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Inside Israel's information war, with Eylon Levy
2.3k Plays3 months ago
When it comes to conflict in the Middle East, there’s the war, and then there’s the war about the war. Of course, this isn’t new. Caesar was penning war reports in Gaul and sending them back to Rome to win hearts and minds over 2000 years ago. But, back then Caesar could control the narrative.
Today that is almost impossible. Social media, an activist mainstream media, and more sophisticated disinformation techniques have combined with millennia-old prejudices, and made it exceedingly difficult for Israel to communicate why they are fighting, how they are doing, and what still needs to be done.
Eylon Levy has been on the frontline of the war about the war. Eylon is a former Israeli government spokesperson, and International Media Advisor to the President of Israel. He is now co-founder of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and host of the State of a Nation podcast.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Dual Nature of Conflicts: War and Narrative
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. As I've watched events unfold in the Middle East following October 7, I've tried to separate the two wars. There's the war, and then there's the war about the war. Of course, this isn't necessarily new. Caesar was penning war reports in Gaul and sending them back to Rome to win hearts and minds over 2000 years ago. But back then, Caesar could control the narrative. So could Goebbels. And whilst it was harder as Color TV entered the equation in Vietnam and the internet in Iraq and Afghanistan, the speed at which information was created and consumed was still somewhat manageable and gave governments a fighting chance to tell their story.
Israel's Communication Challenges
00:01:11
Speaker
That's all gone out the window. Social media and activist mainstream media and more sophisticated disinformation techniques have combined with millennia old prejudices and have made it exceedingly difficult for Israel to communicate why they are fighting, how they are doing, and what still needs to be done. And when that messaging influences global sentiment and the appetite of allies to continue providing support, that really matters.
Elon Levy: From Government to Media
00:01:40
Speaker
Elon Levy has been on the front line of the war about the war. Elon is a former Israeli government spokesperson and international media advisor to the president of Israel. He is now the co-founder of the Israeli Citizen Spokesperson's Office and host of the State of a Nation podcast. Elon, welcome to Fire at Will.
00:02:02
Speaker
Hello. Well, it's good to be here. It's a pleasure to have you on. You just told me before we went on air that you are currently in a studio, which is basically a nuclear bunker. It's not a nuclear bunker, but Iran hasn't acquired nuclear weapons just yet. Just yet, yes. it's ah It's darkly comic at this stage, but it's a serious point. We will get to both the war. We'll get to the war about the war, but I want to start with you. in part because it's a fascinating story and also I've heard you say yourself that your eyes in many respects highlights the best and the worst of Israel's information apparatus. On October 7, 2023, you're in your early 30s, you're taking a professional break.
00:02:45
Speaker
and you see the atrocities taking place. My understanding is that you stacked your laptop on a pile of books in the dining room and you put out a message saying you're available to give me immediate interviews. Before you know it, you are a spokesperson for the Israeli government. Extraordinary turn of events. Tell me about how that happened and perhaps the story that led up to it. Israel was caught horribly unprepared by the October 7th massacre and As the atrocities unfolded, Israeli society did something amazing. Israelis are not a bunch of people who wait at home expecting the government to act and do something. It's a nation of people who take responsibility and step up to the plate and ask, what can I do? How can I help? And as the massacre was still unfolding, people started volunteering themselves to drive soldiers to their bases, to cook food, to put up displaced families. And I offered myself up for interviews. I'd previously been a television news anchor, I'd worked with the president of Israel on his foreign media for two years and started giving interviews. A few days into the war, I get a phone call from a publisher who was setting up a volunteer outfit that would help the Prime Minister's office with the media campaign. Because when the war started, the Prime Minister didn't even have a foreign media spokesman. He asked me whether I was interested in joining. I said, of course, it's a war, we'll all play
The Narrative War and International Support
00:04:03
Speaker
our role. And then barely a week after the October 7 massacre, I found myself already at the Prime Minister's office filming out of the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv going on TV and international radio to explain Israel in the wake of the October 7 massacre, the initial
00:04:20
Speaker
solidarity that Israel had experienced from certain countries in the West was already beginning to fade, the tide was beginning to turn, and it was clear that the information war you explained so well is not really a separate part of the war, it is an integral part of the war. It was clear that very quickly there would be an attempt to downplay or deny the atrocities of October 7th to put a positive spin on those terrorist atrocities as being resistant somehow to spread lies about what Israel was doing and that Israel was going to need all the help it could get to repel and rebuff the lies against it being pumped out through the international media in order to maintain the international support that it needed to pursue the goals of this war, namely to bring back the hostages and to bring down
Information War and Government Challenges
00:05:09
Speaker
Hamas.
00:05:09
Speaker
One line there that is gobsmacking and that is that the president of Israel didn't have a foreign media spokesperson at the time, yeah Prime Minister. How is that the case when I would imagine that is such an integral role in global diplomacy? There were many ah roles in the current administration that had not been filled in the year since Netanyahu set up his last government. But I think in Israel there is generally a sense that perhaps the information of war is not worth fighting because there are many more of them than there are of us.
