the rougher border for all of those civilians that are fleeing civil disorder, and it has done for the last eight, nine months. and it has failed to do so. Now, why would that be a game changer?

And I'll come on to why this is so significant that nobody's talking about this. It would be a game changer because in Egyptian rafa, which is just the other side of the border, which is the start of the Sinai Desert, you have unlimited space to create a safe zone where you can take civilians away from Hamas, where you can provide them with humanitarian assistance,

which is not diverted to Hamas, and you can protect them both from Palestinian aggression and from Israel's military activities in the Gaza Strip. The reason I find it impossible to understand or give credit, let me say, to people who suggest that they are standing up and defending the Palestinians when they attack Israel or they call for an immediate sea spire before the hostages have been released, or before Hamas has been destroyed, if these people truly held the interests of the Palestinians at heart, then they would be calling, as I have done since October, for Egypt to comply with its international law obligations. Because all of the difficulties that you describe in the logical conclusion of what Israel has to do are significantly mitigated by that, because these civilians are taken out of harm's way. And then Israel is in a much, much better position

to specifically target Hamas terror infrastructure and specifically the terrorists. Because if, you know, for the sake of argument, it is successful in eliminating these terrorists, then the structures that you have in place are significantly less important. So then why doesn't Egypt do that? You'll have to ask the Egyptians, I'm afraid.

Well, not many countries would want to take millions of refugees. I mean, the UK wouldn't want to take millions of refugees from France, mainly because we don't like the France. But you know what I mean, right? So, like, that's a fairly reasonable thing for a country not to want to do. But the suggestion isn't that Egypt embraces these refugees, say, as, you know, Israel did with refugees from the Arab world, and give them citizenship and take them into their communities. Absolutely not. The suggestion has always been that they provide a safe zone away from Hamas. And then when Hamas is destroyed, that there is every intention or opportunity for these civilians to return.

So that's the difficulty aspect. Well, return to a Gaza Strip that will have to be rebuilt with international cooperation, but significantly also with the input of those neighboring states that understand the importance of deradicalization. I mentioned Saudi in the textbooks earlier. The UAE, of course, has a significant track record and understands, what it is that needs to be done in terms of de-radicalization or denazification, if you will, because that went hand in hand with the Marshall Plan with the rebuilding of Germany. But that's critical.

And as long as we sitting here, the international community, refused to accept that the significant, pivotal, critical role that indoctrination has played and that incentivization to terror plays in perpetuating this conflict, then, I'm afraid we're not going to get to any of the logical conclusions that you set out because this is not going to be defeatable. That has to be the major shift now. And look, it's a great point, but let's also be honest about this. It's not just about what's happening in Gaza or Rafah. You look at Iran. Iran are funding a lot of these terrorist organizations. You have Lebanon as well with Hezbollah. I mean, it's not just as simple. I'm not

saying you're saying this, by the way, but as Palestine, I mean, how do you deal with that? With countries who are overt in their rhetoric when it comes to saying that they want Israel wiped off the map? Well, you take them seriously, for starters. And the unprecedented step that we saw of Iran is firing on Israel directly. I mean, you're absolutely right, Francis, that it's used proxies to attack, not just Israel, but also Western interests around the world for decades. And the manner in which the Lebanon government has failed to prevent Chisbalah

from firing onto Israeli civilians in the north of the country for the last nine months, again, something nobody ever speaks about. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians have been evacuated, have spent nine months away from their homes. They cannot return to the north because it is under constant fire by Khzbollah terrorists. another Iranian proxy in the north of the country. That is in breach of a UN resolution, 1701, which promised that there would be no Gizbalah presence south of what was called the blue line, the Littani River, threatening the north of Israel. There was even a UN force

