THB that Israel is a Greater Threat to Regional Stability than Iran - Hillel Neuer - Opp

0:00 [applause] [clears throat] Mr.

0:10 President, I confess I hesitated before agreeing

0:16 to debate this evening because doing so

0:19 risks dignifying a proposition so disconnected from basic

0:23 facts that it verges on the satirical.

0:26 that Israel of all states poses a greater threat

0:30 to regional stability than the Islamic Republic of Iran.

0:35 But we now live in an age where people will believe almost anything.

0:40 Nearly one in four people in this country aged 18 to 34

0:44 believe that the 77 terrorist attacks were quote probably a hoax.

0:50 And here in this Oxford Union, we saw that just three weeks ago,

0:54 no less than 501 members believed it was right to vote in support

0:59 of the incoming president after he had

1:01 publicly celebrated the killing of Charlie Kirk.

1:07 And so I decided to attend and to lay out

1:10 a few essential facts proving that tonight's proposition is not merely wrong,

1:15 but the inversion of reality.

1:19 Regional stability is measured by who starts wars, not by who stops them.

1:25 Israel does not arm terror proxies.

1:29 In five Arab countries, the Islamic regime in Iran does that.

1:33 And the entire Middle East knows this.

1:36 And that is why Arab states quietly depend on Israel for their own survival.

1:42 Fact number one, the moderate Sunni Arab states are part

1:45 of a strategic alliance with Israel beginning four decades ago.

1:49 Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

1:52 Jordan did so in 1994.

1:54 The historic Abraham Accords in 2020 brought together the United Arab Emirates,

2:00 Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, signing peace and normalization agreements with Israel.

2:06 The accords recognize that the Arab and Jewish

2:09 peoples are descendants of a common ancestor, Abraham,

2:12 that both peoples are indigenous to the region, and they articulate a vision,

2:17 a vision of advancing a culture of peace, security, and prosperity.

2:22 No, I am interrupted all the time

2:24 at the United Nations by the worst regimes in Oxford.

2:26 I shall speak uninterrupted.

2:35 [applause] Fact number two, Saudi Arabia, custodian of the two holy mosques,

2:39 has also developed a significant rapro with Israel.

2:42 Indeed, in the minutes that they captured

2:45 of the Hamas leadership meetings that were held days

2:48 before their decision to invade Israel and launch

2:51 the war and massacre of October 7th, 2023.

2:54 In the minutes of Hamas, it was written, quote, there is no doubt that the Saudi

2:58 Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.

3:02 And so, Hamas decided on quote, an extraordinary action to try and torpedo it.

3:07 In fact, the regional alliance between Israel and the moderate Arab countries

3:12 was resilient enough to survive the war of the past two years.

3:15 Last year, neighboring Egypt and Jordan imported

3:18 a record amount of natural gas from Israel.

3:21 Israel provides parched Jordan with 100

3:25 million cubic meters of water every year.

3:28 How is Israel a threat to regional stability?

3:31 The truth is the opposite.

3:34 One of the most powerful illustrations of this regional

3:37 alliance came last year on April 13th,

3:39 2024 when the Islamic regime in Iran launched an unprecedented

3:43 attack on the people of Israel with 170 drones,

3:47 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles.

3:50 No, one of the those who helped shoot down the incoming

3:54 weapons included the air forces not only of the US, the UK,

3:58 and France, but Jordan, while Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia

4:01 and the United Arab Emirates contributed intelligence,

4:04 including radar tracking information.

4:08 Now, this wasn't a one-off.

4:09 When Iran attacked Israel again in June 2025,

4:12 Jordan shot down Iranian missiles and drones crossing overhead.

4:16 Saudi Arabia, according to reports,

4:18 allowed Israel its airspace to do so as well.

4:21 Now, the fact that Sunni Arab states

4:23 provided a combination of air force interceptions,

4:26 radar, and intelligence is a realworld vote on tonight's motion.

4:32 They know, the Arab states know that for their people,

4:34 Israel is a partner in survival,

4:37 and the Islamic regime in Iran is an existential threat.

4:41 You don't intercept missiles heading toward a threat to regional stability.

4:47 You intercept missiles from one.

4:52 So let us address the real driver of instability, the Islamic regime in Iran.

4:56 Because revolutionary jihad is their debt.

5:01 Let us compare.

5:02 Israel at the very moment of its birth on May 14th,

5:05 1948 in its declaration of independence reached

5:08 out to its neighbors with a simple message.

