Oxford debates descend into chaos as students shout down Israeli speakers

A debate at the Oxford Union descended into chaos on Thursday evening as pro-Israel speakers were shouted down and a Palestinian activist stormed out in protest at the presence of a former IDF spy.

The contentious motion, “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide," passed by 278 votes to 59 amid hostile exchanges within and outside the chamber.

According to one audience member, some Jewish students felt too intimidated to attend the debate. James Marlow posted on X: "I was amazed at how many keffiyehs and hijabs there were and how hostile and toxic the atmosphere was."

The opposition team comprised British barrister Natasha Hausdorff from UK Lawyers for Israel, broadcaster Jonathan Sacerdoti, Mosab Hassan Yousef — an ex-Hamas member who became an IDF informant — and Arab-Israeli journalist Yoseph Haddad. They faced Union President Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, Israeli-American activist Miko Peled, Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and writer Susan Abulhawa.

Protesters outside the Union organised by Oxford Action for Palestine chanted anti-Israel slogans that could be heard inside the chamber. Demonstrators declared, "Zionists are not welcome in Oxford."

Inside, speaking for the motion, Miko Peled described Hamas’s October 7 attack as "acts of heroism". “What happened on October 7 was not terrorism — these were acts of heroism of a people who were oppressed,” he said, according to a report in the student newspaper Cherwell. When interrupted by Sacerdoti, who cited the legal classification of the attack as terrorism, Peled responded, “Arrest me.” He claimed that “Palestinians have been living in a concentration camp for seven decades” and advocated for a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”

Mohammed El-Kurd, another speaker for the motion, called Zionism “irredeemable and indefensible”. Expressing fury at Mosab Hassan Yousef’s IDF affiliations, El-Kurd declared, “It dishonours me to share a space with [Yousef],” before exiting the chamber.

Union President Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, the first Arab and Egyptian to head it, described the debate as “putting correct names on self-evident truths”.

Meanwhile, Abulhawa accused the opposition of “invoking the Holocaust and screaming antisemitism”. According to Cherwell, she said: “I came to speak directly to Zionists: we let you into our homes when your own countries turned you away. You killed and robbed and burned and looted our lives.”

Sacerdoti, opening for the opposition, called the motion “an outrage”. During his speech, an audience member heckled “you sick motherf***er” and “genocidal maniac” before being escorted out of the chamber. Others shouted “lies” as Sacerdoti spoke about October 7.

Haddad countered claims of apartheid, highlighting evidence of co-existence among Jews, Christians, and Arabs in Israel. As a former IDF commander, Haddad noted that he had both given orders to and been saved by Jewish comrades. However, he was ejected from the chamber amid shouts from the crowd; as he departed, he donned a t-shirt that read, “Your terrorist is dead”.

Yousef referred to his work stopping terrorist suicide bombers, despite being the son of the Hamas founder. He called Palestinians “the most pathetic people on planet Earth” and was almost evicted from the chamber, before stating “this House has been hijacked by Muslims,” according to Cherwell.

Hausdorff, who closed the debate near midnight, underscored the intimidation faced by Jewish students as people in the chamber shouted and heckled.

After the debate, Sacerdoti called the evening “sobering”. In a tweet on Friday morning, he accused the chamber of having been “packed with aggressive and closed-minded people, including the president who invited us to speak on a warped motion and attempted at every stage to undermine us. The level of support for terrorist actions was chilling.”

Yousef also posted on X: “Last night I asked the participants and pro-Palestine opponents during a debate at Oxford Union if they would have reported Hamas plans to authorities to prevent October 7 massacre; 75 per cent of the participants voted they would have chosen not to report Hamas plans to the authorities.”

The tumultuous evening came just a day after anti-Israel activists disrupted another event in Oxford. A lecture by Professor Daniel Chamovitz, President of Ben-Gurion University, was interrupted at Oxford Brookes University.

Delivering the Sam Zuckerberg Israel Scholarship lecture, Professor Chamovitz spoke about inclusivity in Israel. Protesters disrupted the start of his lecture, waving flags and chanting. A witness described the raucous as “an avalanche of students” that left the elderly audience, many from Oxford’s Jewish community, “shellshocked.”

Some audience members clashed with protesters, pulling down flags and pushing demonstrators.

Oxford Action for Palestine later celebrated the disruption, claiming to have “demonstrated our unwavering refusal to platform Zionists in another successful disruptive action”. The group alleged they were “violently attacked” by members of the audience and vowed to continue their activism until “a liberated Palestine” was achieved.