The Oxford Union, one of the most prestigious debate institutions in academia, held a debate Thursday night on the contentious proposition, “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide.”
The union voted in favor of the proposition by a vote of 278-59, but not before the debate descended into complete chaos several times, with multiple individuals getting thrown out and constant insults being hurled at the Jewish and pro-Israel speakers and attendees.
Pro-Israel advocate Yoseph Haddad ejected from Oxford Union debate
On the side of the proposition were Palestinian writer Mohammed El Kurd, Palestinian activist Susan Abulhawa, anti-Israel activist Miko Peled and the President of the Oxford Union himself, an Egyptian, who was also chairing the debate, Ebrahim Osman Mowafy.
Opposing the proposition were international law expert and attorney Natasha Hausdorff, Arab-Israeli social activist Yoseph Haddad, “Son of Hamas” Mosab Hassan Yousef and British activist Jonathan Sacerdoti.
The debate had initially been scheduled to host prominent Israel critic Norman Finkelstein as one of the speakers, however, he refused to debate Yoseph Haddad and Mosab Hassan Yousef and canceled. The Oxford Union responded by inviting him to give a lecture without any opposition the following day.
The pro-Israel debaters attended the event under heavy police presence and private security and were greeted upon entry by protests organized by the Oxford Action for Palestine, who gathered to chant that “Zionists aren’t welcome on campus” and to call for the destruction of the Jewish state and support for the Houthis rebels in Yemen.
This harassment continued throughout the entire debate, which went on an hour and a half longer than scheduled due to constant disruptions and insults being shouted at the pro-Israel speakers inside of the debate venue in one of the most appalling and blatantly antisemitic scenes imaginable in Europe, 2024.
Like something out of a dystopian novel, Jews and “Zionists” were accused of every crime against humanity imaginable, most of which were crimes Palestinians or other groups historically have committed against the Jewish people. The pro-Israel side, including students supporting the pro-Israel speakers, were cursed and screamed at almost continuously throughout the entire debate.
Israelis were told that they are not indigenous to the Land of Israel, that they are colonizers to their own land they were expelled from, told they are bloodthirsty child killers, told they are rapists who sexually mutilate Palestinians, told they are from Europe and to essentially, "go back to Poland."
Upon clarifying with all four speakers on the pro-Israel side, they told Ynetnews that even in the lead-up to the event, the union had been reluctant to allow Yousef to speak and attempted until days before to not allow him as a speaker.
Immediately before the debate, the Oxford Union speakers take a traditional photo at every debate together. However, when the pro-Israel speakers came to take the photo, the anti-Israel speakers didn’t show up. Similarly, upon entering the debate room, all of the supporters of the proposition, with the exception of Susan Abulhawa, refused to shake hands with Sacerdoti, who graciously reached out in good faith.
The debate began with Mohammed El Kurd, who is most known in Israel for his family’s refusal to pay rent on a property they don’t own in the controversial Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. El Kurd has a long track record of soft support for terrorism and has been accused of selectively editing videos of terror attacks to portray the perpetrators as the victims of Israeli aggression.
El Kurd hardly addressed the proposition in his speech and was very brief before dramatically leaving because he didn’t want to be in the presence of Yousef, an act that is considered highly inappropriate in that forum.
However, then the evening took a turn for the worse. As a journalist, I must admit that never in my lifetime have I seen such appalling mob-incited unbridled Jew hatred being endorsed and emboldened by one of the most respected institutions in academia. The entire debate descended into a show trial.
The courage exemplified by Sacerdoti in his opening speech, which was met with snickering, cursing, disruptions, mockery, blatant racism and attempts to silence him, particularly at the mention of antisemitism, was truly remarkable. “Just because you dislike losing an unnecessary war you started does not make something genocide,” he stated to his opponents.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
Instead of ordering the disrupters and verbal abusers to be removed from the chamber, President Mowafy ignored the antisemitic insults and allowed continuous disruptions of the pro-Israel speakers, at times threatening to remove the few pro-Israel voices who spoke up about the lack of enforcement.
Additionally, members of the audience were told filming or photos are not allowed and this was enforced strongly—but seemingly only against audience members who were not visibly pro-Palestinian.