5:10 quote, "We extend our hand to all neighboring states

5:14 and their peoples in an offer of peace." In Iran,

5:17 with the Islamic regime, it was the exact opposite.

5:19 One year after the anniversary of the Ayatollah revolution,

5:22 the Ayatollah declared on February 11th,

5:24 1980, quote, "We shall export our revolution to the whole world.

5:30 Until the cry, there is no God but Allah," resounds over the whole world,

5:34 there will be struggle.

5:36 And that is what they do in the region and beyond.

5:39 Iran through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

5:41 the IRGC, exports terrorism and war.

5:46 And wherever they go in the region, they bring rune to societies.

5:50 Let's look.

5:51 No, let's look at Yemen.

5:54 The Iranian regime destabilizes Yemen.

5:57 They armed and trained the Houthis,

5:59 a group whose slogan is death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews.

6:04 That is what they cry out every single day.

6:05 And Iran is their sponsor.

6:07 The Houthis destroyed Yemen.

6:09 They they collapsed state institutions, crippled hospitals and basic services,

6:13 diverted aid, deepening famine and economic freefall.

6:18 Their own people are starving hundreds of thousands.

6:20 Yet unprovoked from a thousand miles away

6:23 with the very few resources the country has,

6:25 the Houthi spend them to launch over

6:28 400 missile and drone attacks at Israeli cities.

6:32 All of it sponsored by Iran.

6:33 This is regional stability.

6:35 Now, let's look at Lebanon.

6:37 Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, hollowedout every institution in the country,

6:41 turning Lebanon into a failed state.

6:43 They built an Iranian-funded parallel military stronger than the Lebanese army.

6:48 They seized control of border crossings and ports,

6:51 converted entire regions into fortified enclaves beyond the reach of the state.

6:57 Iran's Hezbollah assassinated critics,

6:59 toppled Lebanese governments that tried to assert sovereignty,

7:02 dragged Lebanon into wars that its people never chose.

7:06 Hezbollah's capture of the economy,

7:08 fuel smuggling, customs evasion, protection rackets,

7:12 bled the treasury dry, and helped trigger Lebanon's financial collapse.

7:16 And by launching attacks on Israel from civilian neighborhoods,

7:20 Hezbollah, backed by Iran,

7:21 ensured that Lebanon would live permanently on the brink of war,

7:24 scaring off investment, tourism, and any hope of recovery.

7:28 In short, Hezbollah replaced the Lebanese state with an Iranian proxy empire,

7:32 and the result was national rune.

7:40 Let's look at Syria.

7:41 When Syrians protested peacefully to rise up against Assad regime in 2011,

7:46 the regime was on the brinks of brink of collapse.

7:48 But the Iranian regime suddenly intervened to save its client.

7:52 They deployed IRGC commanders imported thousands of Shiite militia from Iraq,

7:57 Afghanistan, and Lebanon.

8:00 Overseeing sectarian cleansing in key

8:02 corridors connecting Damascus to the coast,

8:05 Thran funded and directed a campaign of mass atrocities.

8:09 You can see the mass graves that have been revealed on TV in Syria.

8:13 From starvation sieges to chemical weapons attacks,

8:17 killing hundreds of thousands of people.

8:19 Half a million people are estimated to have been

8:21 killed by the Syrian regime uh promoted by Iran.

8:25 They also displaced millions, meaning half the population.

8:30 Iran entrenched militias across Syria, built missile factories on their soil,

8:35 used the country as a forward base to attack Israel, and threatened Jordan.

8:39 Iran did not stabilize Syria, it shattered it.

8:42 And the moment that Hezbollah, Iran's proxy fell,

8:46 the people rose up to challenge them.

8:49 Now, Iran has done the same to Iraq.

8:52 They destroyed Iraq.

8:53 They did the stra same to Gaza.

8:55 They transformed Hamas.

8:56 know they transformed Hamas into a mini army.

8:59 Thran funded rockets, tunnels, drone programs,

9:02 while Hamas diverted aid from civilians to weapons.

9:05 Instead of building a future for Palestinians,

9:07 Hamas with Iranian training built an underground fortress beneath homes,

9:11 hospitals, and schools.

9:13 The result was October 7th.

9:15 No, no, no.

9:16 The deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

9:20 Gaza, you know, is a beautiful beachfront property.

9:23 It could have been prosperous.

9:25 If you've you've never been there.

9:26 I've been there.

