Oxford Union Gaza debate denounced as ‘mess of antisemitism’ in Parliament

An Oxford Union debate on the Israeli Palestinian conflict was labelled a “mess of antisemitism” in Parliament on Wednesday.

Conservative MP Gregory Stafford, a former treasurer of the Oxford Union, said he was “disgusted” that “students voted in a majority that they would not have reported Hamas’s plans if they'd known them prior to the October 7 attacks”.

He went on to urge the government to the Oxford Union to state that “antisemitism has no place in our society, and especially not our universities”.

On November 28, students voted in favour of a motion “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide," by 278 votes to 59.

During the debate, one of the panellists opposing the motion, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader who himself later defected to Israel, asked whether the audience would have reported Hamas’s plans on October 7 to authorities and an overwhelming majority indicated they would not have.

Responding to Stafford’s question in the House of Commons, Minister for Women and Equalities Anneliese Dodds MP said that: “The government could not have been clear in terms of our position on antisemitism, there is no place for antisemitism in our society, nor for any form of racism.

She continued: “That applies whether it's within educational settings in any other part of our society. That's been made very clear indeed.

The JC reported that over 300 academics signed an open letter addressed to the new Oxford University chancellor William Hague stating that the debate, in which some speakers praised the October 7 attacks on Israel broke the law.

Jonathan Sacredoti, another of the speakers against the motion, wrote about the intimidating atmosphere: “they interrupted every pro-Israel speaker with jeers, coughs, and outright abuse,” adding that Yousef, “was met with jeering derision and cried of ‘traitor’ and ‘prostitute’ (in Arabic), as he recounted his extraordinary story of moral courage and bravery.”

The team against the motion also consisted of British barrister Natasha Hausdorff from UK Lawyers for Israel and Arab-Israeli journalist Yoseph Haddad. Their opponents were Oxford Union President Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, Israeli-American activist Miko Peled, Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and writer Susan Abulhawa.

Peled described Hamas’s October 7 attacks 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. 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.” Later, he told the JC, “I expressed no support for any group other than the Palestinian people.”

In a post on X on Friday, the Oxford Union appeared to address accusations that they had not uploaded the debate in full to their social media platforms.

It said: “The Union acknowledges that facilitating difficult conversations carries a responsibility to approach sensitive topics with care. Consistent with our existing practice of upholding standards while being mindful of potential legal concerns, sections of the official footage of the debate have been removed.”

In a seperate post on X, Sacredoti said that this amounted to an admission that the Union was “censoring videos of the speeches” and that “some of the content in one speech might be illegal”.