Neufil that was set up in order to ensure that that provision was met. I mean, the international community has become a laughing stock in the context of these reassurances which were never followed up. And what you're describing in the context of the wider war against the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is significant because instead of stringent sanctions, we have seen a willingness to negotiate with an entity that has taken American hostages, that has threatened British nationals as well as posing this existential threat. Let's call it what it is to Israel. This brings me to a question that is very professionally insulting to you, but not personally

insulting, I hope, which is, isn't international law just a thing just like a fig leaf we put over the fact that the world is governed by real politic and ultimately no one really cares because there's no enforcement mechanism? Well, when I was at university, many, many moons ago and was studying, international rights because for the first time. I was told that most states adhere to most international law most of the time and therefore it is a net good. I, we could have a whole separate session on, you know, the merits of international law, is it a legal system, is it essentially international diplomacy and politics? But the fact of the matter is that so much

of the last nine months have been discussed in the context of international legal terminology. But this is what I'm saying. I'm sorry to interrupt. This is exactly what I'm saying. I feel like all it is is an opportunity for soundbiteism from you clearly are pro-Israel. So you will say, you know, Hezbollah, Egypt, they're all in breach of their obligations under various aspects of international law.

And the pro-Palestine people will say, well, Israel is the only state that hasn't complied with its UN resolution, X, Y, Z, whatever. And everyone just uses it basically to back up their argument. and no one actually cares because it's not a law like the law of this land, where if you don't follow it, someone's going to come and put you in prison. I do disagree. Okay. I do care about it because I think it is being misrepresented.

And that is critical. I mean, I completely understand what you're saying. The difference is that I've given you chapter and verse. And when people say Israel breaks international law or UN resolutions, and invariably they can't name one, because there isn't a single UN Security Council Chapter 7 resolution, which is the only resolution that is ever legally binding that Israel is in breach of. People are using international legal terminology, but they are abusing it.

And this is the whole concept of law fair, right? This is, I say, an abuse of international law, not as proper application. And that feeds into the question that you're posing because it undermines the international legal order. It undermines the credibility of international law. And international law does exist, and it provides a framework. for states to be able to interact with each other in a mutual understanding context framework, which is important. It's extremely significant for the way that we conduct ourselves internationally

and for the proper maintenance of international diplomacy. But it is being subverted. International is being turned on its head with these modern blood liables. We come back to what started this discussion in terms of genocide and apartheid. These are both international legal terms that have a clear meaning, which are being lied about. Well, let's talk about apartheid. So can you tell us what apartheid means and why that doesn't apply to what's happening? Because, again, that's something people are often confused about.

Well, it references the state of affairs in South Africa, where you had a part of the community that was treated as other. And in South Africa, there was racial discrimination against the blacks. They did not have equal rights to the whites. The reason that apartheid is being deployed falsely against Israel is because in the international legal context, apartheid by precedence has consequences. Apartheid means sanctions. That is what happened to South Africa. And that's the reason it's being deployed against Israel because of the boycott divestment sanctions movement intention to try and legitimize its position to boycott the only Jewish state. Do Palestinians and Gaza and the West Bank have the same rights as Israelis?

Well, that's not a proper comparison because I explained that the Palestinians have an autonomy in the West Bank. They have self-governance in Gaza. So what you have is, let's talk about Israel, for starters. You do have equality between all Israeli citizens, Arabs and Jews. Arab Israelis serve in every area of Israeli society. They're in the police. They're also in the army. They serve as doctors, as lawyers, as school teachers.

I worked at the Israeli Supreme Court under the former Chief Justice Miriam Na'or, one of the other judges, was an Arab. He put both an Israeli president and a prime minister, both of them Jewish, behind bars. So the notion that there is any lack of equality within Israel is simply not correct. Anyone who's actually gone to visit Israel will probably see the diversity that exists. and especially Muslims, Jews, Christians living side by side and getting on with their lives. It's important in that context to recognise that, in fact, it's only in Israel that Arabs are able to live as free citizens of a democracy. They are the only free Arabs in the Middle East.

And that is really without question. You can talk about divisions within Israeli society. You can talk about, you know, the history of Israel being attacked since its very existence by surrounding Arabians. Arab states and what that means in terms of the way that individuals conduct themselves or prejudices that they may hold both sides. But you cannot say that there is a legal system that differentiates between Arab and Jew and that treats them unequally. As a matter of law, that is simply not the case.

