Gerald Steinberg said he hoped the historic debating body would avoid ‘twisting the principles of human rights’ against Israel
by Felix Pope
An academic invited to debate whether Israel is an “apartheid state” at the Oxford Union has written a scathing letter in response, arguing that no one with a “moral conscience” should participate in such an event.
Gerald Steinberg, who founded the pro-Israel lobby group NGO Monitor, was asked by students to appear at the Oxford Union later this year to defend Israel.
The motion was: “This house recognises Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide.” Other public figures understood to have also refused the invitation to debate include Israel’s leader of the opposition Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party.
In an open letter, Steinberg asked if the Union would also be organising debates to discuss whether the world’s 190 other nation-states had committed apartheid or genocide.
Steinberg wrote: “In addressing the leaders and members of the Oxford Union, I express the deep concern that many of us have regarding the attacks against Jewish students and faculty at Oxford University, and ask what you are doing to effectively counter this ugly display of abusive power.
“Although your invitation refers only to Israel, I assume that the Oxford Union would not contribute once again to poisonous hatred by joining those who immorally single-out Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, for demonisation.
“Terms in your cover letter include settlements, barriers, military tactics and policies, etc but, notably, there is no mention of Palestinian terrorist atrocities or repeated declarations of genocidal intentions, also from the Iranian regime.”
Steinberg queried the application of the terms “apartheid” and “genocide” to Israel. “The former was coined and applied exclusively to the notorious South African regime,” he wrote.
“The cynical attempt to mis-apply the ‘racism’ and ‘apartheid’ propaganda labels to Israel and Zionism began under the Soviet Union and Stalin in the 1950s, in alliance with the members of the Arab League…
“The attempts to twist the principles of human rights and construct pseudo-international law to weaponise the term trivialise the actual suffering of millions of people under South African apartheid – a moral stain which the Oxford Union, one would hope, would avoid.”
The full text of Steinberg’s letter is available here.
