Eylon Levy is giving people the words they need to defend Israel
Eylon Levy became an Internet meme after the U.K. Sky News presenter Kay Burley asked him on Nov. 23 if the Jewish state values Palestinians less than Israelis since it is willing to engage in lopsided prisoner swaps, with each Israeli exchanged for many more Palestinians.
Eylon Levy in Toronto. Credit: Courtesy.
Levy, a spokesman for the State of Israel, stared wide-eyed for several moments before answering, and a meme was born.
“That is an astonishing accusation,” he told the journalist. “If we could release one prisoner for every one hostage, we would obviously do that. … Really, that’s a disgusting accusation.”
Raised in London by Israeli parents with Iraqi heritage, Levy, who made aliyah in 2014 at age 23 and joined the Israeli army during the 2014 Gaza war, became one of the most recognizable people defending the Jewish state after Oct. 7.
Despite developing a large following in Israel and the Diaspora, the well-spoken British Israeli was suspended following an online clash with David Cameron, the British foreign secretary. There were also reports of tension between Levy and Sara Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s wife.
Since working as an official Israeli government spokesman, Levy, 33, launched an independent group—the Israeli Citizens Spokespersons’ Office—and he has spoken critically about the Jewish state’s engagement with the international press.
“The reason that Israel is losing the information war is that it’s not even trying to win it,” Levy told JNS. “Yes, we’re outnumbered. Yes, we’re outmanned. Yes, we have a whole army of NGOs and U.N. agencies mobilized against us, and that means that the hill will be steep.”
Levy told JNS that in the early days of the war, he “assembled out of nothing a team of spokespeople and a production line of interviews with the international media in several languages.”
“Instead of building on that and institutionalizing it, it has essentially collapsed, such that now, every day, the wrong spokespeople are going on the BBC and other news channels, presenting a Palestinian perspective,” he said. “There is no official Israeli source, fighting that battle.”
“If our country is not going to explain itself to the world, then we the people will,” he told JNS.
Coining phrases
Levy told JNS he believes that he is responsible for coining and popularizing several terms, including “tentifada” (the pro-Hamas university encampments stateside) and “Hamas terror dungeons,” rather than “terror tunnels.”
“By banging on enough, and using it in enough interviews and enough tweets, it had got picked up as the more evocative language to use about Hamas captivity,” he told JNS.
Levy is also trying to develop the idea of “Hamas captivity survivors” as opposed to “released hostages” into the common lexicon.
“So much more evocative to say that someone is a survivor than to say that they were released. You hear ‘survivor,’ you think Holocaust. You hear ‘survivor,’ you think rape,” he told JNS. “It’s someone who’s been through hell, through a horrific ordeal, and got through it. Not someone who was held and then released.”
Levy also takes credit for coining the term “Oct. 7 war,” which some journalists have used.
“I want people to focus on the seminal date of Oct. 7 as to why this war is happening in the first place, and I started every press conference with those words,” he told JNS. It has “spontaneously trickled into the media discourse,” he said.
“Don’t underestimate the importance of focusing on finding a message and getting it out there in a punchy and memorable way that our supporters can then use to continue the fight,” he said.
Filling a vacuum
Levy’s new initiative, which is part of the nonprofit he founded called New Israeli Discourse, has a broadcast roster with some recognizable names.
The latest addition is Jonathan Elkhoury, an Arab-Israeli Christian writer and speaker. The initiative also includes Israeli special envoy for combating antisemitism Michal Cotler-Wunsh; former Knesset member Einat Wilf; and online “influencer” Ashley Waxman Bakshi.
Former Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Rubinstein—“one of the most brilliant communication experts in the country,” according to Levy—is also part of the group, which has a podcast, and YouTube and Instagram channels, which collectively reach tens of thousands of users.
The initiative has a mandate to “take on” traditional and social media, and “fill in the vacuum” that Levy claims the Israeli government has left behind. (JNS sought comment from the Israeli embassy in Washington on Friday.)
It also aims to provide “talking points, sound bites and strategic information” for Israel supporters to “take the fight and do it themselves,” including writing articles and letters to newspapers; holding community discussions; building campus alliances; and having conversations with friends.
“They feel that they want to help Israel, but they don’t have the words; they don’t have the knowledge because the gaslighting is so strong. That’s what’s so scary about this moment,” Levy said.
Losing friends
Levy, who has a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge, previously worked in Israeli media and as an adviser to Israeli President Isaac Herzog. He knows that there are risks in sticking one’s neck out but told JNS that the cost of not doing so is greater. “I don’t care if you’re going to lose friends, because Israelis have also lost friends in this war because they were gunned down at a music festival or abducted or fell in action,” he said.
“Not because they had an argument about politics. We cannot allow the lies that are being spread about Israel to become the baseline of common knowledge,” he added. “All because you didn’t want to broach this conversation now? If you don’t have this conversation now, it will be too late.”
Levy told JNS that he knows people face social pressure, and worse, standing up for the Jewish state.
“They pay a price for their careers. In some cases, even a threat to their personal safety. But we need you to summon the courage to have those arguments and conversations now,” he said.
Levy cautioned that “good, ordinary, fundamentally decent people hear the Palestinian narrative all the time” and “look at their Jewish friends and neighbors, and think, ‘Even they’re not standing up for Israel.’”
He also thinks that the word “Zionist” must not be apologetic or knee-jerk defensive.
“We are the last people who need to explain anything to anyone. We know why we are fighting this war, and there is no more a just war than it,” he said. “The Red Cross owes us answers. The U.N. owes us explanations.”
“You need to shift the balance by going on the offensive,” he said. “Time to tell people, ‘Look at all these malicious actors that have been perpetuating this conflict.’”
Some of those malicious actors can be found on U.S. campuses, according to Levy.
“The people on campus calling for targeted political violence against Jews and Israelis and the destruction of the State of Israel have chosen to take the side of the darkest, most twisted and sadistic forces in modern history,” he said.
Were the campus protests only about criticizing Israel, then “we can have a friendly and productive debate,” he said. “When they chant ‘globalize the intifada,’ they mean to murder Jews and Israelis wherever you find them.”
“When they say from the ‘river to the sea,’ they don’t mean we have criticism of the country that exists between the river in the sea,” he said. “They mean it shouldn’t exist.”
Excellent. Really excellent. Your voice and what you urge others to do is exactly right, Eylon Levy. We should all stand beside you in this kind of response to disinformation and hatred.
As for getting into trouble for arguing with David Cameron, that’s a bit rich. David Cameron has been our arch enemy. It shouldn’t have mattered that he was Foreign Affairs Minister at the time.