The Ivy League of Extraordinary Antisemites

So much for tuxedos, tails and glamorous evening gowns—and those bollocks British accents. What a curious spectacle when posh people descend to the mosh pits.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the Oxford Union, the famed debating society that for two centuries has hosted an international jet set of debaters in their best finery and eloquent oratory. Yet wouldn’t you just know it. When it came to the question of whether Israel is an “apartheid state responsible for genocide,” with an audience overrun with overeducated devotees of the death cult called Hamas, it was impossible for Oxford to put on airs amid the coarsened chaos the event caused.

The motion was overwhelmingly carried, 278 to 59. It gets worse: More than 75 percent of those in attendance voted that they would not have warned the proper authorities what Hamas had planned to do on October 7, 2023.

All very shocking, but not unpredictable. What was more revealing and disconcerting was the atmosphere of the debate itself. Decorum went from black tie to black eye. There was no greater evidence of the alarming decline of Western civilization. And at Oxford, of all places, which imagines itself as its cradle.

Despite all that pretentious Edwardian refinement and Harry Potter pedigree, we now know you can get Oxford all dressed up, but when it comes to the hatred of Jews, you can’t take it anywhere.

The Ivy League in America is not alone. Apparently, all the once great universities no longer teach the world’s oldest prejudice —they simply practice it, comprising their own League of Extraordinary Antisemites.

The chairman of the Oxford Union, an Egyptian, demonstrated his impartiality by openly declaring Israel to be an apartheid state. So much for commencing the debate on an equal footing. At the speech of one of the pro-Israel advocates, Mosab Hassan Yousef, who happens to be the son of one of Hamas’ founders and a fierce critic of his father’s handiwork (he has called Palestinians themselves “a false identity”), the crowd erupted in cries calling him a “traitor” and “prostitute.”

Another one of the pro-Israel speakers, a British journalist, challenged the accusation that Israel was deliberately causing mass starvation in Gaza. He read statistics to show that “Israel has provided 700,000 tons of food to Gaza during this war. That is a daily average of 3,200 calories per person.” One audience member screamed from her seat: “Sick motherfucker!” and called him a “genocidal maniac.”

Wow, cursing in the Queen’s English is as comfortable as a pair of Oxford shoes.

A shameless pro-Hamas team member said: “What happened on October 7 was not terrorism—these were acts of heroism of a people who were oppressed.” He promptly demanded, to a rousing ovation, a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”

In the United Kingdom, which does not guarantee the same free speech protections as are granted in the United States, calling Hamas heroes might actually constitute a hate crime. But apparently not at Oxford. Afterwards, some members of the audience were seen shoving Jews and stomping on flags.

Outside the hall was no more dignified. Members of Oxford Action for Palestine, a radical student group, protested that “Zionists are not welcome in Oxford!” The group later celebrated their disruption by stating it “demonstrated our unwavering refusal to platform Zionists.”

This Oxford Union antisemitic spectacle cum WrestleMania has been staged in the past. In 1962, they debated the topic “The Creation of the State of Israel Is One of the Mistakes of the Century.” In 2008, they debated, “This house believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist.”

But this year’s rendition was far more raucous and threatening. Most Jewish students stayed away. One posted on X: “I was amazed at how many keffiyehs and hijabs there were and how hostile and toxic the atmosphere was.”

All this British boorishness was not confined to Oxford’s debating society. Just one day earlier, the same pro-Hamas activists poisoned another event. The President of Ben-Gurion University delivered a lecture about Israel’s favorable experience with diversity and inclusion. The students who attended weren’t having any of it, heckling and shouting him down. Oxford’s Jewish community, and more elderly members of the audience, were reportedly “shellshocked.”

Something similar happened at the now infamous Oxford Union debate. An Israeli Arab arguing in favor of the Jewish state showed photographs of Muslims who owned banks in Israel, served as Israeli judges and as members of parliament, and played on Israel’s national soccer team. He himself gave orders to Jewish soldiers as an officer in the IDF. This, too, did not match the script the audience was conditioned to hear. He was repeatedly jeered.

Yes, that’s surely what apartheid looks like in the minds of today’s antisemitic “human rights” activists. Indeed, the pro-Hamas speakers featured at the Oxford Union in the past called Jews “spawns of Satan,” claimed that they “aren’t human,” smeared Jewish immigrants to the Middle East as “garbage,” and proclaimed that “‘the Jews’ as a united single nation or people is fiction.”

Another one of the Islamist debaters relied on that oldie but goodie blood libel with a more Middle Eastern twist: Israel has “an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood” and harvests and eats their organs.

These people were invited to speak at Oxford, where Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Robert Kennedy all once appeared?

The end of the old order of civility and mutual respect has arrived—even in hallowed Gothic buildings with palatial libraries. Western civilization in these days of anti-colonial, anti-racist, antisemitic idolatries doesn’t stand a chance.

Those great debaters Lincoln and Douglas would be lost in London these days. The land of Shakespeare has been overtaken by foul-mouthed groundlings muddied in multicultural hogwash.

Those great debaters Lincoln and Douglas would be lost in London these days. The land of Shakespeare has been overtaken by foul-mouthed groundlings muddied in multicultural hogwash. As for Oxford, it peaked as the setting for Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, having now lost its capacity for intellectual wizardry.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Is Israel Fighting a Just War in Gaza?”