Politics
Delegation of Arab-Israeli fighting against ‘apartheid’ slur hosted in House of Lords
Internet personality Yoseph Haddad claimed that Brits who label Israel an apartheid state are ‘idiots’
April 3, 2025 15:23
Internet personality Yoseph Haddad claimed that Brits who label Israel an apartheid state are ‘idiots’
April 3, 2025 15:23A delegation of Arab-Israelis who reject the labelling of their country as an apartheid state were welcomed to the House of Lords yesterday.
35 Arab-Israelis on an advocacy tour of the UK were hosted in Parliament by Conservative Friends of Israel Chair Lord Polak in an event attended by peers including former pensions minister Baroness Altmann and Labour peer Lord Turnberg.
Led by Yoseph Haddad, chair of campaign group Together Vouch for Each Other (TVFOE) (in Hebrew, the group’s name Arevim ze le ze contains a pun on the Hebrew word for Arabs, Aravim), whose provocative videos confronting pro-Palestine activists have gained him online fame, he said that he laughed at westerners who said Israel was an apartheid state.
On Tuesday he posted a video of himself confronting a pedestrian while brandishing a t-shirt with a photo of Hamas leader Yayah Sinwar after he had been killed by the IDF alongside a picture of a donkey and the captions “Donkey and dead terrorist” and “The IDF did that”.
“Anyone who says that Israel is an apartheid state, not only is lying, but is either lying or is an idiot”, he told the JC.
“If I use public transportation, I don't know if my driver is an Arab or a Jew, and we don't have a line for Arabs and a line for Jews.”
Haddad continued: “An Arab judge sent an Israeli president to prison, if Israel was an apartheid state that’s something that can’t happen.”
The peers also heard from Lorena Khateb, a Druze campaigner who criticised the lack of knowledge about her community: “People didn't know that we are an integral part of the Israeli society.”
She also spoke about the October 7 attacks, saying nothing could have prepared her for the horrors she witnessed in their aftermath.
“I saw the videos, I saw the pictures, and then I understood what we are dealing with, and I started to create videos in Arabic – my mother tongue – in order to raise awareness, is about what's happening in Israel”, she told the room.
Khateb also pointed out that the Druze community has higher IDF enlistment rates per capita than the Jewish community and they have suffered casualties during the conflict in Gaza: “We have lost 13 of our best soldiers, of our best brothers and sons”.
Eric Rubin, one of the executive directors of TVFOE, who made Aliyah to Israel shortly after October 7, showed the event a football with the faces of the 12 Druze children killed on a playing field by Hezbollah rockets in the town of Majdal Shams.
Sheik Monji Marey, a Druze community leader from northern Israel, told peers that his community – located around two kilometres from the border with Lebanon – “has also suffered from Hezbollah rocket fire”.
He added: “We gather here to take a strong stance against terrorism in all its forms, and reaffirm our commitment to world free from violence and fear. Terrorism, in any shape or form, is an assault on humanity.”
Sabine Taasa, a survivor of October 7 whose husband and son were killed by terrorists who live-streamed it, also accompanied the delegation and attacked claims of apartheid: “We don't hate each other. We want to live together in peace”.
She continued: please take this reality, this story, to the world … because we need to change the narrative. We must. I cannot accept racism, antisemitism, because I love my life. I love the world … we want to live in peace.
After the event, Baroness Altmann told the JC: “Meeting those wonderful people was so uplifting and I wish more of our Parliamentary colleagues would listen to their words rather than just repeating the Palestinian propaganda that we keep hearing.”