Israeli-Arab activist Yoseph Haddad told JNS that he filed a police report accusing Dennis Feitosa, a former California congressional candidate, of assaulting him during a debate that the two held about Israel in Las Vegas on Monday.
“I am OK,” Haddad told JNS. “I can’t say the same thing about the neo-Nazi.”
Haddad told JNS that it was “ironic” that he was assaulted two decades to the day after he was hit by a missile and injured in Lebanon on Aug. 10, 2006.
“Twenty years later, I got attacked by a neo-Nazi,” he said. “Crazy.”
Haddad told JNS that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer who took his statement “helped throughout the process, took the full complaint and saw all the videos.”
Video footage of the incident, including footage that Haddad’s fiancée Emily Schrader and that pro-Israel activist Nick Matau shared on social media, showed Feitosa, a podcaster who also goes by “Def Noodles,” and Haddad as guests on the podcast Digital Social Hour. Feitosa calls Haddad, who served in the Israeli military, a “genocidal f**king freak” and grabs his hand forcefully. (Schrader hosts and co-hosts podcasts for JNS.)
Feitosa appears not to let go when Haddad pulls him down to the table. Feitosa comes around the debate table, apparently to rush at Haddad, before others intervene to hold him back.
In the parking lot afterward, Feitosa can be seen in separate footage grabbing Haddad from behind by the neck. Multiple people pull him off of Haddad and hold him down on the ground.
Feitosa ran for Congress as a Republican in California’s 30th Congressional District, but the California Republican Party recruited a different candidate to block him from gaining influence within GOP ranks. The party called him an “extremist influencer,” JNS reported. He lost his primary in June.
He stated that it is “false” that he attacked Haddad first.
“When we in the debate sphere agree to a debate, we understand that we are willingly entering what can sometimes be hostile territory,” Matau told JNS.
“The entire point is to use conversation, reason and intellect to engage with someone who may vehemently disagree with us,” he said. “But there should be one basic rule that everyone understands. If you are incapable of controlling your emotions to the point that you feel the need to get physical, and then turn around and lie about the other person in an attempt to justify such a pathetic act, then the debate sphere simply is not for you. Stay home.”
“Debate requires the ability to confront ideas you strongly oppose without losing control of yourself,” Matau told JNS. “If you cannot meet that standard, you have no business stepping into that arena.”
As of press time, charges had not been brought against Feitosa. The police department told JNS that it could not share the incident report.