May I just come on to what you've asked about the rest of the Palestinian-controlled territories? Well, they're not fully controlled by the Palestinians, let's be honest, right? Israel is able to prevent people from leaving that area or going to that area. Israel has military control of both those areas. West Bank is a whole other conversation about what Israel is doing there, right? Right. Well, let's be clear about the areas we're talking about. Even if we're looking at Gaza, and you will frequently hear people say that Israel controls Gaza absolutely. Clearly, that's not the case because Hamas built a terror state fair for the last 16 years.

That would not have been possible if Israel controlled it. We have seen since Israel became active in Rafah and took part of the Rafah crossing, which is the border between Gaza and Egypt, we've seen the magnitude of the tunnels that existed, which meant that essentially those weapons from Iran that you have referred to Iranian support for Hamas and other terror proxies were flowing freely into the Gaza Strip through Egypt. So that's not the case with respect to Gaza. Israel has had no control there since the withdrawal. with respect to the West Bank, area A is entirely controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

Area B is under joint control. So the Palestinians have civil control and Israel does maintain military presence there for good reason, which we can come on to in due course. But the reason that these two territories are significant and it's important to understand that they have self-governance and autonomy is because the likes of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, when they have produced these reports which falsely accuse Israel of apartheid, they also falsely allied the Palestinians living in these areas with the Israeli Arabs.

And they say that as a result of those Palestinians not having Israeli citizenship, there is a system of apartheid. That is a grotesque false portrayal of what the situation is on the ground. And the reason it's so very objectionable, is that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was created with international backing. It was the result of the Oslo Accords, the Oslo process, that Israel created together with the newly formed Palestinian Authority, that division between areas A, B and C, in the West Bank. And it's also important to note that without Israeli security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority in areas, well, primarily in area B,

because the PA control area entirely. Without Israeli security cooperation, there would be nothing to prevent a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority in the same way that they took over the Gaza Strip, throwing their opposition Fatah members off of the roofs of buildings. So again, that's something that people

don't seem to be particularly interested in when they are engaging in these false tropes and apartheid is included there. Natasha, this is a pretty unpleasant question, but I think it needs to be asked. Do you think Israel has a long-term future when we see what is happening in the region, when we see the outcomes of the war,

the way the war is being represented, when you see other countries like Iran openly saying that they want to destroy Israel as well as Lebanon and other countries as well? I don't think that Israel has a choice. So not just for the Israelis that are living there, but also for the Jewish people around the world. because Israel's one of its key functions is as a safe haven.

Because we all know what has been happening to Jewish communities in the last nine months as a result of this surge of anti-Semitism under the guise of this modern subset of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism. We can all see the attacks that Jewish communities are being subject to and the increased rate at which many of these communities are moving to Israel. So Israel doesn't have a choice in terms of long-term survival, either for the existing Israeli citizens or for the Jewish diaspora. It certainly made it through extremely difficult periods in the past, if you think about

the formation of the state of Israel. When David Ben-Gurion declared the state on the 14th of May, 1948, it was a fledgling state. Yes, the Jewish yes, the Jewish yeshuv had for many decades already been building up the state institutions and anticipation of declaring itself a state. But it was outnumbered, outgunned. It was immediately attacked in a promised war of annihilation by its neighbours. And upon the British withdrawal, and even before that, they had been confiscating arms from the local Jewish community. So it was essentially left completely defenseless. And it managed to survive. And it has fought subsequent wars of intended annihilation, and it has managed to survive. So I don't think,

When you have no choice, you know, this isn't, we've heard previous comparisons, this isn't the West fighting a war in Iraq or a war in Afghanistan. These are, this is an army of conscripts, doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, plumbers, carpenters, who when the country was under attack, didn't wait to be called because they know the importance of putting on their uniform and defending their families. This is not a country that has a choice. We've seen similar, I would say, bravery amongst Ukrainians who are defending their very lives

and the lives of their nearest and dearest. And when one is faced with that kind of existential threat, then these questions as to whether or not Israel will give up or whether it can actually succeed become a great deal less important. And when we see the way that Israel has unified, I know neither of you have been since the 7th of October, I've had the opportunity now to go on a number of occasions, and to see the way the country has come together.