On the lack of enforcement and overall bias, Sacerdoti stated, “Sadly, the hostility in the room was not surprising after we had spent some time dealing with the Oxford Union’s president and committee who were quite clearly set against us from the start. Regardless, I’m proud that we faced that hostile mob with pride in our message and that we stuck to clear logical arguments to try to inform. If the room was packed with those who were determined to hate either way, one can only hope that the union will swiftly release the videos and allow a wider more open-minded audience to hear the debate.”
Following El Kurd, Mowafy spoke on behalf of the proposition, arguing that Israel was “committing genocide.” Mowafy was the only speaker for the proposition who actually focused on the debate topic itself, however, his bias was more than apparent to the entire room from the start.
When Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad spoke, he correctly noted that it was, in fact, Egypt that occupied Gaza prior to 1967 and if they had cared about a Palestinian state, they could have made it happen easily together with Jordan, who illegally occupied the West Bank until 1967.
Haddad was met with more disruptions and insults in English and Arabic from the audience that continued throughout his speech which he ended dramatically by calling out their hypocrisy and lack of concern for Palestinians when the real issue for them is that once again they had started a war they lost.
“You are losing. You know why you are losing, because you thought you could destroy Israel, but Israel is here to stay,” he concluded.
Later, when Haddad raised awareness for the hostages—Arab Muslim hostages—some of the students in the Oxford Union insulted the hostages, grabbed the photo and stomped on it, prompting Haddad to demand their removal. Instead of removing the audience members, however, he removed Haddad, reportedly accusing him of obstructing the movement of a woman who spoke in favor of the proposition.
Meanwhile, notorious anti-Israel activist Miko Peled opened his speech by stating, “Let's assume that Hamas is the devil… Does it justify harming a child? If it means harming [even] the hair on the head of a child, we do not kill… we say, you do not harm a child.” Only to turn around a few minutes later, and violate the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000 Section 12A by explicitly calling the acts October 7, which of course included the murder and kidnapping of children, heroic.
“What we saw on October 7 was not terrorism. These were acts of heroism of a people that had been oppressed and killed,” said Peled, prompting not one but two points of order to the president with a request to instruct police to arrest him. However, instead of taking appropriate action, the president appeared to state that he “doesn’t enforce” that.
Only minutes later, in Mosab Hassan Yousef’s address, the president ordered him to leave the debate after he stated that Palestinians, his own community, are “pathetic.” After multiple appeals and a shouting match, Mowafy backed down and allowed Yousef to continue.
Amidst curses and insults of him being a “collaborator," Yousef stood proud and explained that it was he, in fact, who revealed his collaboration with the Israeli security forces and the reason he did so was that he had information on imminent suicide attacks by Hamas that would have targeted civilians.
He followed that by asking by show of hands who else would have come forward to the police if they were in the same position. Only about 25% of the students raised their hands, meaning 75% of the audience would not tell the police if they had knowledge of an imminent terror attack that would kill civilians.
Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa then spoke for 20 minutes, more than double the allotted time for speeches, during which she demonized all Zionists, and insinuated that Jews are European colonizers and foreigners to the Middle East. “Your ancestors will always be buried in the actual homelands of Poland, Ukraine and elsewhere around the world, where you came,” she stated.
The debate closed with lawyer and international law expert Natasha Hausdorff who, as the only lawyer in the debate, completely debunked the loaded terminology and broke down why allegations of apartheid and genocide have no place in the discussion of the current war in Gaza. Hausdorff, like her debate colleagues, spoke with courage, facts and fearlessness in the face of unbelievable harassment and threats, and closed the shameful debate with dignity.
Emily Schrader Photo: ILTVHowever, there’s no question that the environment Mowafy permitted is one that empowers the antisemitic lynch mob to believe they have the right to insult Jews and Zionists, but they also have a right to not be insulted. All the while, they are gaslighting and claiming that what they seek is simply “equality.” However, it’s very clear from the dynamics of the debate and the speakers' statements that this is a bald-faced lie. What they are advocating for is much closer to Islamic supremacy, than equality for Palestinains.
Mowafy is no stranger to controversy during his term, having overseen the invitation of guests with a clear bias against Israel—for example, Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot. Many attendees expressed disappointment with the double standards of enforcement and the permitting of blatant antisemitism, disgracing the previous reputation of the Oxford Union.
In a comment to Ynetnews, Sacerdoti stated, “The union needs to look closely at the behavior of its president and committee and rethink how it treats the speakers it invites and how it conducts itself more broadly. It has been trashed by the behavior of the aggressive mob that attended yesterday and needs to rebuild its reputation if it is to be taken seriously again.”