Eventually I will post all the talks, pro and con, at the Oxford Union’s debate on November 28, whose topic was this:
“This House Believes Israel Is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide.”
Speaking against the motion here is Jonathan Sacerdoti, identified by Wikipedia as
“a British broadcaster, journalist, and TV producer. He covers stories relating to the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as terrorism and extremism stories, race relations, Middle East analysis and the British royal family. He is also a campaigner against antisemitism.”
His father was a survivor of the Holocaust.
I wanted to put this speech up now because it is uncensored, showing the abuse to which the pro-Israel speakers were subject, an abuse not evident in what was apparently a censored clip of Natasha Hausdorff’s speech the other day. I think it likely that this clip will be taken down, for it makes the Oxford Union look really really bad.
This video, complete with unceasing shouts and attacks on the speaker, shows how shameful the audience really was, a shame that also devolves upon the Union’s moderators, who were clearly on the side of the proposition although they are supposed to be neutral. They do very little to quell the audience’s despicable treatment of the speakers. Should not repeated abusers be ejected?
As you know, the proposition passed by a large proportion, with the audience packed with those who hate Israel, and with Jewish students apparently afraid to attend.
Sacerdoti’s arguments are good, and similar to Hausdorff’s, but of course he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with an audience like that.
Have a listen, even if you don’t care much about the arguments, for this is, after all, supposed to be one of the most well-run and respected groups at Oxford University.
msn quotes Hausdorff on the abuse dished out in Arabic:
She detailed how Arab speakers on her team were subjected to abuse in Arabic, which she only learned about after the event.
“They were called ‘traitors’ and ‘collaborators’,” she said. “One of the speakers confided in me that the nature of that abuse and the threats have him flashbacks to a time he was targeted for being a collaborator in the West Bank.”
The redactions made by the OU’s version of this speech demonstrate the degree to which their current administrators are aware of how far these ‘scenes’ bring the Union into disrepute. Thanks for posting.
I am glad that Jerry will sort things out and post url’s for all speeches tomorrow. Meanwhile, if you want to hear…you cannot see it because oxford union failed to post it…the fourth opposition speech and the shenanigans that ensues when the Egyptian Union President tries to throw him out….but he is saved by a legal argument offered by a British accented female voice which rises to take on the President … Natasha Hausdorf perhaps?… please see url
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGGyltraWBg
Jonathan posted it yesterday and I think that there are a number of independent postings of the opposition speeches now appearing around the interweb. This is how to fight these guys! Thank you to all four courageous opposition speakers.
BTW, this 16 min recording is subtitled in addition to the audio and a number of Arabic insults hurled at this Arab speaker are translated into English.
Well, the speaker (against the motion that “Israel is an apartheid state guilty of genocide”) Mosab Hassan Yousef may have been needlessly antagonizing when he said (@ 3:30) that the Palestinians are “the most pathetic people on planet earth.”
I prefer Jonathan Sacerdoti’s approach (also arguing against the motion).
I guess one could reply that calling Israel a genocidal state is about as insulting as calling the Palestinians “the most pathetic people on planet earth.”
The genocide charge is weird (and false). These are the times we are living in … People who believe that a woman can’t have a penis are called fascists. A few years ago defunding the police was taken seriously as an idea. Indigenous folklore is deemed to be on a par with science …
On the bright side, Assad was ousted in Syria and that may be good for Israel (since the new power holders in Syria are Sunni).
I only watched enough to see how the audience was behaving—badly!
Funny, for all the rhetoric about Trump being Hitler, I see a heck of a lot more Jew-hatred (sorry, anti-colonialist anti-Zionism) from the progressive left than any other group.
I am at least glad to see that many mainstream Democrats don’t get suckered into a “Trump supports Israel, so therefore I’m against Israel” mindset, though I do wish that some of those folks would at least acknowledge that they do agree with him on that point. One can agree with a policy of the opposite party without being a whole-hearted supporter of that party.
