Pro-Israel speaker furious after Oxford Union speech ambushed by ‘hate bank’ | United Kingdom | News
Jonathan Sacerdoti (left) is angry at what he considers a ‘set-up’ (Image: X)
A journalist and regular commentator on Middle East affairs believes he was the victim of a ‘frame’ when he was invited to address the Oxford Union last week – and pointed the finger at pro-students Palestinians who heckled him and uttered insults throughout his mandate. speech.
Jonathan Sacerdoti was speaking to Express.co.uk after what he described as a “scary” and “extremely disrespectful” evening at the university where he was once a student.
Mr Sacerdoti, whose television broadcasts include the BBC and Sky News, had been asked to oppose a motion describing Israel as “an apartheid state”.
He explained: “The first two rows were obviously all anti-Israel activists of some variety, many of them wearing hijabs, many of them wearing Palestinian clothing.
“One of them wore earrings in the shape of a red triangle, a Hamas symbol that they use in their videos to indicate small arrows pointing to the people they are going to kill.
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“So it was clear that these people were there to disrupt and then right at that point in my speech, one of them shouted at me that I was a liar. I think she shouted ‘mother genocidal******, ** ** you’.”
Two people on Mr. Sacerdoti’s team for the November 28 event were Arabs: Mosab Hassan Yousef, a former Palestinian activist who defected to Israel in 1997 and has since worked tirelessly to help prevent suicide bombers, and Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli Arab born in Haifa.
Mr Sacerdoti said: “I think the reason these two became so animated is because they can understand what was being shouted at us, because they speak Arabic.
“For example, during Mosab Hassan Yousef’s speech, in the first few sentences, someone shouted an extremely offensive insult in Arabic.”
Jonathan Sacerdoti was also unhappy that the audio of the angry exchanges during his speech was cut (Image: X)
Mr. Haddad then asked the president of the Union, Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, who chaired the debate, to expel the woman who had launched insults, said Mr. Sacerdoti.
However, he added: “In the meantime, union security tried to expel my husband, because he decided that with this abuse he had to film what was happening to have proof.
“They tried to deport him for that before they deported the woman who was abusing us. So I told them, ‘You can’t deport her.’
“Eventually they agreed to take this woman out of the room, and we continued.
Statement from the Oxford Union regarding the debate on the motion:
“This Assembly believes that Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide” pic.twitter.com/V0kkbZo9Cc-Oxford Union (@OxfordUnion) December 4, 2024
“But the rowdy, mocking Arab insults, none of that stopped other people in the audience throughout the audience, it was extremely disrespectful, but also quite scary for a lot of people in attendance.”
Asked if he felt he had been ambushed by the union, Mr. Sacerdoti replied: “I have no doubt, and since then I have heard from people close to the decision-making process say they are dismayed by the way we were treated.
“It was carefully orchestrated in certain ways. For example, as the audience arrived, the Oxford Union Committee decided who would sit and where they would direct people to where they would sit.
“So the fact that we had this bank of hatred behind us and abuse…they knew exactly who they were sitting there.”
President of the Union, Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy (Image: X)
Mr Sacerdoti was also unhappy that an official video of the event released by the Oxford Union cut out the audio as the event descended into chaos about eight minutes into his speech.
He added: “They tried to cancel us. They tried to exclude members of our team before the event. They tried to expel Mosab in the middle of his speech. They expelled Yoseph after his speech.
“They did everything they could to make it clear that they had absolutely no respect for us, even though they invited us.”
In a statement released after the event, the Oxford Union said: “We are aware that this debate – and others around this term – have provoked strong reactions from some of our members and the wider community. wide.
“During the debate, two individuals were ordered to leave the room.
“One was a member of the public and the second was an opposition speaker. The two individuals abused the forms of the house and before being evicted, they received warnings.
Express.co.uk has contacted the Oxford Union for further comment.
