Eylon Levy: Speaking for Israel

You are watching Deconstructive Criticism. I am Aaron Flann. Today we're talking to the man that has the hardest job in the world, defending the state of Israel in Western media. Government spokesperson, Eilon Living.

This conversation was recorded in downtown Tel Aviv, so you can hear the hub of the city of Elohis in the conversation. If you're severely autistic when it comes to sound, I apologise for this, but suggest you listen to the substance of his words rather than the quality of the sound. Eilon Living is a British Israeli. He has a degree from Oxford, but moved to Israel in 2014 to enlist in the Israeli military during the 2014 Gaza War.

He has also worked as the Chief News Anchor at the Israel Broadcasting Authority for Israeli Public Television and the International News Network I24 News, as a news anchor, commentator and investigative journalist. In 2021, he became the International Media Advisor at the Office of the President of Israel for Israel's President. He has also translated 10 books from Hebrew to English for an international audience. After the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, he became an official Israeli government spokesman and one of Israel's most internationally recognised faces in the war, especially famous for his raised eyebrows in an interview on Sky News.

Join us in a conversation about Israel's image abroad, other countries' opinion about how to react to Hamas atrocities and the lunacy of the two-state solution. And now, Mr. Eilon Levy, enjoy. Welcome to Deconstructive Criticism.

Mr. Eilon Living. I first have some personal questions for you. Normally, I get to define themselves.

So, who are you in your own words? I have in the strangest and most bizarre circumstances for the Israeli government. I wasn't before October 7th that what happened happened. And I'm very proud that in Israel, everyone dropped everything.

Immediately, they did whatever they could because they understood it only one thing mattered. Total victory over Hamas, bringing down the terror regime in Gaza and bringing back the hostages. And so I found myself within a week putting on a suit and tie, going on television as a spokesman for the Israeli government. And here we are, the three hundred interviews later.

Yes, but I bet they didn't just pick anyone off the street. No, I had been the President of the Hogs Aks foreign media spokesman for the first two years of his presidency, before that I was a television news anchor here in Israel as well, to English-speaking stations. So, I had a background in television, in political columns as well. And so when the massacre happened and people immediately found themselves scrambling to do whatever they could, that's the billions to contribute to the effort.

Some people were cooking food for soldiers, others were driving down supplies to displaced valleys. And I said, well, I know how to give interviews, so I'll give interviews on behalf of my country. Right, because you were British Israeli? Yes, I was born in Britain.

To Israeli parents, I grew up there, studied in the UK at the age of 23, after finishing my masters. I wanted to come and serve in the Israeli military. It was just at the end of Operation Protective Action, the war with Hamas in Gaza in 2014. And I've been here ever since it's been nearly ten years.

So you started at Al-Sud and Cambridge, right? And it was a PPE. That's right, I agree. Very good.

So, philosophy... I guess you've done your research. Philosophy, politics and economics. Yes.

Which is sort of an elite education in Britain. As far as Oxford. Yes. Yes.

So, can I just quickly ask you, favorite philosopher, favorite politician, favorite economist? Oh, wow, those are the questions. Favorite philosopher would have to be John Rawls. Well, I was at university.

In fact, wrote a musical about John Rawls. So it has a very special place in my heart. Favorite politician is a challenging question to ask me as a government spokesman. So let's look at it.

Let's look at it historically. I think I admire Margaret Thatcher's toughness, conviction, I think, whatever one thinks of her specific policies and we can have a debate at Nozier, at it for the likes of our policies. She had great, she had the courage of her convictions. And that is certainly a set of traits that I need to call on in order to do the job that I'm doing now.

You know, rather, thankless environment. She wouldn't have appreciated you liking Rawls. I think. No, but I think we've had a number of disagreements.

But one had to admire Ironclad, great. And as for favorite economist, why don't you go for Adam Smith? Oh, OK. That's a good choice.

I wouldn't pick Nathan Friedman for you. Also a good choice. All right, also a good choice. You see a very eclectic range.

Yes. So funny. So you went back in 2014 at the under-protected effort. How did that work?

The 2014 war was shocking for two reasons. First of all, it was the longest Gaza war that Israel had fought at that point. Yes. By now, this was far exceeded in length.

Maybe threefold. But at the time, it was the longest war that Israel had fought at the Gaza with rockets reaching further than they had reached before. Came against the backdrop of the brutal abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers. And in many ways, it was a war that is a preview for what we are experiencing now on a much larger scale.

But also, it was a war that found the shock of Jewish diaspora around the world because of the wave of antisemitism that it triggered. Not only protests against Israel, as always, whenever Israel finds itself in conflict, it triggers an antisemitic backlash. And that really wrangled out of the woodwork in 2014 and meant that when I left, United Kingdom came to Israel, I certainly didn't feel that I was running away from anything. Far from it.