00:05:44
Speaker
because people are anti-Semitic and they hate jews because no one's really listening and therefore will do what we have to do and we don't really need to bother explaining ourselves around the world and yet when israel's narrative isn't accepted by even our friends and allies we find ourselves in the horrific situation. where the UK, for example, is considering stopping selling certain weapons to Israel at the same time as sending more money to UNRWA, which is a Hamas front. It is the agency that has allowed Hamas to operate out of its schools, indoctrinated generations of Palestinian children, paid terrorists who took part in the October 7th massacre, has allowed Hamas to hijack aid. And so losing the information wall puts us in a position where it is harder for us to fight
00:06:31
Speaker
to keep ourselves safe while our allies are subsidizing our enemies in their war against us. And therefore, the information war is absolutely critical and intimately connected to Israel's ability to maintain the diplomatic, moral, and military support that it needs in order to fight this war that I'll remind you we didn't want, we didn't start, we didn't expect, that Hamas declared against us on October 7th and has since then, and we can discuss this a bit later, escalated into a war in which Israel is fighting for its life against the Iranian regime and its proxy armies on seven different
Multiple Fronts: Beyond Hamas
00:07:07
Speaker
fronts. This is not simply a war between Israel and a Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza. and It's a war in which Israel has been attacked on seven fronts by the Iranian regime and its proxy armies.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, let's go there then. I want to spend most of the time on the information war, but I don't think we can have that conversation unless we have a feel for the state of the war itself. Let's start with news hot off the press. It's come through in the last half an hour or so, and that is the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Hania, has been assassinated or has kept been killed. Your reflections. Israel has not officially confirmed that it was behind the killing of Ismail Hania. in Gaza, but it did make clear after October 7 that every Hamas terrorist was a dead man walking, and we were coming for all of them, just as the US committed itself to hunting down Bin Laden, and it took 10 years, and promised to hunt down Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, and it took five years. Israel said, we will get Hamas's leaders wherever they are. And during this war, it has been systematically targeting the top brass of Hamas. I saw just this morning an article from back in November asking, who are the top Hamas leaders in Israel's crosshairs? The top four on the list are dead. Mohammed Deyf, Marwan Issa, Salah al-Aurri, and now Ismail Haniyah. The next in line, presumably, Yichir Sinwar in Gaza, who Israel has been trying to reach, but much harder to reach him because he is presumably hiding in a tunnel, presumably surrounded by human shields, either civilians or indeed Israeli hostages.
00:08:37
Speaker
Israel has sent a very clear message, if this was indeed an Israeli attack, that nowhere is safe for arch-terrorists who are determined to kill Israelis and have blood on their hands. Ismail Haniah is a jihadi arch-terrorist who has the blood of thousands on his hands. And Israel will take the fight directly to the leaders of the Hamas terror regime, wherever they are, instead of allowing them to hide shamefully and cowardly behind civilians in Gaza.
Hamas Leadership: Luxury vs. Plight
00:09:05
Speaker
It's been somewhat jarring seeing the leaders of Hamas wearing very expensive suits in very expensive hotels across the Middle East. What do you think it says about Hamas as an organization that their leaders hold away in such a fashion and are apparently all billionaires that have done very well out of this political movement?
00:09:28
Speaker
The fact that Hamas's leaders have squandered so much money to live lives of luxury in Doha and Turkey shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has seen the way that this terrorist organization has treated their own people in the course of this war, the way that they built a tunnel network. Longer than the London Underground, underneath Gaza, going underneath UN compounds, underneath hospitals, with tunnel shafts poking out in schools and homes and mosques. Hamas's strategy in Gaza has been to use civilians there not only as human shields, but as human sacrifices.
00:10:05
Speaker
They committed the October 7th massacre, they took 250 hostages, and then they retreated to hiding places under civilian areas because that left Israel with three choices. Either not to attack and to give terrorists immunity just because they're hiding in the basement of a hospital, or to strike and then innocent people get killed. or to urge civilians to get out of the way for their safety, and then the UN will condemn Israel for forcibly displacing them, for doing the responsible thing, which is to warn of an impending attack. And by the way, Ismail Hanier is on record as saying, the blood of the young, the women and the elderly, I quote, our nation needs this blood.
00:10:42
Speaker
because it fires up the resistance. Hamas is a jihadi death cult. It's a jihadi death cult that sees innocent people as martyrs, as sacrifices worth making in order to pursue their goal of the violent elimination of Israel. And so the fact that its leaders have creamed off so much money that should have gone to civilians, that they've laundered so much money that they've siphoned it off to live lives of luxury abroad, shouldn't surprise anyone because it's only the tip of the iceberg the way that this horrible jihadi death cult has abused and subjugated the people they claim to represent.
Western Misunderstandings of Terrorism
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, let's go to that psychology because perhaps the most revealing and disturbing clip I've seen across the entire conflict was of Ismail Hanier. And it was after I believe one or several of his children had died. And he was asked for a response from a journalist at the time. There was no emotional change in his demeanor. It was something along the lines of I'm honored, praise be to Allah, etc, etc. And it got me thinking, that the fundamental way that your enemy thinks is different to the Western liberal psychology. and I think so many of the problems that we have in the mainstream media in the West is that we assume that everyone else thinks like us and has our same basic worldview, even if they happen to be terrorists.
00:12:07
Speaker
That clip was such an interesting insight that the way that they think is fundamentally different to the way that we would approach a comparable situation. How do you think about that difference in fundamental psychology between the way that they view the world and the way that, say, a Western liberal democratic society should view the world? You're absolutely right. Hamas's leaders are psychopaths, and we underestimated them. Israel thought something like the October 7th massacre could never happen because Hamas's leaders would have to be crazy to launch such an attack, knowing what would happen next, and it turns out they are crazy. I think you really put your finger on the mark there that people in democratic countries find it difficult to understand how terrorists who subscribe to a profound religious worldview genuinely see the world differently.
