Yoseph Haddad is Arab Israeli who believes with body, mind and soul in his country.

And by his country, I mean the State of Israel,

Yoseph spoke at yet another excellent StandWithUs Uk event at one of London’s oldest continuous communities, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in west London.

Being a counter intuitive, Arab Israeli, Yoseph is the target of constant trolling on social media, and even death threats – some substantial as he advocates for a Jewish and democratic state.

A smallish protest 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, Israel Defense Forces, not the JDF, it’s not exclusively Jewish.

He runs Together Vouch for Each Other, an organisation to build 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.