Oxford Union admits editing Israel debate comments

The Oxford Union has admitted it has excised sections of the official footage of the November 28 debate on Israel, in which the audience overwhelmingly approved the motion that the country was “an apartheid state responsible for genocide”.

Two of the speakers for the motion — Israeli anti-Zionist Miko Peled and Susan Abulhawa — made declarations during their presentations which have been redacted from the YouTube footage uploaded by the Union Society late last week.

Peled said “What we saw on October 7 was not terrorism”. Some in the audience shouted back: “What is it?” He replied: “These were acts of heroism of a people who have been oppressed”.

Opponents of the motion — including Jonathan Sacerdoti, Natasha Hausdorff, Yoseph Haddad, and Mosab Hassan Yousef — immediately condemned his remarks as “illegal.” Sacerdoti said he believed that the president of the Union should invite the police in, saying that Peled’s depiction of the acts of Hamas on October 7 were illegal under the UK Terrorism Act.

But, urged to invite Thames Valley police inside to investigate “a criminal offence”, the Union president, Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, refused, saying: “I’m not legal enforcement”.

However, the Oxford Union did not immediately post the footage of Peled’s speech and it was rumoured that his remarks would not be published at all.

Eventually, however, a redacted version, excluding Peled’s “acts of heroism” comments, did go online.

In a statement following the delayed posting, the Oxford Union said: “We are aware that the Union’s recent debate on Israel/Palestine has drawn widespread commentary and attention. 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”.

Abulwaha, for her part, angrily denounced the Oxford Union for uploading an edited version of her speech in favour of the motion. About a minute was cut from her remarks. She complained that the Union had caved in to Zionists. On social media, she wrote that “such modification of my speech and censorship is unethical and contrary to the ideals they purport to uphold. This censorship and perversion of my remarks come after the original YouTube video had garnered hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments in less than one week, which apparently was bothersome to Zionists. I demand the original speech be reinstated in its entirety as it was previously posted.”

Both Sacerdoti and Yosef Haddad also complained about the way their speeches had appeared on published footage, saying that the videos were edited to muzzle the intimidating attacks on them from members of the audience. Haddad was eventually evicted from the debate by the Union president.