00:12:55
Speaker
You know, if you are an atheist and you think you have one life and one shot and this is what you have, then you think about how to live life to the full and enjoy it and cherish love and life and people around you. and But if you genuinely believe that if you die a violent death in the service of your God, then you will go to heaven straight into the loving embrace of 72 virgins. Then you see life a little bit differently. And it's not Israel that says that Israelis love life and Hamas worships death. Hamas leaders have been on record as saying the Israelis love life as we love death. They take a different perspective on martyrdom. They take a different
00:13:34
Speaker
Timeline, they think not how can we improve things in the immediate run for our people and their quality of life, but what is our ultimate goal and what do we need to achieve it? And if your ultimate goal is the restoration of an Islamic caliphate, and you have no objection to using the most barbaric violence, including the gang rapes and the people who were burned alive on October 7, you also take a very different view towards civilians. because you think that their deaths are not tragic but instances of martyrdom and you are happy to use them as sacrifices and you say openly and explicitly that you view them as sacrifices and martyrs and i really think this is one of the things that is difficult for people around the world to believe when you believe in universal values it's very difficult to believe that universally not everyone does.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is the fundamental disconnect in the conversation that we have about this conflict so often. Give me the state of the conflict more generally, both with respect to Hamas and then the broader regional conflict that is now starting to bubble to the surface. Look, we're talking about the information war. If I were to ask the average person in Britain, Canada, Australia, what is happening in the Middle East? If they were to give me the answer that Israel is at war with a barbaric terror organization, that perpetrated the deadliest terror attack since 9-11 on October 7th. That would be a good but incomplete answer. There are worse answers, of course. Those who claim that Israel is committing a genocide, for example, are clearly off the charts, bonkers. Here's what's been happening. October 7th was the opening shot of a regional war. Since then, Israel has been under attack by the Iranian regime and its proxy armies.
00:15:11
Speaker
on seven fronts, and they're all connected. Hamas invaded Israel by air, land, and sea on October 7th. It brutally massacred 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. But the next day, Iran's proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, joined the fighting. It's fired 6,500 rockets and drones at northern Israel in the last 10 months. 60,000 Israelis have been displaced, forced to flee their homes, living in hotels and guesthouses for the last 10 months, because they can't go home, because Iran's proxy army in Lebanon is destroying their homes. Israel is warning Hezbollah, back off or we're going to have to push you away. The UN says Hezbollah must go north of the Litany River, but as long as they continue to attack Israel,
00:15:57
Speaker
Israel is pushing back, degrading their capabilities ah that they understand as being part of Iran's war against us. It's not just Hamas and Hezbollah. It's the Houthi pirates in Yemen as well that have been firing ballistic missiles at Israel. And just two weeks ago, managed to send a drone into the heart of Tel Aviv and murdered one of my neighbors when a drone crashed into a nearby building in the middle of the night. And in response, Israel bombed Houthi terror infrastructure in the port of Hodeidah, just like the British and the Americans have also launched airstrikes against the Houthis.
00:16:29
Speaker
Add to that Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and rocket attacks from Syria and ballistic missile and drone attacks from Iraq. And then Iran itself. On April 14th, Iran targeted Israel with the biggest wave of ballistic missiles in world history after Russia's initial attack on Ukraine at the beginning of their war. 350 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones were fired at Israel in a single night, intercepted thanks to the help of other allied air forces, including the United States and the UK. Iran's strategy is to surround Israel with a ring of fire and watch it burn. Iran wants to keep Israel in a permanent state of chaos and conflict by surrounding it with proxy armies. Hamas
00:17:15
Speaker
in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, their proxy armies in Syria and Iraq as well. And what we need is for the international community to take firm action to suppress Iranian aggression and contain Iran, not to try to appease it, not to pretend that the problem is just Hamas or just Hezbollah. But understand that the Iranian regime, the fundamentalist Ayatollah regime in Iran, is sworn to Israel's destruction. And as they race towards nuclear weapons, they are activating the proxy armies that have destroyed Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, in order to drag Israel into a permanent state of war. Israel is pushing back against it, and it needs its allies to understand the conflict through that same lens as well.
00:18:01
Speaker
That lens that you've just given, that this is a regional conflict with Iran that has several proxies within the Middle East, is interesting. Most people who look at this from ah a cursory perspective would see this as a fight between Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, and Israel. Could Israel have done more earlier to reframe the global conversation around this being effectively a regional conflict with Iran, as opposed to just a conflict with Hamas as that particular terrorist organization? I think that at the beginning of the war, Israel wanted to deliberately downplay the threat from Hezbollah and from the Houthis in order not to overextend itself.
00:18:46
Speaker
It said we are fighting to bring down Hamas that is firing thousands of rockets at Israel to bring back the hostages. We're focusing on that and we'll get to the other challenges of Hezbollah and the Houthis later on. But perhaps that desire to downplay in order not to overextend itself led to the mistaken impression that what is happening is a war with Hamas and then other skirmishes along Israel's borders. But that's not the case. Just think back to 2006, the second Lebanon war. the first full-scale conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Over the space of about a month Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets at Israel.
