Mr. Yoseph Haddad:

I thank the members of the committee for allowing me to address them on this important subject. In the past, the committee has heard from several speakers about my country, Israel, and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I am here today as a private citizen of the State of Israel to share my experience and provide the truth about what is happening in Israel from the minority perspective.

I am an Israeli Arab. I was born in Haifa, which is the largest mixed city of Arabs and Jews in the country. I was raised in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in the State of Israel. This may surprise some members of the committee after what they have been hearing about Israel. I, all my friends and all my community, however, regularly interact with Israelis from all sectors. A major part of my childhood involved playing football, and I grew up playing football with Jews, Christians and Muslims. I will tell the committee one thing: we did not see each other as being any different.

Fast forwarding to the age of 18, military service or national service is mandatory in Israel for Jewish citizens. However, every year thousands of Israeli Arabs volunteer, and this number is increasing over time. When I turned 18, I saw my Jewish friends go to the army, and I did not understand why I, as an Arab, would not also serve my country. After all, it is my home just as much as theirs.

Even more important is that the Israeli Defense Forces, IDF, does not stand for the Jewish defence forces; rather, it is the Israeli Defense Forces. This means that its purpose is to protect all its citizens, including 2 million Arab Israelis. Just before my service was about to begin, the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, which is owned by Arabs and Jews, was targeted by a Palestinian terrorist who suicide bombed the restaurant, killing 21 Israelis, Arabs and Jews, and injuring 51. I learned a painful but important lesson that day. These terrorists did not care that they were killing Arabs. They targeted us because we are Israelis; just the same as Hezbollah in Lebanon fired on the Israeli Arab city in the second Lebanon war; just the same as how nearly half of the Israeli civilian casualties from the second Lebanon war were Arab Israeli Muslims; just the same as Hamas who fired rockets on Israeli Arab towns throughout the country in May 2021, killing Arab Muslims.

When we Arab Israelis join the IDF, we do it to defend our country too. When the committee understands this, it will see that this is not a racial conflict, but a political one because we too as Arabs are targets of Palestinian terrorism. Just last week, a Palestinian terrorist murdered an Israeli Arab, Amir Khoury, in an attack where he murdered four other Israelis. Days before that, 19-year-old Yezen Falah from the Arab Druze community was murdered in another terror attack. Despite that, people from outside of Israel continue to lie about the reality that we as Israeli Arabs face.

Here is the reality that the committee did not hear from Amnesty International. Arab Israelis, both Muslims and Christians, make up 20% of the entire population and enjoy equal rights under the law, the same as any other Jewish citizens. In Israel basic laws, the right to freedom of religion is protected explicitly, as is the right to equality under the law and the democratic principle of the state. We are observing the highest level of nearly every position and, in fact, are over-represented in some industries. We are 30% of all doctors, despite the fact that we are 20% of the population. We are roughly 50% of all pharmacists. In the last round of new doctors, Arabs comprised 50%. Arab Israelis are diplomats, such as the ambassador to Azerbaijan, George Deek. They are news anchors, professional athletes, military leaders, singers, senior technology executives, such as Johny Srouji, the head of Apple in Israel. They are bankers, such as Dr. Samer Haj Yehia, who is the chairman of Bank Leumi, which is the largest bank in Israel. Yes, they are even supreme court justices, just like Khaled Kabub, who was recently elected the first Arab Muslim to serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. It is true that Israel is a Jewish state, but it is also a democratic state and I am living proof that it is possible.

While Israel is imperfect and racism exists, it is not systematic, but individual. Everyday Arabs and Jews are standing side-by-side working to resolve the problems in our society. Yet, does the committee know what does not help our society? White Europeans at Amnesty International telling our sovereign nation of Arabs and Jews how to run our country. Even more appallingly, Amnesty International has the audacity to define my identity as an Arab, labelling me as Palestinian, despite the fact that I am an Israeli Arab. Not only that, but according to recent polls on identity by Saharia, only 14% of Israeli Arabs define themselves as Palestinian. This is 14% of 2 million, yet Amnesty International thinks it knows better than us about how to define us. This report is about eliciting an emotional response, despite the fact that definition of "apartheid" according to international law does not apply to the State of Israel in any capacity.

Speaking of smearing my country, Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett stood here days ago and claimed there was a double standard in condemning Russia but not Israel. Even the Ukrainian president stated that Ukraine is Israel not Palestine. It is Israel that is being targeted with thousands of rockets by a terrorist organisation that wants to see the entire state destroyed. The Palestinians wants Israel to cease to exist, just as Russia wants Ukraine to cease to exist. This propaganda exercise is a cynical exploitation of the tragedy of Ukraine in an obsessive attempt to once again shift the conversation to bashing Israel. While Amnesty International and others fan the flames of hatred against Israel, it is us Israelis, both Arabs and Jews, who pay the price on the ground. Amnesty International's report is the highest of elitism of a modern-day colonial mindset that thinks, “We Europeans know better than you brown people how to manage your country”. Did they expect me not to be able to think for myself, not to have my own thoughts and my own opinion to review their ignorant misunderstanding of what is happening in Israel?

Allow me, an Arab born and raised in the country of Israel, which seems to gather much attention from this body, to explain to the committee what Israel really stands for. Israel stands for democracy, with a government that is comprised of left wing and right wing religious and secular Muslims, Jewish, Christian, LGBTQ and disabled members. Israel stands for the rule of law, where our previous Arab supreme court judge Salim Joubran, sent a Jewish president and a Jewish prime minister to prison when they committed crimes. Israel stands for freedom of expression, where members of the government can openly criticise their state, including in Arabic, in the walls of the parliament. Let me tell the committee that we speak Arabic in the Knesset. Israel stands for freedom of speech, where the press can, and does, openly criticise the government without fear of arrest and prosecution. By the way, unlike in the West Bank and in Gaza, Israel stands for humanity, where the IDF itself launched a hospital for the sole purpose of providing humanitarian aid and treatment for Syrians who were injured in the Syrian civil war, despite the fact that Syria is an enemy country. Israel stands for providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, even when Hamas bombed their own humanitarian aid convoy, which occurred in May 2021. It stands for forming new alliances with Arab states across the region, for the benefit of both people, such as in the Abraham Accords Declaration. Israel stands for accepting the UN partition plan, when the Arabs of the region said "No" and launched a war. It stands for granting full citizenship to Arabs who remain, like me and my family. It stands for taking chances and painful sacrifices for peace over and over again, even when it ends up with getting more than 15,000 rockets fired at our civilians by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It stands for Arab doctors and nurses saving the lives of Jewish patients in the hospitals and for Jewish doctors and nurses saving the lives of Arab patients. It stands for Arabs and Jews who stand side by side every day as citizens of that state. Israel, my country, stands for life.