Mr. Yoseph Haddad:

I am more than delighted to be here and to have the opportunity to speak. I am even more than delighted to hear that the members of this committee want to hear the full picture and not only one side. I am an Arab-Israeli and I live in Israel; I am just visiting New York. I ask members not to get the impression that I am from New York or something like that. From the questions and from some of the data I have been hearing I understand how much of a job we have in order for us to give the full picture.

I would like to start by talking about the occupied territories, which is how they are defined according to the law. We need to understand one thing about the territory on the West Bank and in Gaza. Way before the current situation, which was agreed on at the Oslo Accords by the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza was occupied by Egypt, not Palestine. It was never Palestine. Palestinian passports and identity came about during the British Mandate of Palestine, when Jews and Arabs held the same documents. If one thinks about the Palestine pound it was inscribed with the words Aleph Yud, Israeli land. If you search the Internet for a soccer game between Palestine and Australia you will see the Star of David on the t-shirts of the players because the Palestine team was Maccabi Tel-Aviv and it was made up of all Jewish players. More than that, if you look at the passports, our first and only female Prime Minister, Golda Meir, addressed that and said she held a Palestinian passport just like any other. To come and talk about an existing country and to say the Palestinians were ruling these territories is twisting the facts and the history. I have never heard anyone talking about why Jordan never gave away the lands and created Palestine or why Egypt never did that with Gaza. Israel did that with Gaza and withdrew from every inch of it. What did we get because of that? We go thousands of rockets that are harming us and that have been shot at Arabs and Jews in Israel. Even more than that, during the last conflict, Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, it was the Israeli Iron Dome missile defence system that saved Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem when Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem. Some of them were even meant to land close to al-Aqsa Mosque and east Jerusalem. The Iron Dome saved the lives of Arabs and Jews. Please do not understand that I am a fan of Muammar al-Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, but he said that he blamed all the Arabs as they ruled those territories. He asked why they never gave the Palestinians a country or gave them the territories. This is a very important question.

Then there is the question of why Israel is there. I am telling the committee simply, as an Arab who lives in Israel and who is subjected to terrorist attacks, just like every other Israeli, that we are there because we do not have any choice.

Israel has proven itself capable of doing a lot of things in order to promote peace. We gave up the Sinai Peninsula in 1979 just to have peace with Egypt. It was the same thing with Jordan. We did something like this in Gaza, we did it in Amona and a number of settlements just to have peace. The only reason we are in this status quois because it being said everywhere and everybody is chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "We don't want two states, we want all of it". This is what is going on. If members are asking if right now the IDF is where it is to keep security of its citizens, both Arab and Jews, and if I have a problem with that, I say proudly "No". I do not have a problem with that because it is for the security of the Israeli State as a Jewish and democratic state and of the Arab citizens who are subject to terror attacks from Palestinians. It is happening; it is fact. Just check it.

History does not end with Jordan or Egypt. Going back before the Ottomans and further, back to the beginning, there were Jews in Jerusalem. If members want to go back to the history, that is the history. That is the first thing I needed to address regarding the terms "occupied territories" or "disputed territories".

There was another claim about the Amnesty International report. From what I heard and based on a couple of comments from the honourable Deputies, they agree there is no apartheid in Israel, but there is apartheid in the West Bank and in Gaza. According to the Amnesty International report, there is apartheid in Israel. That means, as I think members agree, that they lied. Let us start from there. Knowing that, I will tell members the truth about how they based their report when it comes to Israeli Arabs. They are lying because in the committee that Amnesty hosted, they said, and it is recorded, that they focused on the Negev area, which an honourable Deputy mentioned. They focused on that area of 100,000 Israeli Arabs, which is 5% of the Israeli-Arab population. Amnesty International took 5% of the population to get the answers it was seeking and came to the Parliament and represented it as if it represented 100% of the population.

Are there discrimination and problems in the Negev? I tell members that 100% that there are, but look at what happened in the past year. I always say it needs two to tango. As a proud Israeli-Arab citizen living in a democratic state, I criticise my country, but I also criticise my society and the Arab political leaders in that society that, until last year, refused to sit in the coalition and be part of the Government. That was until Mansour Abbas, head of the Islamic movement in Israel, came. As absolute proof of how Israel wants to help and be partners with Israeli-Arab society, in the last year we managed to get a 53 billion shekel budget to the Israeli-Arab society. More than that, recently Israel declared it would declare three towns in the Negev area and make sure they become official villages, cities and towns in Israel. That means it is possible. If it is not and Israel is an apartheid state, then 100% they would say "No". We could not be in the parliament or in any aspect of life. We need to understand this.

I will address what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank. I have many Palestinian friends in Gaza. They are brothers. I have many friends in the West Bank. Let us start with Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza and we got only terror attacks from them. Not only that, but Gaza has a border with Egypt and, because of the terror activity, Egypt closed that border a number of times. Has anybody called to ask why Egypt is doing this? Has anybody asked why nobody wants to deal with the existing leadership in Gaza? It is simply because it is a terrorist organisation.

