Oxford Union President on the Israel-Palestine Debate

Photo credit: Oxford Union

In my final week as President of the Oxford Union, former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf – the first Muslim to hold the office – began his address in the House Chamber to me with these words: “You’ve not had the easiest time as president, and I’m saying that.”

Humza’s visit was only five days after we held the Israel-Palestine debate on 28 November, which generated intense press coverage. Some attacked the Union and me relentlessly, while other outlets celebrated the debate as historic. It also came a few weeks after a controversial debate on Kashmir’s independence, during which a fellow Union member, who viewed the debate as an affront to India’s territorial sovereignty, accused me of being a “stooge of ISI” (the Pakistani intelligence agency) and launched an unsuccessful “no-confidence” motion against me.

Humza and I talked at length over dinner about his struggles in politics. While his were certainly of a magnitude far greater than my experience at the Oxford Union, I related to his stories and was left with a renewed sense of hope. Humza’s observation was, of course, correct. I did not have an easy time as president, or indeed in becoming president in the first place.

But having an easy time was never my goal. I wanted to see the most difficult and important conversations take place to amplify the voices of those who are silenced, ignored, and forgotten. Amid the televised horrors coming from Gaza, I thought it was important to have a debate that uses the terms that so many were hesitant to use.

In fact, as we were organising the debate, it emerged that the Labour Party was banning the use of the words “apartheid” and “genocide” at its party conference, which highlighted the need for a debate on those terms at the Union.

The Israel-Palestine Debate

In August, I invited Gerald Steinberg, a professor of politics at Bar Ilan University, to speak in a debate on the motion “This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide”.

He chose to leak the invitation to the press. An article followed with the title, “An ‘Abject, Squalid, Shameless’ Debate at the Oxford Union: an Israeli professor strikes back at the Union’s disgraceful attempt to paint Israel as a genocidal, apartheid state”.

‘Abject, Squalid, Shameless’ were the words used by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to attack the Oxford Union’s King and Country debate in 1933. Today, this debate is celebrated as a reflection of the Union’s independence and willingness to challenge power.

In perhaps greater irony, Steinberg’s essay on why the Union should not dare accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide was about the length of an Oxford Union debate speech. I would have welcomed him to simply read it out on the floor of the House.

Steinberg, as well as some of the opposition speakers in the debate, asserted that it was outrageous that the only Jewish state would be singled out with the accusation of apartheid. Had they listened carefully, they would have realised that this was contradicted by other opposition speakers, who spent much of their time telling a packed Chamber that Israel was a plural society where citizens from different ethnicities and religions are treated equally – even reminding them that the IDF stands for the Israel (not Jewish) Defence Forces.

What became clear was that the opposing team was employing the logic of “whatever goes” – Israel is sometimes the Jewish state, and so criticising it is antisemitic, and on other occasions, it is a plural society with Jews being treated no differently to Christians, Muslims, Arabs and Druze.

The Lineup

The original speaker line-up included writers and activists Mohammed El-Kurd, Susan Abulhawa and Miko Peled, and political scientist Norman Finkelstein on the team proposing the motion, while Israeli historian Benny Morris, British broadcaster Jonathan Sacerdoti, and pro-Israel activists Natasha Hausdorff and Yoseph Haddad comprised the opposition.

Susan Abulhawa, Photo Credit Oxford Union

Morris dropped out, followed by Finkelstein. The opposition insisted that Morris be replaced by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the self-described “former Palestinian”, “son of Hamas”, and spy for Israel whose Islamophobic statements have been widely condemned. With only a few days to go, I took Finkelstein’s place on the proposing team.

It is telling that the opposition’s choice of Palestinian speakers to strengthen their case for Israel’s plurality and defeat the apartheid argument were Yousef – who thinks that Israel should “burn” down Rafah – and Haddad – who urged Israel to punish Palestinian civilians and “break them.” This is what a good Palestinian must say and do in order to be acceptable to Israel. They must fully subscribe to the idea that Palestinians are, in Yousef’s own words, “the most pathetic people on planet Earth”. These callous comments, however, were an honest reflection of Israel’s policies and attitudes towards Palestinians.

Several speeches from the debate went viral, especially those by Abulhawa and El-Kurd.

The Aftermath

It is helpful to return to the Union’s nearly century-old King and Country debate – now seen as the embodiment of the spirit of free speech that defines the Union’s history. After that motion was carried 275-153, British media whipped up a frenzy of condemnation. The Daily Express described the passage of the motion as “a contemptible and indecent action”. The media and the public asked: “What is wrong with the younger generation?”

But what many do not know about the debate is how much disorder and mayhem it caused within the Union itself. After the debate, a group of students stole the minute book and destroyed the record of the debate. The minutes were subsequently rewritten from memory. A motion was later moved, and seconded by Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s son Randolph, to remove any record of the debate. This motion failed.

The aftermath of the Israel-Palestine debate was eerily similar. Students voted resoundingly in favour of the motion, with 279 in favour and 59 against after more than 3 hours of debate.

The right-wing media was determined to do everything to undermine the result of the debate. Even within the university, a piece I had published on the debate in the university newspaper, The Oxford Student, was taken down after pressure and internal squabbling.

The opposition speakers made false claims about the debate in numerous media outlets, most of which did not give the Union a chance to respond. One such claim was that we had issued tickets for the debate only to students who would support the motion. I found this particularly dishonest given that two of the opposition speakers studied at Oxford and are members of the Union; they know that our debates are not ticketed and that all members are entitled to attend on a “first come, first served” basis. No member was advantaged or disadvantaged from attending. The debate was hugely oversubscribed, with exceedingly long queues of people wanting to get in.

