PULSE POINTS
❓WHAT HAPPENED: The Oxford Union, Britain’s most prestigious debating society, voted that Israel is a greater threat to regional security in the Middle East than Iran.
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👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer, and the Oxford Union.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The vote took place on November 13.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions.” – Mohammad Shtayyeh.
🎯IMPACT: The vote comes amid rising levels of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment in Britain, linked in part to large-scale Islamic immigration.
The Oxford Union, Britain‘s most prestigious debating society, has voted by a wide margin to endorse a motion that Israel represents a greater threat to regional stability than Iran. The debate featured former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, who argued in favor of the motion and described Israel as “an expansionist colonial state that has been established by colonial powers.” He called it a “pariah state” that “should be stopped.”
Shtayyeh told the society that “Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions,” accusing it of operating “a colonial regime… based on apartheid against the Palestinian people.” He cited what he called “brutal occupation, crimes and genocide,” and said Israel was “dragging the region into repeated conflicts… causing misery, genocide.” He also claimed that some Israeli lawmakers envision borders stretching “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” concluding: “We all should say that Israel is the biggest cause of destabilisation in the region.”
Opposing the motion, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said the proposition amounted to an “inversion of reality.” He argued that “regional stability is measured by who starts wars, not by who stops them,” noting that Iran, not Israel, arms militant proxies in several Arab countries.
Neuer insisted that “Arab states quietly depend on Israel for their own survival,” pointing to Iran’s recent direct attack on Israel with “170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles.” He highlighted that Sunni Arab states assisted in intercepting the projectiles, saying this represented a real-world verdict on the question of regional stability: “You don’t intercept missiles heading towards a threat to regional stability, you intercept missiles from one.”
Sources close to the event confirmed that the motion passed decisively, continuing a trend of contentious Israel-related votes at the institution. Last year, members backed the claim that “Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide” by 278 votes to 59.
The vote comes during a period of turbulence for the Oxford Union, a prestigious debating society founded in 1823 and known for hosting global political figures. In recent months, the group’s president-elect, George Abaraonye, was ousted after messages surfaced in which he appeared to celebrate the assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk, whom he had previously debated.
In the leaked messages, Abaraonye allegedly wrote, “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f**king go,” and “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.” He was removed following a vote of no confidence.
A rise in anti-Semitic incidents has also strained the broader political climate in Britain. In early October, police identified the suspect in a deadly Yom Kippur synagogue attack in Greater Manchester as Jihad al-Shamie, a Syrian immigrant granted British citizenship. The attack left two people dead and several others injured.
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