We are talking about the situation of the Palestinians who live in Gaza and forgetting that they get hundreds of millions of dollars, some of it coming from Europe. What do they do with it? They build terror tunnels. They put it in their own pockets. They send the young people of Gaza to the border with Israel knowing that, in the event of any violation or attack on the border, they will get shot because Israel needs to protect its border. Do members know what they will never do? They will never send their children. Ismail Haniyeh's children learn in London. The kids of those terrorist leaders are not in Gaza. If they are, they will never go to the borders because they know it is dangerous but they are sending other kids and using them. This is the reality. In May last year, when Hamas celebrated the win over the IDF, I got a call from my friends in Gaza and they said: "Yusuf, they are forcing us to go out and celebrate. What are we celebrating about? Gaza is half destroyed, but we have to go out and play it like we are celebrating a victory just to present it to the world." That is the harsh reality of dealing with a terrorist organisation. They are building rockets instead of using that money for the benefit of their people.

I will shock members with some unbelievable information concerning the politics of Fatah, which is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, to understand why we have problems in Gaza when it comes to water and electricity. It is simply because they refuse to work together. Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, will never recognise Hamas as a legitimate leader of the Palestinian people. In fact, they hate each other more than they hate Israel. What that report did not say was that in order to have better infrastructure for electricity and water pipelines, they need to pay money. The Palestinian Authority refuses to pay that money because Hamas is controlling Gaza. Then the easiest thing is to blame Israel. The Palestinian Authority refuses to pay fuel, gas and other costs and the picture drawn for everybody is that the Palestinians are suffering because of Israel. A number of times, Israel has tried to help. If Israel wants, even behind the scenes, to speak with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority denies it the opportunity because it would make them legitimate leaders and representatives of the Palestinian Authority. Has anyone thought about the inside politics of the Palestinian Authority?

When it comes to the West Bank, there are many things to talk about. It is physically impossible, because the water pipelines are connected, to say that because of the settlements the Palestinians are not getting water supply or better infrastructure. They are the same pipelines. It is not being supported or not supported because of settlements but every time there is a new settlement or they expand them and build new pipelines, it is helping because it is the same system.

Another thing they did not say is that in the pipeline going from Jenin all the way to Hebron and Ramallah, villages in the West Bank are piratising this, digging holes in it and taking water illegally in order not to pay.

On the general treatment of Palestinians, Israel is granting permits to tens of thousands of Palestinians and allowing them to come from the West Bank to work in Israel. Those Palestinians can earn more than twice or three times the salary they can earn under the Palestinian Authority. Not only that but Israel has established seven different checkpoints across the West Bank to ease the process for Palestinians entering Israel. In terms of roadblocks, if one is travelling from Jenin to Ramallah in the West Bank, one might only be interrupted by one border and that is for security reasons. We have seen what has gone on in the past week. Palestinian terrorists are using holes in the fence to come and carry out terror attacks. We are seeing that time after time.

There has also been unbelievable talk about vaccines. It is false information. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the healthcare of Palestinians. It has a ministry for healthcare. The Palestinians are responsible for providing the vaccines yet Israel vaccinated many Palestinians. Magen David Adom has come into east Jerusalem and into the West Bank to help with vaccinations. Some people have even spoken about the fact that Israeli Arabs were not getting the vaccine because they want to add fuel to the flame. The bottom line is that there have been many lies. I am obviously not calling any Deputies liars but there has been misinformation about what is going on and this is my opportunity to reveal that information. There is a wrong understanding of the fact that the Palestinian Authority has its own healthcare system. Israel did help with vaccination more than once. This is something we also need to address.

I wrote down some comments when the questions were being asked because this is an opportunity for me to give the committee all the information that I know. When it comes to what we can do and how every honourable Member of the Irish Parliament can help, we first must understand that this conflict must come to an end. We must understand that we are all human beings. We also need to understand that Israel has sought peace more than once. We saw it in 1946 and 1947 when the partition plan was rejected. We have seen in the course of history that time after time, peace agreements have been rejected. There is a saying that is unfortunately true. We say that the Palestinians never miss a chance to miss a chance. Unfortunately, I feel the cost of that in myself and in my community. We have seen this happen.

People are asking why there has been an escalation. Look at what is happening in the Middle East. We call it the new era. Morocco, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and more Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, are joining forces and entering partnerships with Israel to do something different for the betterment of the people of the region. That is making the extremists very angry and dissatisfied. The escalation we are seeing now is a result of the fact that Arab countries are welcoming Israel as a part of the Middle East. I can honestly say I am a proud Arab and Israeli. I am proud to live in Israel because it is a country that gives me opportunities. Look at me. I can criticise my country here. I can say whatever I want. In fact, some members of the Knesset speak harshly of Israel but are allowed to do so because they live in a democracy. If we keep saying that Israel is an apartheid state, not only is that inflammatory and a twisting of the facts but by doing so we are only helping extremists to accomplish their mission. We are not helping the vast majority with a silent voice who are afraid of the extremist minorities on both sides. We must not allow that to happen. Calls such as "From the river to the sea, Palestinian will be free" only help the extremists. Saying that one does not want the two-state solution but instead wants all of the land helps only the extremists. Join the silent voice. Help us to make this possible. It is already happening in Israel. More and more Arab Israelis are living in what we call in Arabic shiraka, which means partnership. We live in partnership. We see it day to day. I am living proof of that partnership. I am proud to be living proof of it.

I will be at the service of the committee to answer any questions its members wish to ask at any time. If there is anything they would like to ask me about the reality of what is going on, I will be more than glad to help, both at this meeting and later. I thank the committee from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity to speak aloud. I am excited. I always speak from the bottom of my heart on these matters. I thank the committee for listening.