‘Toxic and polarizing’: Oxford Union debate on Israel genocide still roils

LONDON — If the aim of students at the Oxford Union was to stir controversy with their motion accusing Israel of being “an apartheid state responsible for genocide,” the members of the elite debating society at one of Britain’s most prestigious universities succeeded in spades.

Almost three weeks after the November 28 debate, the fallout continues, with reports that counterterrorism police are investigating complaints about remarks made by a pro-Palestinian speaker, accusations of antisemitism, and calls from one of Britain’s top academics for the government to cut funding to universities that fail to protect their Jewish students.

Founded over two centuries ago, the Oxford Union is the political finishing school in which future prime ministers, cabinet ministers, and journalists hone their skills and cut their teeth. Although not formally part of the university itself, almost all of its members and officers are Oxford students, and two academics sit on its governing committee.

As well as attracting top-shelf speakers, including former US presidents, Hollywood actors, and leading cultural figures, the Union is renowned for hitting the headlines. Appearances by Oswald Mosley, head of the UK’s pre-World War II fascist Blackshirts, David Irving, the discredited Holocaust-denying historian, and Nick Griffin, the former leader of the far-right British National party, have long led to accusations that the Union is overstepping the boundaries of free speech.

Last month’s debate on Israel is likely to join this catalog of infamy. The result of the debate — a predictable 59 to 278 thrashing against the pro-Israel speakers — is likely to be forgotten long before the content of some of the speeches and what has been described as a “toxic and polarizing” atmosphere in the storied debating chamber.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Miko Peled, a pro-Palestinian Israeli-American activist and author, is now under investigation by specialist counterterror police following complaints about remarks he made during the debate. “What we saw on October 7 was not terrorism,” Peled argued. “These were acts of heroism of a people who have been oppressed.”

Thousands of Hamas-led terrorism invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, slaughtering 1,200 men, women, and children, and kidnapping 251 to the Gaza Strip, amid acts of horrific brutality including sexual assault.

Jonathan Turner, executive director of UK Lawyers for Israel, says he believes Peled’s remarks breach section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

“In saying this, he expressed an opinion or belief supportive of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organization,” Turner told The Times of Israel. “Moreover, given the cheers he had already received, he was reckless as to whether members of the audience would be encouraged by his words to support Hamas.”

Turner suspects Peled has now left the UK and returned to the US. British police are unlikely to seek his extradition, due to the costly process and possible refusal on the grounds of freedom of speech.

“However, if Peled returns to the UK, he should be arrested and tried,” Turner said.

“What we saw October 7th was not terrorism. These were acts of heroism.”
-Miko Peled

Oxford University provided a platform for a terrorist supporter, as have universities across the Western world.

Academic freedom has legal limits which are being completely ignored.@AAUP pic.twitter.com/2OPqk60taW

— David Jacobs (@DrJacobsRad) December 8, 2024

An open letter, organized by the Pinsker Center, a campus-based foreign policy think tank, and signed by over 300 academics, has similarly raised concerns about law-breaking at the event.

“We unequivocally condemn the incendiary remarks made by some speakers in support of Hamas and terrorist violence. Such statements are not only morally reprehensible, but also in clear violation of the law,” said the letter, whose signatories included Baroness Ruth Deech, Prof. Sir Vernon Bogdanor, acting principal of Oxford’s Brasenose College, and University of Haifa history professor Dr. Fania Oz-Salzberger. “Glorifying acts of violence under the guise of advocating for Palestinian rights serves neither justice nor peace.”

The academics also targeted the tenor of the debate. “While discussing issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is vital, dangerous rhetoric, provocative behavior, and acts of intimidation have no place in such forums,” they wrote. “Reports that Jewish students felt threatened or intimidated during and after the debate are deeply disturbing. The university and the Union have a duty to ensure that Jewish students — and all minority groups — feel safe, respected, and protected from hate and harassment.”

Both pro-Israel speakers and Jewish students at the debate have since reported they felt anything but.

“It was terrifying being Jewish in that room. I don’t think any of them would have actually attacked us, but it certainly felt like that in the moment. None of us [Jewish students] left alone,” Boruch Epstein, a postgraduate student, told the Sunday Telegraph last weekend.

“I have been a member of the Oxford Union for three years,” he added. “I have never witnessed a debate like this.”

‘Hideous, sinister and suffused with tension’

Writer and broadcaster Jonathan Sacerdoti, one of the four pro-Israeli speakers opposing the motion that Israel is an apartheid state promoting genocide, likewise said that “the atmosphere in the chamber was hideous, sinister, and suffused with tension.”

“Jews who might have attended were clearly too afraid to show up: many had written to me privately to tell me of their fears,” he wrote in The Spectator magazine. “From the moment the debate began, the crowd displayed its unbridled hatred towards us.”

During his speech, Sacerdoti was interrupted by a young woman screaming: “Liar! F– you, the genocidal motherf–er!”

While debating in support of Israel at the Oxford Union, @jonsac was subject to disgusting abuse.

