Sitting down with Eylon Levy, Israel’s English-language government spokesman gone viral after a famous SkyNews interview about the Israel-Hamas hostage deal.
By ZVIKA KLEIN
DECEMBER 2, 2023 04:05
EYLON LEVY: ‘I think it’s important sometimes that when questions imply genuinely atrocious insinuation, you cannot treat it as a normal question.’
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
On the morning of October 7, Eylon Levy, 32, was just an ordinary Israeli citizen, an oleh (immigrant) from the UK who had a huge interest in Israeli politics and diplomacy.
A few weeks later, he became an international viral sensation while representing the Israeli government in an interview with Sky News anchor Kay Burley, raising his eyebrows in astonishment, and then a split second later answering in a way that made every supporter of Israel around the world proud.
Burley asked whether the hostage deal, which would trade 150 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for just 50 hostages held by Hamas – or three Palestinians for every captive – meant that Israel valued Palestinian lives less than Israeli ones, at one-third the value.
The interviewer explained that she had spoken to a hostage negotiator in preparation for the interview and that he had said that the numerically unbalanced exchange spoke of Israel’s diminished valuation of Palestinian lives. Asked to comment on the above, Levy answered, with arched eyebrows in a look of shock, that the comment was “an astonishing accusation.”
“If we could release one prisoner for every hostage, we would do that. We are operating in horrific circumstances,” he said.
“We’re not choosing to release these prisoners who have blood on their hands. We are talking about people who have been convicted of stabbing and shooting attacks,” Levy stressed. Advertisement
“Notice the question of proportionality doesn’t interest Palestinian supporters when they’re able to get more of their prisoners out. But really, it is outrageous to suggest that the fact that we are willing to release prisoners who are convicted of terrorism offenses, more of them than we are getting our innocent children back, somehow suggests we don’t care about Palestinian lives. That is a disgusting accusation.”
Levy later posted on a video on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote that the question had left him “speechless.” To date, the video has more than 16 million views.
Ever since, Levy – or at least his eyebrow raise – has become a household name in Israel. Even though his job as one of the Prime Minister’s Office spokespersons is specifically to deal with international media, suddenly the Israeli media has discovered this smart and talented and young man.
October 7
“On the morning of October 7, I was a private citizen, woken up by the sirens like everyone else, watching television in shock,” he told the Magazine this week during a break between media interviews. “Like everyone else, I was trying to spend the first few days working out how I can make myself useful.”
He then decided to put himself forward for the hasbara (public diplomacy) efforts as a former news anchor and former international media spokesman for President Isaac Herzog. “I set up a little mini studio at home, propping a laptop on a pile of books, and a lamp on top of a big tub of protein powder,” he recalled.
He later tweeted something along the lines of “Hello, I’m a former adviser to the president, and I’m available to do interviews.” He then started doing some interviews from home while at the same time, behind the scenes, there was a request for him to join the team of spokespeople to assist internationally with the war effort.
Levy began working with Mark Regev, formerly the international spokesperson for the prime minister and Israel’s ambassador to London.
He was asked by Regev if he would agree to “address the information war against Hamas,” Levy recalled. “I immediately said yes. This is an emergency. I went to the Kirya military headquarters in the center of Tel Aviv on the Friday after the war erupted.
“The legendary Mark Regev, who has known me for a long time, said, ‘Today, I want you to watch a few of my interviews. Tomorrow, you’re going on TV as an Israeli government spokesman’ – and here I am 200 interviews later.”
Levy has criticized many members of this current Netanyahu-led government, as well as participated in the protests against the judicial reforms.
Asked if this background doesn’t contradict serving as a spokesperson for a government he was against, Levy answered immediately, “I don’t think that personal, private, or political opinions about issues that aren’t even on the agenda at the moment are relevant.
“On October 7, we experienced the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And in an incredible moment in Jewish history, after a year in which we were at each other’s throats, Israeli society as a whole rose to the challenge. And we dropped our Jewish wars. We put them to the side. And as they say in Hebrew, I came under the stretcher, to support the war effort.
“It was 6:30 in the morning when the people who promised that they would never do reserve duty under this government said, ‘Grab your guns and go defend the kibbutzim right now.’ And so this country now is on emergency footing, to bring back the stolen hostages and destroy Hamas so it can never attack us again.”
According to Levy, “There was an Israel before the 7th of October, and there is an Israel after the 7th of October, and I don’t think we’ve even begun to internalize just how much this trauma is going to change this country. It’s going to be a high watermark.”
The eyebrow sensation
Asked about raising his brows, Levy said, “I think that’s a natural reaction when faced with something truly shocking. It comes out. That’s an important lesson to apply in the hasbara effort as well. But we are only human. Sometimes genuine emotion comes out.
“I think it’s important sometimes that when questions imply genuinely atrocious insinuation, you cannot treat it as a normal question and answer it as a normal question. And there needs to be a visual demonstration. This is television, after all, a visual demonstration of just how bizarre that moment is. And I think that more than anything else, it drew attention to the absurdity of the thinking behind that question.”