And not just Jewish Israelis, the way that Arab Israelis have said, I have no other country, is, I think, a remarkable indication of the strength, of the will and of the dedication that Israeli citizens have to defend themselves against this understanding. unspeakable horror, to push back against these forces of darkness. I mean, there's been a lot of talk about forces of light and darkness. It's undeniable that the death cult that is Hamas celebrates death. You see mothers who have children who have become martyrs in their words, who have killed themselves in order to slaughter Jews. and you see that being celebrated, not by all,

but you do see instances of that being celebrated. That is the complete inverse of what we see when Israelis are putting on uniform, not just to defend their own families, but also to do their utmost, to protect civilians in the context of the war that they're fighting in Gaza. And it's also as well,

you look at the United States, and the United States has always been a great ally of Israel, but there seems to be more of a hesitant, now to support Israel from within the United States than there has been previously, hasn't there? Politics plays a significant role in this. And it's extremely troubling when you see, you know, the Biden administration coming out with comments that they then suddenly walk back. So, for example, this reference to indiscriminate bombing, which was then very quickly walked back by spokespeople. But you see an awful lot of that. Was that Biden who said that himself?

Yes. And I appreciate when he's not talking off and auto queue, he can sometimes, you know, say the wrong thing as far as his hand. I mean, that's very loyally. As far as his hand there's a concern. But the problem is that that sort of rhetoric, unintended as it may have been, by the leader of the free world, has dire consequences. We spoke about Iran's direct strike on Israel a little earlier. Well, the context of the weeks leading up to Iran taking that unprecedented move of increasingly troubling American rhetoric, criticizing Israel, many, many have said, had an undeniable impact and input into Iran's feeling of confidence of striking Israel directly in that fashion.

So the position that is taken by politicians around the world, which is undeniably impacted by focus groups and polling numbers, and is driven by the propaganda war, which you're both very alive to, that inevitably has that knock on impact on not just Israel's ability to defend itself properly. And that comes into play when we're talking about arms embargoes or additional pressure or the Americans, you know, for some time saying don't go into Rafa, don't finish the job that we've been backing you for months to complete. But it also inevitably encourages Israel's enemies, Iran, certainly, but also Hamas. The notion that still, after month nine, they could be maintaining that they're not going to agree to release hostages. in exchange for pauses in the fighting is, I think, undeniably as a result of the encouragement, the sucker that they have been provided, and the language that we have heard extremely disappointingly, extremely misguidedly coming out of prominent politicians around the world. In fact, I think David Cameron even acknowledged this when he was Foreign Secretary.

He said that what had been happening in terms of, and I see it in the context of these calls for an immediate ceasefire, That is exactly what Hamas is seeking to achieve. When you think about that rhetoric in the round, the foreign secretary was clear that this inevitably impacted Iran's calculation and its willingness to engage Israel directly in that fashion. And Natasha, so with everything we've discussed before we ask you our last question, I suppose the most obvious question is you mentioned your trips to Israel. We know what the situation is and the sentiment is in Gaza and elsewhere. We see what the international context is.

You put all that together. Is it two-state solution even going to – I mean, there's clearly no appetite for it in Israel anymore. I don't think there's any appetite for it in Gaza, really, from what I understand. Is that even possible? There has been an appetite amongst broad swathes of the political spectrum in Israel for it. That has to be seen, of course, in the country. context, though, of Israelis having spent generations now witnessing every security concession made, leading to blood on the streets. Oslo gave us an interfaida. And, you know, I would encourage

you and viewers just to Google image search Israel bus bombings to get a sense of the endless number of suicide attacks that were ripping through, either. Israeli communities after that peace agreement, which is still hailed, was signed. You know, one of the foremost commitments under that would have been renouncing terror. That's never something that the Palestinian leadership engaged in. So despite that, I think you have seen significant parts of the Israeli public broadly supportive of the notion of a two-state solution. Even now?