But I certainly left the UK with a nasty taste in my mouth from the experience of the great antisemitism awakening of 2014. It's interesting to say that because my next question was, in fact, at Oxford and Cambridge, there was only antisemitism while you were there. No, not really. I think the only antisemitic incident I experienced was with someone who had no connection to the university.

In 2013, I agreed to take part in any debate with George Alloway. It was at the time of former British member of parliament known for his fearrantly anti-Israel positions, his support for the most barbaric despots of terrorists, who agreed to participate in a one-on-one debate with me. And you were at the time 23, 21, 21, or he arrived to live at his speech. And I got up, started speaking, and at one point he latched onto the word, we, that I used and said, you said, we are you Israeli?

So yes, I wanted to write there. It said, I've been misled. I don't debate with Israelis. He got up, marched out to the room.

That was a national incident, debate, national headlines. There was even a cartoon at the time about it at the time people were profoundly shocked. And I experienced that very much as an antisemitic incident. I said, yes, I'm in the Israeli Arab.

I don't think he would have got up. And marched out. It was very clear what the basis was for this book out. But apart from that, no.

And the atmosphere on campus was very different ten years ago. I remember leading the campaign against efforts to affiliate the Oxford Student Union with the anti-Israel boy-god movement. And we defeated it by a margin of six or seven to one. Right.

That was still possible back in 2030. I don't think it would be possible now the atmosphere on campus has soured beyond recognition with the way, unfortunately, that the most violent manifestations of the Palestinian cause have become a trendy fashionable cause. Why do you think that is? I think it's part of an outgrowth of a much wider ideology that has taken hold of elite institutions around the world.

One that divides the world inexorably into presses and oppressed victims and victimizers. And sees no room for eight people like the Jews who were oppressed who were victims and managed to seize themselves by the bootstraps and free themselves and achieve liberation. Because in that world view, if you are either a victim or you're a victim or you're a victim, once you manage to escape victim status, you become by default a victimizer. Now, of course, there is a deeply, profoundly anti-Semitic undercurrent to all of this.

Because anti-Semitism throughout history has always been an attempt by failing societies to deflect, blame and criticism from their own failures and avoid responsibility. And so the Jews have always been held up as the opposite of however these societies regard themselves. There is now a movement that, for reasons why it's not going to happen to this, sees the original sin of the modern world as being colonialism. So what do student activists in the UK, Canada, Australia, the United States do, in order to avoid taking responsibility and leading by example?

You really think colonialism is the original sin, perhaps you want to dissolve Canada or dissolve the United States, or Australia, of course you don't. They scapegoat Israel. They scapegoat Israel. They take the story of a persecuted people fleeing oppression who fight in their sovereignty and independence in their ancestral homeland and choose to cast that within the narrative of colonialism.

And then sacrifice Israel, I think, as a way of trying to expiate their own white guilt for what they regard as the original sin of the modern world. How much do you think Christianity plays a role in this? Because you mentioned original sin so I wanted to ask. I don't think it's possible to disconnect the moment we are having now from the much broader intellectual framework of the Western world, one that has been secularized, yes.

But not disconnected from ideas that have been immensely powerful throughout Western history. I think that if I look at Ireland, for example, where Israel faces really vicious hatred in sub-quarters, it's impossible to disconnect that from the legacy of centuries of Catholic antisemitism. It's not like these societies ever experienced a profound reckoning with that past. And oh, now this is something else.

I think it has to take a look more broadly at connect the dots. By the way, I find this as well when people come and say, ha ha, look, how many countries have condemned Israel, international communities against Israel. I think there has never been a point in history in which the world has stood by the Jewish peoples right, to physically defend themselves. So if you're telling me that much of the world is ganging up on Israel, I don't think that's evidence of anything, because that's simply the default mode.

It's also argued in a popular, you know, it's, I don't know, I'm saying English actually, I only know. Well, let's say, a logical fallacy. Yes, absolutely. Everyone can be wrong.

Exactly. And Jewish history has always been about the courage to look around the rest of the world and say, this is crazy. This is madness. And Jewish history is one long train of the rest of the world being wrong when the Jewish people face persecution, whether it was the Spanish Inquisition or wherever.

Yes, sometimes, sometimes the world was wrong. Sometimes there was an attempt to scapegoat the Jews. Now scapegoat Israel is the national extensation of the Jews as a way to deflect responsibility and blame instead of doing this serious tough work of introspection and addressing the wrong problem. You mentioned the three Israeli teenagers that got kidnapped in 2014, which they were kidnapped in the West Bank.

