THERE WERE CHAOTIC scenes at the end of a University College Dublin Debate last night on the conflict in Palestine.

The debate was hosted by the university’s Literary & Historical Society and the motion debated was: “This House believes that the West has failed Palestine.”

Videos on social media show people shouting “get out” and appear to show people being escorted out of the Fitzgerald Chamber where the debate was being held.

A man is also heard repeatedly shouting Allahu Akbar, which prompts many attendees to leave as security intervenes. 

Our speaker Natasha Hausdorff managed to give a very informative talk about Israel at a debate last night at @UCDLnH before it descended into chaos when a man in the the audience began to shake his fist and shout ‘Alahu Akbar’ at an Israeli student present 👇 pic.twitter.com/CdBWf0HdhT

— Ireland Israel Alliance (@irlisrAlliance) November 17, 2023

People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett debated Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel.

Speaking to The Journal, Richard Boyd Barrett described the debate as “a bit chaotic” and added that it ended in “verbal argy-bargy”.

Delays

The debate was delayed in starting by at least an hour after issues with the line-up among the speakers. 

The debate was originally due to have at least two speakers on each side, but one speaker on the pro-Palestinian side withdrew on the day before the debate.

It is understood that the remaining speakers were told about this after 6pm last night, shortly before the debate was due to start. Speakers were also informed that two pro-Palestinian speakers had been added instead. 

“We had not been informed of this change in advance, and I had no idea who these people were,” Natasha Hausdorff said in an email to The Journal.  

Hausdorff noted that she had originally agreed to attend and participate in the debate based on the original line-up of speakers. After being told about the new additions to the line-up, she was “not prepared to accept the last-minute changes and share a platform with these speakers”. 

Ibrahim Halawa was one of those due to debate alongside Boyd Barrett, while pro-Israel commentator Mark Humphrys was due to debate on the opposing side.

Halawa, from Firhouse in Dublin, was arrested during a protest in 2013 in support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi who had been elected by Egypt’s people before being ousted from power in a military coup.

He spent more than four years in various Cairo jails before being exonerated by an Egyptian court.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mark Humphrys said he was “willing to debate” with Halawa but that Natasha Hausdorff was not.

He said he “had to respect” this decision and described it as a “frustrating evening”.

 The debate

The L&H society initially proposed using students to fill in for some of the speakers, rather than the invited guests, before instead suggesting a one-on-one debate between Boyd Barrett and Hausdorff. 

“We were three invited guests, we were sitting there for an hour waiting for the thing to start and we were increasingly thinking ‘why is this not starting?’”, Boyd Barrett said. 

“They then asked would Ibrahim and the other guest step back and allow for just a one-to-one debate.”

Boyd Barrett added that the UCD society appeared to indicate that “there may have been some sort of communications error”.

“It was all very odd and by the time it actually got going, you were seriously wondering whether the whole thing should be cancelled.”

There was also a larger than usual security presence at the debate, which Boyd Barrett said “seemed a bit over the top”.

“I didn’t really understand why there was any need for that to be honest,” he added.

However, the People Before Profit TD said he “wouldn’t go overboard on what happened”.

He told The Journal: “I think student debates can get a bit rowdy and I wouldn’t describe it as much more than verbal argy-bargy at the very end debate, and quite a bit of confusion and delay in terms of the debate starting.”

The Literary & Historical Society said: “The function of the L&H is to promote open discourse in UCD. This means that we sometimes have to have difficult, but necessary, conversations.

“How we advertise events depends on the event, the venue and the timeline of confirming speakers.”

The society said the event had been “controlled at all times” but the post-debate Q&A finished early “due to active crowd interjections at the end” because it was difficult for speakers to be heard.

“We understand that ‘chaos’ sounds better in a headline, but in reality there were simply some crowd interjections towards the end,” L&H said.

The individuals were asked to leave, and left “in an orderly manner” the society said.

It added that the group of individuals also enjoyed a post-debate reception immediately outside the event.

UCD has been approached for comment by The Journal.

This article was updated on 20 November to include further information about the debate provided by Natasha Hausdorff.