He has since been invited to participate in Eretz Nehederet, the local satiric version of Saturday Night Live. He is expected to be on several covers of Hebrew newspapers this weekend, and many memes have been created since this incident.
“Overwhelming is putting it mildly,” Levy responds to the question of the reactions to the Sky News interview. “I’m being bombarded with marriage proposals and am being made into memes or WhatsApp stickers. I’m getting stopped on the street and asked to take selfies with people while raising my eyebrows.
“It’s been very surreal,” he said, explaining “this is not why I am doing this job. I’m doing it because we need to explain Israel’s case to the world. As we fight a nasty war, my job is outwardly to explain Israel to the world. But if along the way I end up providing some comic relief and entertainment for the Israeli public that lifts their morale, then I’m happy for the job to be on me.”
His background: Preparation for this moment
Levy grew up in the United Kingdom as a son of Israeli expats. He is an award-nominated playwright and translator. Educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Levy has worked as a television news anchor. After moving to Israel from Britain, he worked as the chief news anchor for IBA News (the English newscast of the Israeli public broadcaster) and as an anchor and correspondent for the international i24NEWS network.
Levy has also translated dozens of Hebrew books into English, including several influential works of nonfiction. He was named the Sami Rohr Prize Inaugural Translation Finalist in 2022 for his translation of Danny Adeno Abebe’s From Africa to Zion.
While studying at Oxford University, Levy co-wrote a feature-length musical, A Theory of Justice: The Musical. The play, the world’s first musical about political philosophy, became Oxford’s fastest-ever selling musical, was nominated for multiple awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013, and a workshop production was held on London’s West End in 2018.
As someone who understands media, as well as theater, Levy explained that “television is a theatrical medium. It’s not about the transcript. It’s about what happens on screen. And the combination of a question that was at the level of an SNL parody of media coverage, as well as the way I answered, probably caused this reaction.”
Levy made aliyah in 2014 and served in the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) as the assistant of Col. Grisha Yakubovich, head of the civil department. “We were the point of interaction between the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and the international community. My job was to accompany him to all of his meetings, as we dealt with issues such as the reconstruction of Gaza after the 2014 war, and the question of how to get concrete into Gaza to rebuild people’s houses.
“We also dealt with how to connect Gaza to water because that was what Israel has been trying to do for years: To improve the civilian situation, as well as the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, in the hope that it was going to deter them from attacking us, by improving the humanitarian situation,” he recounted. “A conception that proved false on October 7, when Hamas showed just how little it cared about its civilians.
“My army service days were fascinating. We would start in the morning in Ramallah for meetings with the Palestinian Authority, and then we’d move to Jerusalem for meetings with the Foreign Ministry, as well as later with the Finance Ministry, and then back to Tel Aviv for meetings with the Red Cross, the United Nations, and then finish off the night with cocktails at the Dutch Embassy.”
Asked about breaking into Israeli society as an immigrant, something that many aren’t successful at, Levy said that the fact that he grew up with Hebrew-speaking parents helped in his aliyah.
“There’s no alternative to having a strong command of Hebrew, and I hope that Jewish communities around the world will invest heavily in teaching Hebrew and building that common cultural space.”
The effects of antisemitism on the Diaspora
As for the British community he still feels part of, Levy said, “I know that a lot of people are extremely anxious, and the concerted campaign to tear down hostage posters has affected people emotionally because it takes a certain level of dehumanization to tear down a poster of a hostage baby.
“I have friends from North London who told me a few weeks ago that they took down their mezuzah. They explained that they get all sorts of deliveries coming home, and they’ve got two babies. They have no idea whether the delivery man happened to be at one of these pro-Gaza protests in London, and maybe even participated in tearing down the posters. So they don’t want to take any risks. And I think that it is absolutely heartbreaking that Jews in the Diaspora have this anxiety about publicly being identified as Jews.
“I think that when this moment subsides – and it will subside because this war will end eventually, with Israeli victory – people will remember the outpouring of antisemitism, hatred, and apologia for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 by the people who are glorifying them, justifying them, denying them, or excusing them. Things will change because people will remember what erupted at that moment, and they will remember that it’s below the surface – and something is going to happen,” he said.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but I sense that the pro-Hamas movements, tactics, and marching through central London on the weekend of Remembrance Sunday will all have their effect.”
Levy said that he hopes Diaspora communities “are going to be able to build alliances and friendships with other groups that also feel threatened [by Hamas] or who just understand that we are in the same boat while sharing the same values.”
“The Jewish communities have a right to live with 100% security, as free citizens, wherever they want. I hope that they will emerge from this stronger and prouder and that this horrific, horrific, horrific moment, which has brought out an incredible moment of ahavat Israel (love among Jews), of mutual responsibility, within Israel and between the Diaspora and Israel, will put us on a firmer footing for much stronger bonds of solidarity within the Jewish world.
“This, as we eventually leave this moment of horrific trauma and remember how much we needed each other and wanted to be there for each other at this moment.”
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