I expect nothing else from supporters of the Palestinians after 10/7.
The best of these people seem to be like poor Senator Dick Durbin, well-meaning, recognizes the right of Israel to exist, wants a two-state solution, but are grossly ill-informed about what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank and are thus morally confused.
The median supporter wants a better situation for the Palestinians, thinks 10/7 was perhaps a step too far, but essentially blames Israel for all of the Palestinians’ problems. “Apartheid” and “genocide” appear frequently in their description of Israel.
But a very large number are just like this obtuse rabble in Oxford…having no interest in peace, two state solution or otherwise, and openly cheering the massacre of Jews. I sincerely doubt that the rank and file Muslim in the UK veers too far from this third group…
“One can agree with a policy of the opposite party without being a whole-hearted supporter of that party”.
Indeed!
I think many of the commenters on this site agree with that but I run into far too many people of both parties who reflexively push against anything the opposite party says.
The British seem to have a tradition of raucous political debate, in Parliament anyway. Does anyone know the answers to the following questions: Do Oxford Union debates usually mimic that tradition? If so, did this debate run afoul of Parliament’s spoken or unspoken rules on debate decorum?
Parliament is indeed raucous, but I’ve watched a few Oxford Union debates in my time, and none of them even came close to this one. I blame the Union itself for not keeping control of the mayhem. I have been invited to participate twice, but turned both invites down when I discovered I’d have to pay my own way to the UK AND rent a tux. After this, there’s no way I’d ever consider an invite.
I agree that Parliament is raucous, however there are some pretty strict lines that MPs cannot cross otherwise they are censured by expulsion (Labour MP Dennis Skinner fell foul of these on several occasions), adjudicated by the Speaker.
Perhaps such censures would be thought too restrictive at the Oxford Union but they might be needed to try and repair the reputation.
I sometimes find myself convinced by points raised about plight of the Palestinians, but their Western proxies publicly acting like this really helps to convince me of the moral position of the Israelis.
If the following is authentic, Dennis Skinner could be genuinely witty when admonished by the Speaker.
D Skinner: “Half the Tories opposite are crooks.”
Mr Speaker: “The Honourable Member will withdraw that remark.”
D Skinner: “Very well, half the Tories opposite are not crooks.”
Sounds about right for the Beast of Bolsover!
A very similar remark was make by David Lange in the NZ Parliament (some time in the 1980s):
Lange: “… must have the brains of a sheep.”
Speaker: “The Honorable member will withdraw that remark….”
I love watching Prime Ministers Question Time on CSPAN https://www.c-span.org/video/?540270-1/question-time
I understand the difference in US vs UK government due to the separation of the executive and legislative branches in the US, but it would be awesome to have a president answer direct questions from Congress from time to time.
Thank you to all of you who responded to my questions and taught me something new. Loved that and the belly laugh Dr, Dawkins’ story gave me this morning. Life is good.
Are these audience members all students, or is there a rent-a-mob element too?
I have attended a large number of Oxford Union debates, and spoken in, I think, three. I have never encountered anything remotely approaching the ill-mannered bedlam unleashed by these Palestinian sympathisers.
The rules allow interruptions in the form of “Points of Order” or “Points of Information” – which nearly always turn out be points of opinion.
Unless the rules have changed recently, only members of the Union are allowed on the floor of the debating chamber. To become a member of the Union you have to be a member of the university and pay a subscription. I’d be interested to know whether this rule was relaxed on this occasion. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the spectacular bias displayed by the current President of the Union in the phraseology of the motion.
All true Prof Dawkins, but at the end of the evening, it appears that both sides of the question were heard; it was messy but they were heard; Jonathan had put together a tremendous team, and the President (even though he spoke on proposition side!) did allow for the opposition’s full stories to be heard. This was so much better than the situation on the campus grounds at our unis where the pro-Israel story is fully intimidated and drowned out without an administration referee in sight. Kudos and thanks to Jonathan’s team, their intelligence, and their backbone.