The heated verbal match was an Israel hate-fest denounced by more than 300 British academics.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The British police have opened an investigation against a participant in an Oxford debate ten days ago who praised Hamas during his support for the motion “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide.”
Hamas is a proscribed organization in the UK and expressing support for it is illegal under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. If convicted of such a crime, penalties can range from a fine to up to 14 years in prison.
A spokesperson for Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) said: “CTPSE is aware of reports of a person expressing support for a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, at the Oxford Union on Thursday Nov 28 and enquiries are ongoing.”
During the debate, Miko Peled, an Israeli-American author and pro-Palestinian activist, said in part, “What we saw on October 7 was not terrorism… these were acts of heroism of a people who have been oppressed.”
Jonathan Sacerdoti, the son of a Holocaust survivor and one of those opposing the motion, raised what is known as a “point of order,” saying that he believed that Peled had just run afoul of the Act, committing a “criminal offense.”
Oxford Union President Ebrahim Osman Mowafy reportedly answered, “I’m not legal enforcement.”
After the debate, more than 300 academics, including Baroness Ruth Deech, a former college president, and former vice principal of another college, Sir Vernon Bogdanor, wrote an open letter to Oxford’s chancellor condemning the debate as a “failure on all counts.”
The statements of “support of terrorist violence” by some speakers, they noted, “are morally reprehensible and also in clear violation of the law.”
There was “inflammatory rhetoric, aggressive behaviour and intimidation” of Jewish students that was antisemitic in nature, they added, which was unacceptable as well.
The Oxford Israel Society characterized the debate as “pure unfiltered hatred” against the Jewish state and said its members left “feeling physically ill and unsafe, ultimately deciding to leave together rather than alone.”
Mowafy, who took the side of the anti-Israel debaters repeatedly during the heated verbal match, had tried to throw out pro-Israel debater Mosab Hassan Yousef while he made his points, and did not stop audience members from yelling at him “traitor” and “prostitute” in Arabic.
Yousef, the son of a Hamas founder, rejected his upbringing and has become famous for exposing the group’s fanatical Islamic beliefs and terrorist acts, and supporting Israel in its fight against Palestinian terrorism.
Only protests by Yousef’s team, which also included Arab-Israeli Yoseph Haddad and international law expert Natasha Hausdorff, stopped Mowafy from shutting down Yousef’s arguments in favor of the Jewish state.
He did eventually eject Haddad for “intimidation” after the journalist called the audience, which constantly interrupted and jeered the pro-Israeli side, “terrorist supporters.”
Haddad had to be escorted by many security personnel from the venue to keep him safe from the anti-Israel crowd that was protesting outside.
Mowafy maintained that he had “shut down” any heckling and “ensured” the pro-Israel team’s ability to make their speech, but video clips of the debate posted online did not support his claims.
The motion against Israel passed overwhelmingly, 278-59.
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