00:19:25
Speaker
Over the past 10 months Hezbollah has fired more rockets at Israel than it had in the whole of the Second Lebanon War, and this isn't even being called the Third Lebanon War yet. And it's critical to understand that this is the lens. It's not just Israel against Hamas, it is Israel repelling attacks by Iran and its proxy armies on seven different fronts. And perhaps if we'd taken that lens at the beginning and tried to push that message back in October 23, It would have been clearer to our allies where we stand and what the true nature of the threat to Israel is. That framing is correct and I believe that it is.
Iran's Regime and Regional Peace
00:20:00
Speaker
Hamas is just one of many proxy armies. If you get rid of Hamas, then logically another one will pop up. Indeed, they are popping up. With that in mind, should the goal of Israel be the overthrowing of the Iranian regime? I think the only prospect for peace in the Middle East
00:20:17
Speaker
is with an Iranian, I think the only prospect for peace in the Middle East is with an Iran that is free of the fundamentalist religious regime that has controlled it since the 70s. I don't think Israel has the ability to overthrow the Iranian regime, but if the Iranian people rise up and overthrow the leaders who hang gays, force women to cover their hair in public, commit other unspeakable atrocities against their own people, then that will be a big step towards peace in the Middle East. And we've seen brave Iranians taking to the streets protesting their own regime, asking, why are you sending money to Hezbollah and Hamas and other terrorist groups instead of investing it at home? But again, the Iranian regime, we spoke about the difference between universal Western values and fundamentalist religious ideologies. isn't interested in doing everything it can to improve the lives of the Iranian people. It is interested in a fundamentalist apocalyptic vision that involves the destruction of the state of Israel. And in order to do that, they're taking money that should go to the Iranian people and investing it into terrorist groups around the Middle East as well. It's difficult to believe that before the Iranian regime took over in the revolution of 79, there were flights between Tel Aviv and Tehran.
00:21:34
Speaker
And Israel had relations with the Shah of Iran. And by the way, the crown prince of Iran in exile has spoken very forcefully of the friendship between the Iranian people and the Israeli people and his desire to see peace between Iran and Israel. Unfortunately, his country has been taken over by this fundamentalist religious regime. And I very much hope that one day the Iranian people are able to bring down this regime and install a leadership that will be interested in Building on the wave of normalization that we've seen in the Middle East and realizing that there is no reason there really is no reason for a conflict between iran and israel
00:22:10
Speaker
Israel has nothing against Iran. It has something against the Iranian regime that is trying to take advantage of every power vacuum to fill the region with terrorist armies, but nothing against the people of Iran. I hope one day under a different leadership, we can have peaceful and friendly relations with them. Yes, it's deeply sad seeing photos of Iran from the 1970s on the cusp of modernity, women in skirts, generally people living their lives in and with relative freedom. Is there a disconnect between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime today, and is that disconnect big enough to be able to instigate some sort of radical change?
00:22:52
Speaker
there intense alienation between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. And you see it with the record low voter turnout, for example, in the recent presidential election they had. You see it with the protests in which they were chanting, what was it, woman life freedom and the women ripping off their hijabs and the protests that were brutally suppressed. by the Iranian regime. The Iranian people, by and large, do not subscribe to the fundamentalist religious ideology of the regime that chants death to America, death to Israel. And it's very sad. By the way, one point of criticism that I often get on on Twitter and Instagram, people reaching out saying, please stop accusing Iran.
00:23:34
Speaker
speak about the Iranian regime. They do not represent the people of Iran. And so I have to sometimes calibrate my message and talk about the Iranian regime and remember that there is immense dissatisfaction within Iran. And of course, the Iranian diaspora around the world. You know, I spoke in Trafalgar Square on day 100 of the war. And when I stepped out onto the stage, I saw in the crowd not only Israeli flags, British flags, of course, but also Iranian dissident flags, because there is a big movement among the Iranian diaspora to resist the regime. And the regime has taken the fight around the world as well. I had former British Home Secretary Suella Bravelman on my podcast a few months ago, and she spoke about the violence that Iran is importing onto the streets of Britain.
00:24:20
Speaker
by using mercenaries and gangs to target opponents of the regime. It was only a few months ago that one of the reporters from Iran International, a dissident TV channel, was brutally attacked outside his home and their journalists are fearful for their lives. The Iranian regime knows that it is deeply unpopular among the Iranian people and that's why it acts with such brutality to suppress any dissent. Let's look at this concept of People or the relationship between the people and a regime in the context of Palestine.
Palestinian Support for Hamas
00:24:51
Speaker
In this instance, Hamas controls Gaza. They were at one point democratically elected.
00:24:59
Speaker
They, to my knowledge, still have the overwhelming support of the population of Gaza. In my view, it feels like sometimes there is this narrative that there is an evil terrorist organization ruling over a group of people that are fundamentally innocent and disagree with their their strategy. And to me, that sometimes feels like a cop-out. How have you tried to navigate that the communication between Hamas as an organization and the people of Palestine as a group? You're right. It is a cop-out to let the Palestinian people off the hook for the actions of their leaders. Unfortunately, Hamas' ideology of the violent destruction of the state of Israel is broadly reflective
00:25:45
Speaker
of the Palestinian national ethos. And you see that reflected by the way in protests around the world when people chant from the river to the sea, which means the destruction of Israel, or globalize the intifada, which is a call for more terrorism. These aren't people resisting Hamas' ideology and tactics. but endorsing them i remember in the early days of the war, President Biden said Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, which is astonishing because years of polling data must not have crossed the president's desk. The sad fact is that Hamas is a very faithful reflection of the Palestinian national ethos.
