Nas Daily: I’m determined to show the real Israel
Influencer with 68 million followers tells MDA UK dinner Israeli Arabs have had a choice to make since 7 October
Israeli-Arab influencer Nuseir Yassin has described his mission to “show the Israel I want and like” and insisted he was now more hopeful about the future Middle East than at any time.
Known to 68 million social media followers as Nas Daily for his videos chronicling the lives of people in far-flung corners of the globe, he addressed more than 400 guests at Magen David Adom’s annual dinner last night.
In conversation with broadcaster Rob Rinder, he described how he left a safe job in tech almost a decade ago to create videos showing the “exact opposite” of the stories that tend to dominate discourse around the Middle East. Or, as Rinder put it, to “turn the toxicity of social media into something positive”.
“Twenty percent of Israel is Arab,” he said. “One force says you’re Palestinian and you shouldn’t have anything to do with Israel. Another force says we need to share the land and build up the land together. To escape the first force is hard. To call myself Israeli means I love Israel. It means freedom of speech. It’s the work that organisations like MDA are trying to do. This is what we should all be trying to promote, whatever the cost.”
“The most controversial topic in the world today is Israel and Palestine. Each time you talk about it, you pay a price. But you’ve got to humanise Israelis and Jewish people around the world and humanise Arabs as well. If you get to know someone, it’s very hard to hate them.”
He describes this as the safest time to land in Tel Aviv and paints a picture of a time when you could have lunch in Beirut, dinner in Damascus and then head back to Jerusalem in one taxi ride.
As for the two million Israeli Arabs within Israel, he said, they had a decision to make after the horrors of 7 October. “I think a large proportion have decided – including me – that we belong in Israel,” the former Harvard student told the audience. “That is the shock it takes to be able to see clearly. We don’t want to live under a Palestinian or Jordanian government. Despite the hardships, we are all Israelis.”
The man hoping to become the first Israeli-Arab unicorn founder said the integration that is evident in healthcare and in Magen David Adom’s workforce today would spread to tech, agriculture and eventually government, the entrepreneur predicted.
He told the gathering, “If you’re looking for something meaningful, I think doing anything with MDA fulfils that.
“There’s at least 100 stories a day worth telling there: the blood bank, the station being built in northern Israel. Half your efforts should be to save lives and half to tell everyone about it. These things go hand in hand.”
During the event at the Peninsula Hotel, the charity launched a new five-year campaign to help Israelis suffering trauma after two years of war – an effort endorsed by Israel’s First Lady Michal Herzog in a video for the occasion. Machratayim – which translates as ‘the day after tomorrow’ – seeks to help Israelis heal over the years leading up to the emergency service’s centenary in 2030.
Chair Russell Jacobs said, “We’re too far down the line for things to return to normal immediately. If we don’t start now, it’ll take longer to build. We must play our part in helping people respond to emerging mental health issues which exist at a level never seen before.”
As part of the initiative, CEO Daniel Burger unveiled a 30 for 30 plan to twin that number of communities, organisations or families with a project in Israel. The first five were revealed on the night, including philanthropist Judy Saphra and the Hendon community supporting facilities in the village of Mas’ade, which serves the Majdal Shams area where 12 kids were killed in a rocket attack last year.
“We hope local communities, JSocs and families will step forward to support another 25 projects over the next five years,” Burger said.
In an impassioned address, Rinder said MDA was always the first answer when he was asked why he was a proud Zionist. “Organisations like MDA remind us that our community will never be defined by fear but by responsibility to save lives.
“Supporting MDA is not just philanthropy. It’s a statement of something deeper, of who we are.”
Saying that the charity’s work bringing together Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze volunteers was like the start of a joke, MDA President Gilad Erdan said, “They go out to save lives, whoever needs help, no questions, no politics. That’s the humanity our enemies will never understand.”
The breadth of the organisation’s workforce was highlighted in a powerful film of Malcolm Green, before Arab volunteer Fadi Dadaidek from East Jerusalem delivered an appeal.
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