Well, I'm going to take this in stages, if I may. Even in the light of the realities of the situation, I think it was, you know, the broad consensus would have been, well, look, obviously it's not possible unless the Palestinians renounce their genocidal intent towards us. While they are saying Hamas and the Palestinian Authority also that the Palestinian future state would be used as a launching pad to conduct its genocidal war against the rest of Israel,

you know, that obviously needs to change. but in principle, the hope was there. And of course, if Israel had been living next to Switzerland, there would have been a two-state solution 76 years ago. What you're talking about now is, of course, a different state of affairs because the Israeli public has been through a trauma. It has had that naivete, which suggested that Hamas might be reformable, beaten out of it in the most brutal way imaginable.

And now we're faced with this phrase, two-state solution. I would suggest an empty phrase. I've heard some people referring to it as the two-state delusion. And until we deal with indoctrination and with incentivisation to terror, I would also agree that there is nothing to talk about in the context of this empty phrase. But I think there's an additional question that we need to ask ourselves, and that is what is the damage of continuing? to promote a two-state delusion at the expense of doing the hard work of forging a possible

future peaceful solution. And when I say the hard work, I mean, it starts with getting rid of the indoctrination, getting rid of the incentivization to terror. That's the starting point. And then you have to take generations, at least a generation, to allow that new generation to grow up without being indoctrinated to want to kill all the Jews. And at that point, you can start to talk about what the potential possible solutions are. It's never going to arise out of a handshake in the Rose Garden of the White House or an American president signing a piece of paper, albeit that the Abraham Accords, under the previous administration,

sent shockwaves, I think, through those of the political establishment that subscribe to the mantra of former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016 at the Saban conference he said, mark my words, there will never be a separate peace between Israel and the Arab world without a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well, he looks a little bit silly now. And so do all of those that subscribed to that false approach. What the Abraham Accords shows us is that people-to-people cooperating. which existed for a significant time before those pieces of paper were signed.

Economic links and de-radicalisation hold the key to future peace in the Middle East. They held the key to peace in the Middle East in the context of the Abraham Accords, and I think they do so with respect to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs also. But that can never be based on a rewriting of history, on this propaganda war. So we have to be clear that when people say, you know, there was a Palestine and they had their land taken away from them, you cannot have a peace, a future peaceful solution which is based on a rewriting of history or false information like that. I am the granddaughter of Palestinians. The British mandate in Palestine in which there was a local Arab and a local Jewish population is not in any way, of course, the way it is presented by some. as a prior Palestinian state. That is simply a misrepresentation of history. It is false.

But what this propaganda war has left us with is this very simple, sound-bitey, false narrative, which underpins the promotion of this idea of a two-state solution. But if we come from the right starting point, which includes that this idea of an occupation is a misapplication of international law and it is not accurate. I don't know if we've got time to go into it now, but there are really fundamental aspects of international law that are being inverted and ridden over roughshod. And actually it's probably important to just go into it briefly. There is a critical rule of customary international law that determines the borders of newly emerging states at their moment of independence. It is called Utti Posidetis Uris.

It's supplied universally wherever there is no agreement to the contrary. So it's the default rule. And in Israel's case in 1948, it determined that the pre-existing administrative lines of the British mandate that preceded the state of Israel became Israel's international borders when it declared independence. This is the rule that the pre-existing administrative lines become the new lines, the new borders of the state. And the reason that it was introduced was to promote stability and certainty.

and to prevent fracticidal struggles. The International Court of Justice outlined these justifications for it when it recognized that it had become established. It was introduced in the 19th century, applied in South America with the withdrawal of the Spanish. It's applied in Asia and Africa. Also to the dissolution of the former Communist federations, Ukraine's borders followed Utti Posidetti-Uris. And that's quite a critical comparison because I think, the three of us would agree that Russia has been an occupation of Crimea from Ukraine. Why is that? Because Crimea was part of Ukraine according to the rule of Oti Posidetisurus at Ukraine's formation.