00:26:19
Speaker
which opposes the existence of Israel in any borders whatsoever. I saw a poll recently by the Doha Institute that asked people in Arab countries around the region whether they thought the October 7th massacre was legitimate or illegitimate. The number of Palestinians who thought that the massacre was illegitimate was zero percent. Zero percent. There are polls that ask Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza whether the October 7th massacre was the correct decision despite everything that has happened since. And the latest poll nine months into the war shows that 57% of the people of Gaza think that the October 7th massacre was the correct decision by their government, Hamas. Now to me, that's shocking. I don't believe the worst allegations that the Palestinians have been waging against Israel in this information war around the world, the obscene allegations of genocide, which are obviously preposterous,
00:27:16
Speaker
But it's undeniable that the people in Gaza have been suffering from this war that Hamas declared on October 7 and decided to wage out of urban areas. It's undeniable that there has been large-scale destruction of infrastructure. And how can there not be when Hamas deliberately built its military infrastructure underneath homes and hospitals? And the prospect that most people in Gaza think that all of this suffering was worth it to get away with a 24-hour murder and raping spree on October 7 is, to me, inconceivable. And it points to the need to not only destroy Hamas and demilitarize Gaza,
00:27:54
Speaker
but also deradicalized Palestinian society. This is what Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the 3D vision for peace. Destroy Hamas, demilitarize Gaza, de-radicalize Palestinian society. Because it won't be enough simply to bring down the terror regime that perpetrated the October 7th massacre. You have to undo the ideology that has sustained it. And I think Western leaders who want to think that Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinian people, that it is a blip, that it is an aberration, are in deep denial not only about the religious radicalism within Palestinian society, but also the extent to which that ideology has been cultivated with their own tax dollars.
00:28:33
Speaker
The way in which that ideology has been cultivated through UN schools, they'll not only promote the values of jihad in honor of schools, but teach generations of Palestinian children that Israel has no right to exist and that as people on the streets of London and Paris will chant, resistance is justified by any means necessary until they destroy their neighbor, the state of Israel. On that 3D strategy, how do you respond to the criticism that whilst this may be militarily successful in the end, it will have the effect of actually entrenching and further radicalizing anti-Israeli views within Palestine? Well, I don't really know what further radicalization would look like after the scenes of hostages being abducted into Gaza on October 7th to crowds that were
00:29:23
Speaker
in jubilation and cheering. Many of them were abducted by civilians who also june joined in the rampage on October 7th. I don't know what further radicalization would look like when most of the people in Gaza think that the October 7th massacre was justified. There is already a deep jihadi extremism problem. Now, during the Second World War, for example, no one claimed that if you keep bombing Germany, it will only create a new generation of Nazis. People understood that there is an evil regime that is a an active threat to world peace and security that must be brought down. And afterwards, there was a period of de-radicalization. And I think the same thing has to happen in the Gaza Strip. Of course, if you end the war and the same schools that have been indoctrinating children through UK and US taxpayer money go back to teaching those children, they'll promote the values of jihad.
00:30:17
Speaker
But that society needs de-radicalization. I maybe have more confidence in my neighbors in Gaza than people around the West. I don't think that hating Israel is a knee-jerk reaction. I think they have a choice to make. I think they have a choice to make to look at where terrorism has brought them. Look at where the October 7th massacre led them and say, this was a mistake. Our leaders have brought us into disaster after disaster by waging a forever war against the state of Israel. And if we accept that we want to live next to Israel instead of destroying it, that holds the keys to a better future. And I hope that the Palestinians will reach that conclusion that terrorism is a dead end, that it was a horrendous mistake by their leaders to take the cement that came into Gaza on UN trucks and pour it into tunnels underneath hospitals instead of building more hospitals. and then they will course correct. But in order for that to happen, they need the world to reinforce the message that the October 7th massacre was a mistake. And that's not what is happening. When you see Ireland, Spain,
00:31:20
Speaker
Norway, Malta, recognising a non-existent Palestinian state in response to October 7th. They're telling the Palestinians that barbaric atrocities take their cause forward, that they should look back at October 7th as a turning point in their history that took them towards their goals. of the ultimate destruction of Israel, not something that set them back. And so we need to be clear around the world that there is a price to terrorism, and that if you wage wars out of UN facilities, that UN agency does not get more money, as the UK and other countries are coughing up more money to honor. And if Israel withdraws from territory like it pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005,
00:32:02
Speaker
And that territory is used as a launch pad for further attacks against Israel, then those attacks don't get rewarded with diplomatic gains. There has to be a cost. Because if there isn't a cost, it's a reward. And if there's a reward, then there will be a next time. And it will be on the hands of those around the world who chose not to punish these barbaric atrocities, but in fact reward them and tell them this strategy works.
Changing Palestinian Views on Israel
00:32:27
Speaker
The way that you framed the calculus, the decision facing the Palestinian people,
00:32:34
Speaker
was very pragmatic. It was, dare I say it, a Western view of how to make that decision. And it potentially may underestimate what we went back to earlier, the way that they see the world is fundamentally different. My question would be in your heart of hearts, do you genuinely or do you sincerely think that there is a chance that there can be cultural change in Palestine or do you think that the ideological roots are so far embedded that this will be something that your children, your children's children and forever more will have to deal with?