Here’s the moment a woman screamed at him: “F*** you, the genocidal motherf*****!” pic.twitter.com/bfWs0DYLk3

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) December 7, 2024

And Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder who renounced the terror group and became a pro-Israel activist, was labeled a “traitor” and a “prostitute” (in Arabic). When he asked the audience to raise their hands if they would have reported Hamas’s plans to the Israeli authorities if they had prior knowledge of the October 7 massacre, few did so.

The chamber of the Oxford Union has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule

“The chamber of the Oxford Union,” Sacerdoti wrote, “has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule.”

In a statement, the Oxford Union has strongly defended itself against critics. “As a Union, we are unwavering in our commitment to free speech. This means difficult or controversial views can be expressed and challenged,” it said. “The Oxford Union has a proud tradition of hosting debates on the most challenging issues of the day, and it is this commitment to open discourse that sets us apart. The Union does not endorse the views expressed by any of the speakers.”

Saceredoti has accused the Union of withholding and editing video of the debate to remove abusive heckling of pro-Israel speakers, including himself, and statements supporting the October 7 Hamas atrocities by anti-Israel speaker Miko Peled. The Union said that not publishing and editing video was consistent with its existing practices.

Lord William Hague, a former Conservative Foreign Secretary who was last month elected Chancellor of Oxford University, has indicated his unhappiness about the debate.

“I have seen the open letter and, from what I have heard of last week’s debate … share the concerns of the signatories,” he told The Times. “When I take office as chancellor … I will do my utmost to encourage a culture of debate that will at times be fierce and strongly felt but should always be respectful and never intimidating.”

But Hague’s role is largely symbolic and Jewish students at the university suggest the Oxford Union debate was not an isolated incident.

“For over a year, Jewish students at Oxford have faced a torrent of hatred on our campus,” the Oxford Jewish Society and the Union of Jewish Students said in a joint statement after the debate. They cited slogans such as “Globalize the intifada,” “There is only one solution — intifada revolution,” and “Zionists are not welcome at Oxford,” and attacked the Oxford Union’s debate. “Inflammatory speakers were invited not in the spirit of free speech, but instead to spark division, alienating Jewish — and all — students.”

A fire hose of hatred

An open letter sent to the university authorities in May cataloged over 100 antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents that had occurred at the university in the previous six months. One instance concerned an Israeli student, whose family members were murdered, with one taken hostage, on October 7. They shared their experiences with their college welfare officer a few days later and were told: “Oxford is often not a nice place for Israelis and Jews, and there is nothing we can do about it.”

The open letter said that displays for the hostages and vigils for the massacre’s victims were constantly “vandalized by both individual students and some university groups,” while those who organized events for the hostages often had “derogatory and violent comments” shouted at them.

Oxford is often not a nice place for Israelis and Jews, and there is nothing we can do about it

Other incidents included: an Israeli fellow told by a colleague that “Jews run all the banks in the world”; an Israeli student was told by a number of students from their college, “You guys control the American government”; and a Jewish student told by another student that they “wouldn’t date a Jew.” A Jewish student who told their director of studies about the hostile environment at the university was told to “get over antisemitism.”

New figures from the Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and protects Jewish institutions in the UK, released this week show the experience of Jewish and Israeli students at Oxford is not unique. In the 2023/24 campus year, there were 272 university-related antisemitic incidents recorded by CST — the highest total ever recorded for a single academic year and a jump of 117 percent on the 2020-22 reporting period. “This can primarily be attributed to the wave of anti-Jewish hatred following the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel and the subsequent ongoing war in the Middle East that has led to a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents nationwide,” said the CST.

Mark Gardner, the chief executive of the CST, called for university authorities, the government and the police to confront extremists who are “permitted to harass, intimidate and disrupt on campus.”

Writing in response to the Oxford Union debate, Bogdanor, a highly respected constitutional scholar and historian, has called on Oxford to adopt specific guidelines on antisemitism, arguing that those on racism are “too generalized.”

But he has also said it is time for the government to step in and take a tougher approach. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, should meet university vice-chancellors and tell them to take “personal responsibility” for the safety and well-being of Jewish students, the academic said. The prime minister should warn too that universities that fail to meet their obligations under the UK’s Equality Act, which protects ethnic and religious minorities from discrimination, should face cuts in government funding.

“In America, Donald Trump is informing college presidents that, unless they confront antisemitism, they will lose federal funding,” Bogdanor pointedly noted. “A Labour government must not show itself less sensitive to racism than Donald Trump.”

A Labour government must not show itself less sensitive to racism than Donald Trump

Turner backs the calls to penalize universities that fail to tackle antisemitism and urges increased support for students to challenge it.

“There are very serious problems of antisemitism on British campuses. I agree with cutting both public and private funding from universities that fail to take adequate action to tackle this problem,” he said.

Turner also believes that Jewish students and “other fair-minded students” need to be helped and encouraged to “stand up against the hatred,” and provided with “the true facts relating to Israel and correct explanations of the legal issues.”

“Funds withheld from unsatisfactory universities could helpfully be redeployed to support such learning,” he said.