While in the same way when Israel came into existence, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Gaza fell within that territory of the administrative lines of the pre-existing British mandate. And that's critical because immediately in this war of annihilation that I've described, Jordan occupies the West Bank in East Jerusalem from Israel and Egypt occupies Gaza. And that occupation ended in 1967 when Israel recovered that territory. That's when this allegation of occupation for many people is dated from. The problem with that is you cannot occupy what is already your own sovereign territory. i.e. if Ukraine was to retake Crimea and hold it, no one would say that was occupation of Crimea.

From Russia, indeed. Right. Okay. And that is a stark parallel comparison. Now, what Israel did in 1967 is it applied its law administration and jurisdiction in full over East Jerusalem. It reunited the city, but it didn't do so in the West Bank. Instead, it applied a temporary framework. Why? Because under the Land for Peace formula, it expected that it would do that it would give up some of the West Bank, or Judean, Samaria, to Jordan in pursuit of peace. But when the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan finally came about, Jordan didn't want anything to do with the West Bank. So this temporary administrative framework that Israel established in 1967 held until the Oslo Accords and the creation of areas A, B, and C that we've described.

But the application of this term occupation is another blood liable, because it has no basis in international law. it is used as a political term, and the preface to it, this illegal occupation, which is so often referred to, is also only ever applied to Israel. There is no concept of illegal, a broader concept of illegal occupation in international law. And in all the instances, situations of real occupation in the context of that is, which is envisaged by the Geneva Conventions, and the context of, you know, the real transfer of populations in Cambodia, Vietnam, in Nicarobar Karabakh, in northern Cyprus, none of these cases has this allegation of illegal occupation or illegal settlements even been advanced. So this is another example of a modern blood libel

being deployed against Israel in order to shape the discussion, in order to shape the international politics and diplomacy in order then to put pressure on Israel. And we've seen the consequences of that, I'm afraid, in so many respects, this is what led to the 7th of October. Natasha, it's been a wonderful interview. Thank you for coming on. Before we head over to our locals where our supporters put their questions to you, our final question is always the same. What is the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Before Natasha answers, when the interview is over, make sure you click the link in the description and head over to our locals to see this.

Kiyah Stama is on record of saying he wants to pass a law to ban Islamophobia. What are your thoughts on, on Islamophobia being banned? People are talking, oh, you need, we need to crack down harder on anti-Semitism. I mean, where do you stand on that? What are your views on the three European states that Island, Norway and Spain, who have recognized the Palestinian state recently and the declaration of the current government in their election manifesto to do likewise. I don't pretend to be across all of your content.

So if you have covered this, please come back to me. You're not getting booked again. I'll do my homework between now and then. But that being said, there is something that I think is not getting enough attention. And it's the phenomenon that we're seeing across our universe. Now, we've seen it in the context of these encampments and the vicious anti-Semitism that we've seen, you know, many of them essentially pro-Hamas encampments. But I think we really need to be asking ourselves, how have we enabled or allowed, facilitated a generation of young people to have grown up with what seems a vacuum, a complete lack of appreciation of the freedoms that we enjoy, Western liberal democratic values, And that vacuum, which seems to have been taken over by extremists, by the supporters of terrorists,

where you have seen these young people find a common purpose in, you know, coming together in tents, and feeling as though they are fighting for something, feeling that unity without properly processing that they are standing up in defence of internationally prescribed terror organisations. And I think we have to ask ourselves as societies, some extremely hard questions about how we have allowed that to happen. If it is something endemic in our education systems, even before higher education, then that is something that we need to be far better able to talk about and then ultimately grapple with, because that's critical for the future of the United States, Europe, the UK, not least the

impact that it has necessarily on discussions in the Middle East. Natasha, thank you very much. Head on over to locals where we ask Natasha your questions. If there was no ICC and ICF, do you think Hamas would still use women and children as shields, knowing that it is not a deterrent in Israel attacking, nor would it help to turn Israel's allies against them?