00:33:12
Speaker
You're right that there is something deeply broken with the Western lens. And we find that every time that Israel's enemies commit a more barbaric attack, there's an immediate call for Israel to exercise restraint, not to take firm action to restore deterrence, not to defend its borders, But to restrain itself and accept that this is just something that happens, that terrorists can take over territory in Gaza, take over territory in Lebanon, after Israeli withdrawals, use that to launch rockets at Israeli cities. And that's something we just have to accept.
00:33:46
Speaker
and that if we exercise restraint and our enemies don't exercise restraint, that doesn't give us a right to go after our enemies. It just means that we have to restrain ourselves more. Israelis understand that that's just not how it works in the Middle East, that there is a coalition of terrorist armies determined to destroy us, and we need to exercise severe deterrence and degrade their capabilities. But as for the question specifically about extremism, I do have hope. I do have hope that it is possible to change because i see it in the rest of the middle east i see the steps that Saudi Arabia and the ui have taken for example to do radicalize their own curricula out of an understanding of where that best interests lie. I see that from an arab world that spent decades,
00:34:30
Speaker
boycotting Israel, shunning it. There are countries now looking at themselves and saying, this hasn't benefited us at all. And the UAE and Morocco and Bahrain have made peace with Israel. We're on the brink of an agreement with Saudi Arabia. Now, the longer that the Palestinians think that time is on their side and that the world will reward every terrorist atrocity and the Arab world has their back, of course, they have no reason to abandon their forever war against the state of Israel. to continue chanting from the river to the sea and globalize the intifada and remain committed to the ultimate destruction of Israel. But if they see that the world is punishing them for barbaric terrorism, that the Arab world is fed up of their forever war against Israel and are making peace with it because they have bigger fri bigger fish to fry, Then I hope at some point the Palestinians will have a leader who is brave enough to turn around to not only their own people, but the protesters around the world and say, no, not from the river to the sea. We don't want to destroy Israel. We want to live next to it. And on the day that that happens, it will be possible to have peace. But as long as the Palestinians remain committed to the ultimate destruction of the state of Israel,
00:35:37
Speaker
We're definitely not going to have peace. And it's outrageous for Israel's allies around the world to demand that it make more territorial withdrawals and give more territory to the same movements that are demanding the destruction of Israel. When you say two-state solution, for example, you're assuming that it solves the conflict. Israelis have learned the hard way that territorial withdrawals only aggravate the conflict. and make it worse by giving our enemies a territorial base from which to launch further attacks against us. So if the world and the Arab world make clear to Palestinians that terrorism doesn't pay and that time is not on their side, I hope that they are rational people who will adjust.
00:36:15
Speaker
But you're right, we're dealing with a deeply problematic, extremist, millenarian religious ideology. And those ideologies don't get defeated by nice diplomatic talk or reasoning with them. They get defeated by a shift in the strategic calculus that convince them that they've lost. Let's turn to the mechanics of an information war. And I want to start with the role of a spokesperson. So your job is to, obviously, frame Israel's efforts in the best possible light. At the same time, if you lie, if you blatantly mislead people, you're not really a spokesperson, you're a propagandist. How have you reflected on that line, both when your formal role and now is a as a citizen spokesperson?
00:36:59
Speaker
Israel does not enjoy the luxury that Hamas has of lying, the whole world swallowing it, and then there's no accountability. When you're a democratic state, especially under as much scrutiny as Israel, certainly with the values of democracy, you have to be very careful about everything you say and to triple check it. And so there were many times that as a spokesman, you know I heard reports of various things but i couldn't repeat it until i had absolute confirmation but i'll give you an example from the early days of the war about how this dynamic works that israel has to be careful about everything it says hamas can get away with saying anything because of a certain dynamic in the media where people will automatically believe anything hamas says.
00:37:42
Speaker
and disbelieve anything Israel says. October 16th, Hamas puts out a press release claiming that an Israeli airstrike has flattened a hospital and killed 500 people. And the media immediately reports that around the world, and they quote Palestinian health officials, by which they mean Hamas, which means the terrorists who barely 10 days earlier had committed the October 7th massacre. Now, it took Israel a short while to check the facts just a few hours, and it turned out that, in fact, it was rocket shrapnel from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fired from a cemetery that had fallen short in Gaza. About a sixth of the rockets fall short in Gaza and fell in the car park of a hospital.
00:38:23
Speaker
It didn't flatten the hospital. The hospital was still standing. And according to Western intelligence estimates, only a few dozen people were killed. But by then, the story had already gone around the world that an Israeli airstrike had flattened a hospital and the media then couldn't backtrack and say we'd made a mistake. BBC Verify started spinning it as a whodunit, saying, well, it's not clear what really happened. Now, Hamas still claims that 471 people were killed in that airstrike, an airstrike that didn't take place. And when you see the overall casualty figure that Hamas presents, that includes the debunked number of the 471 people who were not killed in that hospital. And if they were killed, they were killed from shrapnel from a Palestinian rocket and not by an Israeli airstrike. And that just gives you one example.
00:39:10
Speaker
of how it's been known for months that the numbers provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry, i.e. Hamas, are total hokum, and how they're passing off 19-year-old terrorists as being children, and how they're using ah reports of people who have they don't have their ID numbers or their names, or people who are double counted, or people who died of natural causes, or even based on a Google form that they are using to tell people to report deaths. we know that these numbers are made up and yet the world continues to go along with them. I saw an extraordinary report in the New York Times just a few days ago that said Israel claims it's killed 14,000 Hamas terrorists, an unverifiable and disputed number, and then they quoted the Hamas casualty numbers without attaching the same caveat on them.
