The Oxford Union voted “overwhelmingly” on Thursday to endorse a motion asserting that Israel poses a greater threat to Middle East stability than Iran, according to The Telegraph. The result

followed a charged debate at the 202-year-old debating society that featured former Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

Shtayyeh, arguing in favor of the motion, described Israel as an “expansionist colonial state established by colonial powers,” and went on to label it a “pariah state” that “should be stopped,” The Telegraph reported. He added, as quoted by The Jewish Chronicle, that “Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions,” accusing it of maintaining a “colonial regime… based on apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

Shtayyeh, who led the Palestinian Authority from 2019 to 2024, further claimed that some Israeli lawmakers envision borders extending “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” In his closing remarks, he declared: “Israel is the biggest cause of destabilisation in the region.”

Neuer countered that the proposal represented an “inversion of reality,” arguing that regional stability should be judged by “who starts wars, not who stops them.” He maintained that Iran, not Israel, fuels regional instability by arming militant proxies across five Arab states.

“The entire Middle East knows this,” Neuer said, “and that is why Arab states quietly depend on Israel for their own survival.” He pointed to Iran’s unprecedented attack involving hundreds of drones and missiles and the subsequent cooperation of Sunni Arab states in intercepting them as evidence that Israel is viewed as a regional stabilizer.

“You don’t intercept missiles heading toward a threat to regional stability,” he argued. “You intercept missiles from one.”

Following the debate, Neuer posted on X that the motion felt like “deep satire,” adding that he was reminded of a recent controversy in which 501 Union members supported a student chair who had publicly cheered the killing of commentator Charlie Kirk. The individual, George Abaraonye, was later removed from his post after widespread criticism.

The Jewish Chronicle reported that Thursday’s margin in favor of the motion was “overwhelming,” though exact figures were not released.

The vote follows a pattern: in 2024, Oxford Union members endorsed a separate motion declaring that “Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide,” by a margin of 278 to 59. Photo by Topper the wombat, Wikimedia commons.