Eylon Levy: Israel needs a 24/7 public diplomacy ‘special forces unit’

The former government spokesman said that the crucial fight for world opinion must be fast-reacting, global and convincing.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A former star government spokesman said Sunday that Israel needs a citizen-based “special forces unit” for public diplomacy in order to win the war against Hamas.

“We need a special forces unit” that spans the globe, knows all the facts about Israel and the Jewish world, and can react quickly, cogently, and in the native language of the countries its members live in, he said to the audience at the annual B’nai B’rith World Center Awards ceremony for Excellence in Diaspora Reportage,

“The Diaspora is not an afterthought,” he said in his keynote address. “It is a force multiplier. Israel is a democratic nation-state, but the task of sustaining it must be a partnership between the Jews who dwell in Zion and the Jews who dwell abroad.”

Levy introduced his new initiative, the Israel Citizen’s Spokespersons’ Office, which presents a briefing on what is happening in Israel and Jewish communities around the world on all major social media platforms from Sunday to Thursday at 3pm (Israel time).

He described the group in his X account as consisting of “ordinary people speaking up for our country and our global nation at a critical time.”

“The Jewish people and state of Israel are under attack around the world, and we need everyone to do their part to fight back,” he noted in his May 23 post.

This includes fact-checking derogatory online comments about Israel or Jews, and responding to them with the truth in real time.

They do not have to be adults. The unit can also use younger people, he told the hundreds sitting at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.

High schoolers who can think soundly and speak convincingly about events even as they are still occurring are welcome.

Proactively partnering schools in Israel with Jewish schools abroad would help deepen the vital Diaspora-Israel relationship, he added, with the result that the world would find out “what we Jews are capable of doing when we join forces.”

Levy became a star spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office after he volunteered to appear before the foreign, English-language press immediately after the October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel that sparked the ongoing war.

The former international media advisor to the President Isaac Herzog received high marks from Jewish communities in the Diaspora and appreciative Anglo Israelis for his eloquent, concise answers to often-hostile media personnel in hundreds of interviews and online posts over the first five months of the conflict.

In March, the British Foreign Office complained about his response to Foreign Minister David Cameron saying that Israel must allow more aid into Gaza.

He resigned after the PMO suspended him due to the ruffled feathers, despite the fact that his statement that the problem was on the Gazan side was the government’s position.

Eylon LevyhasbaraIsrael-Diaspora relationsIsrael-Hamas war