00:39:58
Speaker
Despite the extensive analysis of how at some points Hamas was making up those numbers, even AP published a story at one point saying that the Hamas overall casualty figures were simply inconsistent with the daily data that they put out. But that's part of the information landscape that Israel is dealing with. There is an automatic tendency to disbelieve anything Israel says, believe anything Hamas says, and that's because they laundered their information through an ecosystem, an echo chamber, of so-called human rights organizations and UN agencies that didn't mourn the October 7th massacre say Israel has a right to defend itself and say, you know what, be careful how you do it, obey the rules of international law. From day one have been trying to stop Israel defending itself, putting pressure on the Hamas terror regime to bring back the hostages. People like UN n Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who recently condemned, ah recently compared Prime Minister Netanyahu to Hitler, and has been saying the most horrific things about Israel being a colonial entity that has no right to exist, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. They take this information, and when the UN then puts an official seal of approval on it, the media will automatically report it because that information has been laundered through the United Nations, even though we're talking about deeply problematic political actors that have been clear that they don't think Israel has a right to defend itself against these atrocities.
00:41:19
Speaker
and have therefore been using and abusing their position in order to force Israel to end this war with the Hamas terror regime still in power, plotting another October 7th. Let's go to the UN. Is this a matter of the UN being ideologically captured? Is it just them wanting to get a solution to this conflict as quickly as possible? Why do the UN continue to enable the type of narrative that you are you are talking about? It's an excellent question. The UN is not a club of democracies. There are 193 members of the United Nations. Most of them are not democracies. Most of them are dictatorships. And historically, anti-Semitism has been a tool with which failing societies deflect from their own problems, deflect responsibility. They find unity that they can't agree on anything, but there's one thing they don't like, bash the Jews.
00:42:11
Speaker
And you see the same dynamic at the United Nations. Hatred of Israel is a vehicle for multilateralism. It's the tool through which many countries can work together because they can't agree on anything. They can agree on one thing, they don't like Israel. And so we're not dealing with a club of our allies. We're dealing with countries like China and Russia that didn't even condemn the October 7th massacre. And unfortunately, many people, including from our allies, from European countries who have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by this oppressor-oppressed ideology that paints Israel as some illegitimate colonial state, instead of looking at the truth of what is happening of a democratic state in the Jewish people's ancient homeland, fighting for its life against the Iranian regime and its proxy armies. They have Hook and Sinka accepted the Palestinian narrative that Israel should not exist.
00:43:04
Speaker
that it is an illegitimate state. Look, we talk about the United Nations. One organ of the United Nations is the ICJ. Now, people may have seen recent headlines about the ICJ's advisory opinion. The president of the ICJ is a man called Nawaf Salaam. He is a former Lebanese diplomat. He is a former Lebanese ambassador to the United Nations who twice ran for prime minister of Lebanon, voted against Israel hundreds of times and gave speeches condemning Israel. Now he's the president of the ICJ, who is supposedly a neutral figure.
UN Bias and International Law Challenges
00:43:37
Speaker
In any ordinary court of law, a judge who has previously condemned and criticized the defendant would have to recuse himself. The trial would be thrown out as a mistrial, and the whole court would be shot down as a sham. But instead, here it's clear that the ICJ is a nakedly political institution.
00:43:57
Speaker
rather than an objective new neutral arbiter. you know I know for a lot of people in in countries like the UK, for example, which has a seat on the Security Council, played an integral role in the formation of international law. International law seems to them this neutral infrastructure that is designed to promote and protect international peace. and security. But Israelis have seen how these rules are twisted against them and abused against them, twisted into whatever it takes to say that Israel has no right to defend itself by these organizations that are supposed to be neutral but are political institutions.
00:44:34
Speaker
And it wouldn't be the first time in the world that countries around the world have ganged up on Israel or that nations around the world have ganged up on the Jews. And unfortunately, we're dealing with the same dynamic in which instead of seriously addressing real challenges around the world, scapegoating the Jews, scapegoating Israel has always been the easiest way to deflect blame. And here it's being used in the service of countries that do not think it Israel has a right to exist at all, and UN officials who believe the same thing and will make up whatever they have to make up in order to advance that argument.
00:45:09
Speaker
That's an incredibly high hurdle that Israel has to try and overcome. Another one is just basic human psychology, particularly when you see images of devastation and awful things happening. I've read a lot, as you would have, of ah John Spencer, American urban warfare expert. and He's done a lot of compelling analysis to suggest that no army in human history has done as much to protect a civilian population as Israel has in Gaza. The ratio of civilian to combatant casualties is still historically low but at the same time civilian casualties are a part of any war and the images that do come out of Gaza when you see kids dying or you see the type of destruction that a war inevitably creates are horrifying, they're awful and people have an instinctive visceral reaction to that.
00:46:04
Speaker
How do you try and communicate that war is terrible, that civilian casualties are inevitable, but at the same time, this is still something which is ultimately a just war and needs to be done? How do you overcome that psychological barrier in the minds of of so many average people across the world? It's very difficult because people see images of suffering and from their safety and their distance, they say just make it stop. But Israel doesn't have the luxury of making the jihadi terrorist armies on its borders simply disappear. We know that if we don't destroy Hamas for good this time, there will be a next time and it will be worse. And it will be worse because Hamas will think that the world has saved it from the wars that it started.
