Lewis,

I watched the exchange between you and Natasha Hausdorff that LBC posted on social media. They clipped a seven-minute discussion into a decontextualised, cherry-picked 46-second extract in order to portray her position as “absurd”.

Having now watched the full interview, I felt compelled to write this response.

LBC’s Toxic Little Game

Putting all my cards on the table, I stopped listening to LBC some years ago. While I acknowledge the station did some good work during Labour’s Corbyn years, I soon came to the conclusion that the station’s output is primarily built around insult and incitement. It needs calls and clicks to survive, so it produces content designed to generate them. The end product is often deliberately provocative, outrage-driven content designed to bait listeners into reacting.

That does not mean I dislike every LBC presenter. The station is set up to ensure everyone has their favourite. But after hearing James O’Brien several years ago simply mute someone who knew far more than he did about the subject – just so he could talk over him mockingly, and spew ignorant misinformation to his listeners – I decided I would play no part in LBC’s toxic little game.

Which meant that, until I saw the exchange with Natasha Hausdorff, I had no idea who you were.

Having since done some digging into your history, I think you provide a good example of why major mainstream outlets, such as the BBC and Sky News, consistently get the important stories so badly wrong. The interview displayed an overstated opinion of your own intelligence, baseless grandstanding and a never-ending supply of entitled arrogance. Add to that cocktail an interview with an expert guest on a subject about which you hold strong opinions but know very little, and we arrive at the train wreck that was your exchange with UKLFI’s extremely talented Legal Director, Natasha Hausdorff.

The Natasha Hausdorff Exchange

The interview began by your quoting from a Guardian article claiming that Israel was “racing to expand control of land and drive out Palestinians.”

You then asked Natasha Hausdorff the obvious legal question:

If that were the case, then surely the settlements would have to be illegal?

The prominent on-screen ticker about the Israeli government backing “illegal settlements,” and you quoting from a deeply Israel-hostile media outlet rather gave LBC’s position away, but Lewis, your opening question was still an excellent one.

Sitting opposite you was one of Britain’s leading specialists in this area of international law. Hausdorff immediately explained that the premise itself required examination.

She challenged the phrase “illegal settlements”, distinguished between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, explained that different legal regimes were being conflated, and then summed it up perfectly.

“Lots to unpack here.”

There was, and that should have been the focus of the interview. But let’s be frank, you had no intention of actually unpacking anything.

Knowing the position Natasha was likely to present, you had your response prepared, and reading from a script you quickly mentioned a range of organisations from the UN to the ICJ that claim Israel is contravening international law, with all of them basing their opinion on the same historical legal document – Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

You then reached for what you believed was the decisive point, arguing that if all these organisations, which in your words “literally adjudicate on international law,” are telling everyone Israeli settlements are illegal – then they surely must be illegal.

For you, the interview was effectively over. You had made your point, delivered what you clearly believed was the decisive blow, and had little interest in inconvenient facts getting in the way.

The problem was that your confidence rested on a misunderstanding of the law and an unquestioning reliance on politicised international bodies.

There was no one better placed to explain why your argument was legally flawed than Natasha Hausdorff.

Rather than engaging with her argument, however, you repeatedly interrupted and attempted to steer the discussion away from the substance of her response.

Derailment, Arrogance, and Endless Misinformation

By this stage, the imbalance in legal expertise was becoming increasingly apparent. Faced with someone who understood the subject in great depth, you did not rebut her analysis. Instead, you resorted to interruption, diversion and dismissive rhetoric in an apparent attempt to prevent her from fully explaining her case.

You suddenly brought up internal Israeli political issues, claiming a group of prominent Israelis were threatening legal action against their own government over their support for terrorism in the West Bank and its continued expansion of settlements.

They hadn’t.

You were not merely derailing the interview. Based on every Hebrew report I have been able to locate, you were also misleading your audience. The letter you reference, which has not been made public – does not seem to have referenced settlement expansion at all.

Given this, your particular claim is so misleading it deserves an on-air retraction.

Barely halfway through the interview, you found yourself preventing the discussion from returning to the question you had originally raised. What began as an opportunity to discuss misleading legal positions – ended with you using the second half of the interview talking over your guest and further misleading your audience.

You switched from the misrepresentation of the letter, to distorting the words of Israel Katz as he recently toured Gaza.

It was not simply what you said. As the interview progressed, your impatience became increasingly obvious. The interruptions became more frequent.

Your facial expressions increasingly conveyed exasperation and intellectual mockery.

You appeared irritated that she had the knowledge to counter your position with ease.

Every time Hausdorff began explaining a legal proposition – you changed the subject.

The Guardian became Article 49. Article 49 became a UN resolution. The UN resolution became a misrepresentation of internal Israeli division. That division became the distorted words of Israel Katz. Katz became dispossession. You were not testing her legal argument – you were ensuring it was never fully made.

It was not simply rudeness. It reflected something far more fundamental.

Confidence Is Not Expertise

What happened following this exchange was, in many ways, worse than the interview itself. The final seconds concerned a question of dispossession related to the newly announced settlement proposals.

Natasha correctly argued they involved state land and did not dispossess Palestinians.

That was the subject being discussed.

You then asked: “Israel hasn’t dispossessed anybody in the West Bank?”

Within the context of the preceding discussion, Natasha answered:

“No, it certainly has not.”

Interview over.

On its social media LBC clipped away almost seven minutes of legal discussion. It stripped away the context.

Then, above the clip, LBC told its audience they were about to watch an “absurd” answer – playing out just the last few seconds of the exchange.

That is not simply editing. That is not the conversation that actually took place.

The clip transformed a discussion about one specific settlement proposal into something else entirely.

That is why trust in Britain’s mainstream broadcasters continues to erode. Journalism is supposed to test assumptions, not manufacture them. The LBC audience is being manipulated.

One final point: on Article 49.

The sixth paragraph in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does not say what you think it does. The legal history of the land being discussed is also not so straightforward.

The interview could have helped unravel these complex legal issues for both you and your audience.

Instead you chose to talk over an expert in international law, treat her with disrespect, and derail the discussion.

Given all this, I think it is your behaviour that is best described as absurd.

Regards

David C

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