9:27 The sand the sand the beaches of Gaza

9:30 are beautiful and can be a beautiful property.

9:33 But Iran with Hamas made it a military outpost

9:37 for its war on Israel condemning Palestinians to endless conflict.

9:42 Now now please no.

9:46 Please can the House come to order?

9:47 We're here to have a civil debate.

9:49 Please do not heckle.

9:50 Please continue the case.

9:52 Let us finally look beyond the region.

9:55 Iran hires hitmen to assassinate dissident around the globe.

9:59 Just a few days ago, I was with my friend Masi Alina Jad,

10:02 the great Iranian women's rights activist

10:04 who prompted the women life freedom movement.

10:06 They tried to kill her.

10:07 She lives in New York now, exiled dissident.

10:09 They tried to kill her three times.

10:11 Send hitmen to her house in Brooklyn.

10:12 I was at the trial in March.

10:15 Three teams came to try and kidnap her and kill her.

10:18 They've sent dissident here in the UK to try.

10:20 They sent hitmen to try and kill the journalist Purio Zarati.

10:24 Now the dissident have been attacked across Europe.

10:30 And I would be remiss not to mention

10:32 that in Iran that a Oxford human rights lawyer here,

10:36 the founding head of the Oxford Public Interest Program here at Oxford,

10:40 Cave Mousavi, has brought a legal claim

10:44 reported in the Guardian January 30th, 2023.

10:47 Brought to the UK police with another human rights lawyer.

10:50 asserting that Mr.

10:51 Moajirani of Iran who was a senior regime official for 20 years including

10:56 between 1988 and 1997 during a period I quote from the Guardian during

11:01 a period when hundreds of assassinations

11:03 of dissident in Europe were attempted and committed

11:06 on the orders of the Iranian regime and he was a senior regime official.

11:11 The human rights lawyers from Oxford also claim that in Mr.

11:14 from Mohajani's 1989 book, a critique of the satanic versus conspiracy,

11:20 where he endorses and justifies the fatwa issued

11:23 by Ayatollah Kumeni in 1999 against the famed

11:27 novelist Salman Rashti who was stabbed 15 times

11:32 in 2022 as a result presumably of this fatwa.

11:36 And in the book, Mr.

11:36 Mojani writes in his book that Rashi is quote

11:39 an absolute apostate and the punishment of an apostate is execution.

11:43 And so Mr.

11:44 Mr.

11:44 Majarani, tonight you say you stand for regional stability,

11:47 but you have once blessed the idea that an author,

11:51 a citizen of this country should be killed for writing a book.

11:56 So please tell this house,

11:58 do you still believe that writers deserve death or will

12:02 you finally retract and renounce your support for that fatwa?

12:14 Mr.

12:14 President, Iran not only sends hitmen around

12:20 the world to assassinate dissident and journalists,

12:23 but they beat blind torture and kill women who protest.

12:27 In Israel, it's a national pastime to lambast the government.

12:30 In Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, protests have often drawn tens of thousands

12:35 and even hundreds of thousands of demonstrators.

12:37 In Iran, during the women life freedom protests in 2022,

12:41 the regime arrested 20,000 people across 130 cities.

12:45 At least 551 Iranians, including dozens of children, were killed for protesting.

12:51 Is this stability?

12:53 To conclude in the final analysis, Mr.

12:56 President, the greatest threat to regional stability

12:58 is a regime that murders its own people,

13:02 hunts its critics across Europe and America,

13:04 arms terror proxies, and exports terrorism on four continents.

13:09 The Islamic regime in Iran has killed hundreds of thousands in Syria,

13:13 shattered Yemen through the Houthis, bankrupted Lebanon through Hezbollah,

13:18 hijacked Iraq through militias, and turned Gaza into a launching pad

13:22 for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

13:24 At home, it shoots women in the streets,

13:26 blinds teenagers, tortures dissident, and executes protesters.

13:30 It sends assassins to murder innocent people in Brooklyn, London, Buenosares.

13:34 This is not a government seeking stability.

13:37 It is a revolutionary engine of hate, terror, and chaos.

13:41 Israel, by contrast, is the firewall that Arab regimes understand

13:44 prevents Iran's imperial project from engulfing the region.

13:48 To claim Israel is the greater threat to stability is not merely wrong,

13:53 but it is an inversion of reality itself.

13:56 I urge you to vote for the opposition.

13:58 Thank you.

14:00 [applause]