Oxford Union Debating Society Sued for Alteration and Censorship of Palestinian Writer’s Speech 

The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has filed a claim for discrimination on behalf of its client, Palestinian best-selling author susan abulhawa, against the Oxford Union Debating Society for unlawful and unethical editing the recording of her speech at the Oxford Union in a November 2024 debate.

The Oxford Union, which parades itself as “the world’s most prestigious debating society” and boasts of being “the last bastion of free speech,” has refused to restore the full record of abulhawa’s speech—an important historical record—in which she criticised Zionism and the injustice of having to ‘debate’ the worth of Palestinian lives. This act of erasure comes at a time when Palestinian writers and journalists are being targeted and murdered in unprecedented numbers.  

The legal claim states that the Oxford Union’s decision to cut five key sections of her speech directly discriminates against abulhawa on the basis of her Palestinian ethnicity and indigenous identity, and anti-Zionist beliefs, in blatant violation of her right to freedom of expression. Their refusal to reverse their decision further violates the Union’s own protocols and procedures, as an internal decision of the Standing Committee, which decides these matters, voted to restore the full speech.  

The censorship of abulhawa’s speech may also constitute a breach of contract, copyright infringement, and defamation; and further claims are being considered accordingly.   

The Speech They Tried to Silence 

On 28 November 2024, susan abulhawa delivered her address at the Oxford Union debate on the motion This house believes Israel is an apartheid state engaged in genocide. Her speech contributed the proposition’s overwhelming victory—278 vote to 59—and the video of her speech, originally posted online in whole by the Oxford Union, garnered a quarter of a million views in just one week.  

However, on 12 December 2024, the Oxford Union quietly deleted the original and replaced it with an altered version, cutting nearly two minutes of her words without her consent.  They concurrently issued a vaguely worded statement citing “potential legal concerns,” which the claim argues are utterly unfounded. In reality, it is claimed, this was a discriminatory, politically motivated decision to appease those offended by her truth-telling.  

Two of the deletions described well-documented crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians: 

“and in the 1980s and ’90s, Israeli soldiers had left booby-trapped toys in southern Lebanon that exploded when excited children picked them up.” 
“…if Palestinians were systematically raping Jewish doctors, patients, and other captives with hot metal rods, jagged and electrified sticks, and fire extinguishers, sometimes raping to death, as happened with Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh and others”. 

The use of booby-trapped toys has even been referred to in a Foreign Office report to the House of Commons and yet the Oxford Union deemed it unpublishable on its YouTube channel.  

Oxford Disunion 

ELSC understands the Oxford Union is itself fractured over this issue, its internal processes in disarray as a result. Despite repeated demands, the Oxford Union has failed to substantively respond to abulhawa’s claims since 1 April 2025.  

In May 2025, the Oxford Union refused to fully comply with abulhawa’s lawful subject access request on the astonishing grounds that doing so would ‘self-incriminate.’ Although they have since withdrawn reliance on this exemption, they have continued to evade their legal responsibility to provide abulhawa with her complete personal data. As a result, the matter has now been referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  

susan abulhawa said:  

Every word of that speech was carefully crafted for accuracy and style specific to me.  I laboured over its content not to win a debate, but to contribute to history’s audit of this extraordinary time of a horrific livestreamed genocide.  In altering my words, the Oxford Union not only perverted my intellectual property without consent, but they also violated the public trust by distorting the historic record to suit a partisan narrative, thereby depriving the public and future generations of the full truth. Their decision to edit my speech is egregiously unethical. It tramples on the principles of open debate and freedom of expression—the very ideals the Oxford Union purports to uphold. 

Anna Ost, ELSC Senior Legal Officer said:  

The erasing of abulhawa’s words by the Oxford Union, where free speech is allegedly revered and protected,  discredits and undermines everything the organisation professes to uphold.  It is also emblematic of wider efforts to silence Palestinian narratives and pro-Palestine advocates around the world. This claim aims to fight back against that erasure and restore the historical record.” 

susan abulhawa is represented in her discrimination claim by ELSC, with support from Bindmans LLP.