Okay, but you went to the Gaza? They were abducted in the summer of 2014 by Hamas terrorists in the West Bank. Israel responded with a very firm crackdown on the Hamas terror infrastructure. That set in sequence of chain of events that led to an escalation of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

These arenas are all connected, but certain, looking back 10 years, thinking that there was a war that began with the brutal abduction and murder of three teenagers by Hamas. And now we are dealing with 253 people who were abducted on October 7. In addition to four hostages who have been held in Gaza since 2014, we see history repeating itself now on a much larger scale. Part of the reason that we are having this war now is that previous rounds of conflict ended with pressure to effectively call a cellmate and leave Hamas standing.

And with each round Israel prided to degrade Hamas' military capabilities. But Hamas kept building and building its military power, devoting international aid, doing this right under the noses of the UN agencies that turn up line-dye to its militarization of hospitals, to its construction of a tunnel network, one and a half times longer than the London Underground, with a ton of shafts poking out in hospitals and UN schools. Previous rounds of conflict didn't end with international support for Israel to bring down Hamas and finish the job. They left Hamas standing.

And that is why Israel now finds itself committed this time to finishing the job with Hamas, so they can't attack us as it did on October 7. With what, let remind you of our listeners, was the deadliest terror attack in world history after 9-11. In a single day, as many people were murdered as the entire North Tower on 9-11. You know, much smaller country.

In a much, much smaller country. Definitely, if you look at it on a per capita basis, it is off the charts. But also, it can't attack us as it has over the previous 20 years of rocket fire. We in Israel have come to take it for granted that it's simply part of the scenery that every once in a while, a terrorist group in possession of neighboring territory can fire rockets at our cities and at our villages whenever it was.

And that's something we just have to tolerate and put up with, because that's part of living in the Middle East, and these people are always going to hate us. And now with this, more this is what I was saying, enough is enough. We're not going back to October 7. And we're going to stop putting up with Hamas's abuse of this territory as one large launch pad of rockets against Israeli towns, where we're in Tel Aviv, we would have a minute and a half to run for shelter if you were in a village much closer to Gaza.

You would have a matter of seconds, sometimes a more to shower pit before you would get a siren. So saying enough is enough. This isn't what we wanted. It's not what we started.

It's not what we expected. But it is what we have to win. It is what we have to win in order to restore personal security for our citizens. Yes, but there's also a conflict of interest here, because we want to say the hostages as well.

And I know there's a part of Israeli society who are really adamant about prioritizing the hostages, which is a very human instinct, I think. And it's also a way to preserve your own humanity. It's life before military victory. But wouldn't that sort of priority lead to more kidnapping, more attempts in the future?

We see the twin goals of this war, destroying Hamas and bringing back the hostages as going hand in hand rather than contradicting each other. Because the hostages are only going to be released for unrelenting military pressure, either because we will physically go in and get them out, as we did just the other week when we rescued two hostages, or because Hamas will want in exchange for getting back hostages, a pause in the fighting. It's a catch and spread. That was how we got the first 105 hostages out at the end of November, because for every 10 hostages who were released, Hamas agreed to a one day pause in the fighting.

You also had to give up a lot of terrorists if you were actually. There was a great three convicted prisoners for violent offenders for every one hostage. They were the I-Bros. They're famous, but what was really important was a pause in the fighting.

Now, the question of what place this rail should pay to bring back the hostages? Showing that Israel has no good choices at the moment. We have only excruciating moral dilemmas, because Hamas wants an exchange for the release of the hostages. The release of thousands of convicted terrorists with blood on their hands and terrorists' masterminds.

And you can say if we got forbid to the hostages were to remain in Hamas captivity, that's a message to all citizens in the country, that terrorists can come and fake you when you're on your own. But the alternative could be to release terrorists, who will re-offend. Because Sidwa, for example, the Hamas leader in Gaza was released as part of a hostage exchange. We got soldier Gilant-Shaleet back from Gaza in exchange released a thousand convicted terrorists, including Sidwa, who was now responsible for the October 7 massacre.

So these are excruciating moral dilemmas that the country's leadership has to confront. Well, it seems at the point, I mean, Gilant-Shaleet was apparently worth a thousand terrorists, plus a thousand. That was the price that the government paid at the time to get back one soldier. Yes, and didn't that give incentive to Hamas to do what they didn't have to accept?

And that is exactly why you all hear many voices that say they have to continue fighting to bring hostages back. But if we were to release terrorists, we only increase their appetite. And next time they'll demand not only the release of hostages, in fact, this time, if you read the, what has been reported of Hamas' delusional demands to release the hostages. They were demanding other concessions that have nothing to do with Gaza and nothing to do with terrorists in jails, and you allow yourself to be blackmailed.