Another assertion published in the media was that the Union had been traditionally anti-Israel. This is also easily disproved. Just the previous term, the Chamber voted “No” on the motion that “This House Would Join the Encampment”, referring to the Palestinian solidarity encampment that had been established outside the Natural History Museum.  Indeed, the Union received heavy criticism a few terms ago when Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely was invited as a speaker twice in the same year without being seriously challenged.

Further, opposition speakers claimed that the Union did not allow the Oxford Israel Society to rent out a room to have a “meet and greet” with the opposition speakers before the debate. But no such request was ever made to my team or me.

Emotions at the debate were, of course, unlike any other I have ever seen. And despite every single speaker being interrupted, all speakers were able to make their speeches in full, which meant the debate ended more than an hour late.

Two individuals were made to withdraw from the House. After multiple warnings, Haddad was removed after physically intimidating a member and preventing her from returning to her seat. That brave student was first-year PPE-ist Arwa El-Rayyes, who had just made a heartbreaking speech describing the killing of her cousin – a doctor and Chevening Scholar – in Gaza, and the wiping out of a “whole family line from the El-Rayyes family tree”. Videos of the debate show Haddad arguing with and harassing members of the audience throughout the debate. His stunt on the way out made it clear that his behaviour was planned and deliberate. Media reported that a clip was cut from Yousef’s speech wherein I allegedly ordered him to leave. In fact, nothing was cut because I never ordered Yousef to leave.

The other person who was in breach of the forms of the House and was made to withdraw from the chamber was an audience member who interjected and swore at Sacerdoti when he was speaking. Sacerdoti was nevertheless able to continue his speech and was allowed to speak for more than double the time allocated to him. What more could he expect from the Chair than to give him the full opportunity to make his case, and to evict someone who interrupted him in that manner? I was initially shocked at the student’s conduct. But after the debate, I was told that she was a Palestinian student whose own family members had died in Gaza.

Freedom of speech does have consequences: it was not easy for a student whose own family members have been killed in Gaza to hear that they should be grateful for the number of calories per day Israel provides to them. This was the difficulty in having a debate on genocide when it was happening in real time.

Sacerdoti was nevertheless fully entitled to be heard in silence and without interruptions, as I said from the Chair many times.

Much was made of my alleged bias because I chaired the debate and was also one of the speakers. That was, however, not unique to this debate. Every president I have seen during my time at the Union has chaired and spoken in a debate close to their hearts. In the previous term, a president passionate about the British Army spoke in a debate on that subject, another spoke on a motion questioning American interventionism, and so on.

The accusation of bias from the opposition speakers is particularly cynical given that it was they who insisted on having a 4 v 4 debate, despite my repeated requests to keep it a 3 v 3 debate. The Union simply could not secure a fourth proposition speaker on only a few days notice. With hindsight, I could not be more grateful for that opportunity; if there is one thing I will look back at with pride from my term, it will be that speech.

Natasha Hausdorff claimed that my bias was evident from my failure to challenge Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Dr Husam Zomlot, during his visit to the Union earlier in the term.

The interview is on YouTube, and speaks for itself. The only complaint I received was that I should not have been so harsh to Zomlot in the interview.

Reflections

The hostility of opposition speakers to such a debate, from its conception until weeks after, was not the product of genuine, good faith disagreement but rather came from their anger that such a debate was even happening. Indeed, Sacerdoti began his speech by referring to the motion as a “defamation” of Israel and as an “outrage.” Their hostility came from a feeling that the Palestinian cause – arguably the most significant moral, humanitarian, and foreign policy issue of our time – was gaining mainstream traction among the younger generation at Oxford and university campuses around the world.

In a previous debate that fell on Remembrance Sunday, November 11th, members of my team prepared me for the ritual of laying a wreath and saying a few words in memory of those who died in the two World Wars, a great tradition that was new to me. “Lest we forget” and “never again” were words often used on this occasion. It felt odd to use the past tense, given what was ongoing in Gaza. To avoid causing unnecessary offence, I did not amend the script. But we must never forget Sha’ban Al Dalou, Sidra Hassouna, Hind Rajab, and thousands more who, just like us at Oxford, had dreams and ambitions of their own.

In their memory, too, we should say “never again”.

When we say, “and they shall not grow old”, correctly eulogising those who gave up their lives before us, does it not behoove us also to pause and think of those who cannot grow old? History will wonder how the world’s conscience died, how it looked the other way when a genocide was taking place before its very eyes.

Just as we now look back and question how the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was ever considered controversial or how so many once believed there were valid reasons to uphold slavery – perhaps we will one day reflect on how condemning a nuclear power responsible for killing tens of thousands in a single year (70 percent of whom are women and children) was ever seen as controversial. The very fact that such a debate was necessary, let alone contentious, will speak volumes.

And at the Union, just as we look back at the speeches of Malcolm X and James Baldwin with pride and admiration, Susan Abulhawa’s address to the Oxford Union will go down as one of the most powerful ever delivered in the Chamber, unparalleled in its ability to channel the pain of being Palestinian, to tell the story of a people’s decades of suffering.

EBRAHIM OSMAN-MOWAFY was President of the Oxford Union in Michaelmas Term 2024. He presided over an unprecedented term in the Union’s recent history: overcoming a motion of no-confidence following the House believing in an independent state of Kashmir, hosting a controversial debate on the Israel-Palestine issue and facing repeated scrutiny within the University and by both the national and international media. This reflection on his term represents his own beliefs and opinions.