00:46:50
Speaker
Civilian casualties are horrific. There's a reason that Israel didn't start this war, didn't want this war, didn't even expect this war. They're a tragic feature of every war, and they're a tragic feature of this war that Hamas declared on October 7th. A tragic war feature of this war in which Hamas has booby-trapped Gaza to the eyeballs, has built its military facilities inside schools and homes and mosques and hospitals and UN facilities, and uses civilians not only as human shields, but as human sacrifices. It's deeply distressing whether you accept the Hamas numbers or rightfully cast doubt on the casualty numbers that Hamas is projecting. John Spencer mentions a very interesting point. He says, the closest thing you can compare the Battle of Gaza to is the Battle of Mosul.
00:47:37
Speaker
if we compare this historically, when 87 nations ganged up to drive ISIS out of Mosul in Iraq. That's the closest comparison, and yet look at the differences. That was a campaign to dislodge ISIS from one city, not seven. There were 10,000 i said there There were 3,000 ISIS fighters, not 30,000. They weren't holding 250 hostages. They weren't shooting rockets at London, Paris, and New York. They didn't have a network of tunnels under civilian areas. Civilians had a hinterland to which they could escape.
00:48:15
Speaker
And yet still, there were around 10,000-11,000 civilian casualties that the world accepted as a price worth paying in order to get around 3,000 ISIS fighters inside ah Mosul. War is horrific. And Israel really has gone further than any army in the history of the world to try to minimize harm to civilians. But when their government, Hamas, deliberately embeds their their military infrastructure inside civilian buildings.
00:48:47
Speaker
When it prevents civilians at gunpoint from escaping, when Israel tries to create humanitarian corridors, when it shoots mortars at the soldiers trying to protect those humanitarian corridors, obviously civilians are going to be hurt. And it's tragic that the same thing remains true that I've been saying since the beginning of October. All of the suffering that has happened since October 7th is because Hamas declared this war. And it could end immediately if Hamas surrenders. That option is still on the table. But Hamas cannot hold on to hostages, continue shooting rockets into Israel, continue vowing and plotting and threatening more October 7th massacres, and accept Israel to simply lie back and say, well, come and surprise us when you're ready for it. It really comes down to this. We didn't want this war. We didn't start this war. We didn't expect this war. Hamas declared this war and chose to fight it out of civilian areas. And it can end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders. And if this war does not end with the total defeat of Hamas and the return of the hostages, all the hostages, there will be a next time. It will be worse. And it will be worse because Hamas will think that the world has saved it from the wars that it started. That's the bottom line. And I don't think I can phrase it any more powerfully.
00:50:02
Speaker
We have a couple of minutes left. Elon, tell me about the Israeli citizen spokesperson's office. ah Since ending my position as a government spokesman, I've set up a team of what we're calling citizen spokespeople. It's a brand new concept. There are citizen journalists, ordinary people who have day jobs and will run a blog or take photos of news events. And I'm putting together a team of people who can explain Israel in front of the camera. both for social media and in the traditional media, because we are outnumbered and outgunned in dealing with a very dangerous information landscape in which the Palestinians have not only Hamas and their UN official supporters and a network of human rights organizations,
00:50:43
Speaker
also media outlets that are instinctively hostile to Israel. And so this is a fight that we simply cannot leave to the government to do since, unfortunately, it's been doing a very poor job of explaining Israel to the world. We're putting together a team of people saying we're going to explain our country to the world. This isn't Netanyahu's war. This isn't the coalition's war. This is a war that was declared against us. the Israeli people on seven fronts, and we are fighting for our lives, we are fighting for our homes, and we are fighting for our survival. And we, the citizens, understand that the cost, that the the task of keeping the world on site is too big to leave just to the government. This is a national task that will require us all to come on board. I mean, I'll end by saying this. Iran wants to destroy Israel. The terrorist armies surrounding Israel want to destroy Israel. Hamas wants to destroy Israel.
00:51:37
Speaker
And it will make it much easier for Iran to destroy Israel if the world believes that Israel deserves to be destroyed. It will make it easier for them to wipe Israel off the map if the public in Western countries believe that Israel is an illegitimate state that has no right to exist in the first place.
Impact of Information War on Western Perceptions
00:51:55
Speaker
That's the nature of the information board that is being waged against Israel. That's the reason behind the horrific false allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing and starvation, and you name it, allegations thrown against Israel.
00:52:09
Speaker
They are trying to convince Western publics that Israel is not their ally, but their enemy. When Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles in April, the British and the Americans sent their air forces to protect us. The information war is meant to convince Western publics to throw Israel under a bus and abandon it, and stand idly by and say the Jews had it coming. And that's a threat obviously to us, but also to the rest of the Western world, because Hezbollah says It's real war is with the United States, not with Israel. Israel is just a tool. Israel and its enemies agree on one thing. The West is next. We say it as a warning. They mean it as a threat. They want to hurt Israel, to hurt you. They want to weaken us, to weaken you. They want to cripple us in order to cripple you. And so what's at stake in the information of war is not only the survival of Israel,
00:52:56
Speaker
but the freedom and security of the Western world as well. And the question of whether these countries will stand by their democratic ally in the Middle East as it fights off the Iranian regime and its proxy armies on seven fronts, or whether they will allow themselves to be hoodwinked by propaganda from the same terrorists who burned whole families alive on October 7th and be deceived into throwing an ally under a bus and weakening their own national security. Ilan Levy, thank you for coming on Fire at Will. Thank you very much. Well, it's been a good discussion.