103: Yoseph Haddad: Arab Israeli defending a Jewish and democratic State of Israel

Yoseph Haddad is an Arab Israeli who believes with body, mind and soul in his country. And by his country, I mean the State of Israel,

Yoseph joined up with StandWithUs UK at one of London’s oldest continuous communities, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in west London.

Being counterintuitive, Yoseph is the target of constant protest, even death threats – some substantial - as he advocates for both a Jewish and democratic state.

A smallish opposition greeted his arrival at University College London. Campuses are at the epicentre of anti Zionism and Palestinianism.

Yoseph was born in Nazareth and raised in Haifa, he served in the IDF’s elite Golani battalion and served in the 2006 Lebanon War. He was badly injured and lost friends and comrades beside him in battle. He was a commander, which means an Arab commanding among others, Jews.

Because as he says, it’s the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, not the JDF, it’s not exclusively Jewish. He runs Together Vouch for Each Other, an organisation building bridges between Arab and Jewish Israelis and to aid Arab mobility in Israeli society.

Yoseph is a captivating speaker, and I recorded his speech for this latest episode.

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