Yoseph Haddad, Arab candidate in Ofer Winter’s party, disavows earlier support for Palestinian state

Yoseph Haddad, an Arab pro-Israel activist and the number-two candidate in Ofer Winter’s right-wing People of Israel party, disavows his earlier support for Palestinian statehood after an old video resurfaces in which he calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In the video circulating on Saturday night, from an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya channel, Haddad said, “The ultimate solution is the State of Israel alongside a State of Palestine.”

But in a lengthy post on X, Haddad says the interview in question aired more than five years ago, and that he has since changed his mind. He writes that he now opposes Palestinian statehood, just like his party.

He traces his shift back to the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls by the IDF, which also saw Arab-Israeli riots in cities across the country.

“When it comes to a Palestinian state, I have already said in the past that during Guardian of the Walls, when I saw the unity between the Palestinians and Arabs within, who were igniting mixed cities, I changed my mind and understood that this is not the solution,” he writes. “On October 7, I believe that the last people who hadn’t yet understood this — now understood who the Palestinians really are.”

He continues, “A Palestinian state will not be established, and in our party’s principles we made sure to explain that in a clear way: ‘A Palestinian state will not be established on the territory of the State of Israel.'”

He adds, “To the contrary, we will work to return lands to the Land of Israel.”