But that is why the country is now insisting on a strategy of putting unrelenting military pressure on Hamas, so that they know that the Israeli army can operate in the heart of their strongholds in the middle of what they thought were their most impregnable fortresses, and that if they want a pause in the fighting they have to release the hostages, what this government has been clear it will not accept is Hamas' terms of capitulation, that Hamas wants in exchange for giving a hostage back and enter the war that will see it still on its feet, when it tells us it wants to plug a traitor another October 7 massacre again and again, because we have a responsibility not only to bring a hostage to make sure they can't be adopted from the same bed the following morning. And to think, not only about how we rescued a hostage, but he starved and tortured and executed and raped in the Hamas terror dungeons right now. But how we stop that terror organization from ever perpetrating a process like this in the future. So let's talk a bit about the other existential threats that Israel faces.

You have his wallet in the north now and that seems to be heating up. Yes. Where do you see that going? The prospect of war with Hezbollah is a real and terrifying possibility.

Terrifying because it has much larger firepower than Hamas. Far more missiles, longer range, precision guided, much bigger warheads, along a much longer border, and in a country that is connected to Syria and through there to the rest of the Middle East it's not isolated like Gaza. And real because Hezbollah decided to join this war on October 8th on the side of Hamas, has been firing rockets more than Israel and has displaced around 100,000 Israelis who have been stuck at hotels and guesthouses across the country for four months now. And they can't go back to their homes.

And until that threat has lifted not only the shelling of their homes on the rocket fire, but the threat that they could be abducted into Lebanon. And then you understand they would be in Iran by the afternoon. So we have been clear. Hezbollah must back off.

Or we will push it away. Because we cannot reconcile ourselves to the ongoing displacement of 100,000 people who cannot return because of the shelling of their homes. Resolution 1701, UN Security Council Research, ended the 2006 World of Lebanon. It was supposed to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River.

But it applies UN peacekeeping forces to monitor the demilitarization of the Lebanon. It never happened. No one insisted on its enforcement. The ferry in the UN didn't do its job.

Clearly not. Because Hezbollah has made firing rockets from mere meters away from unifile positions. It treats the resolution as a dish rack. And essentially, it utifils soldiers as human shields.

And by the way, the disaster in Lebanon is a reminder of why the warring does and must end with the total elimination of the Hamas military machine. And it cannot end with a terror organization in control of territory and vague international promises. That it won't be allowed to use that territory for attacks because that failed in Lebanon. It doesn't work.

A peacekeeping force did not have teeth in order to stop Hezbollah from taking over South Lebanon. All it could do was issue reports and even that. And it's important to connect the doors between Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Because these are not separate militias.

They are all proxies of the Iranian regime. The Hamas terror regime in Gaza. The Houthi pirate regime that has been firing at international shipping. Hezbollah that has been launching a fax of Israel from the north.

These are all the exceptions of Iran's strategy. In league with the Muslim Brotherhood around the world. To encircle Israel and tighten the noose around its neck. Because Israel is effectively the only bulwark standing in the way of Iran's imperial aggression in the Middle East.

And its vision of making the whole Middle East is fear of influence and imposing its violent version of religion. And will on the Middle East. So what is Iran trying to do? Iran is trying to contain Israel to bombard it with enemy forces to build its own nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

In order to leave the stage clear for it to expand across the Middle East. And from there to terrorize European targets as well. We've seen the way that it has subverted European societies. And since the start of the war is ringing, intelligence has helped partner agencies around the world.

Hamas leave us else. Keep an eye on Iran's attempts to sell chaos and cause violence in the streets of the West as well. You know one of the arguments from the left in Europe and America is that definitely what Sweden ran from. Hamas has never committed a terrorist attack outside of this future territory in Israel.

Hamas is a terror organization that is committed to the violent destruction of the states of Israel. And will stop at nothing. Just since the beginning of the war is well, it's helped foreign intelligence agencies thwart power sleeper cells around the world that were planning attacks. Make up a lot of those attacks if the intelligence have not been able to stop them.

Hamas is a profoundly anti-Semitic organization. As President Macron stated with his very powerful remarks about how the October 7 attacks were the u.s anti-Semitic massacre system. It's taken real fun by the way, by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has been no great friend in Israel, throughout the war. And by the leadership of the European Union as well, also a fondant mind.

Only a week after the October 7 massacre saw the truth directly and said to its face, a mass perpetrator of these attacks because their target in Jews has Jews. And believe so, they do not have a right to live in their country. And in their land, that is why I got the truth. Yeah, but they didn't only kill Jews, they killed the Israeli Arabs.

Exactly. And kidnapped the twins as yes workers. This was a crime against humanity. It was motivated by a profound hatred of Israel as the Jewish state.

But they conducted and altered and mutilated Thai workers. In fact, the nationals of over 40 countries were abducted, murdered or injured on October 7. Not only is raised, and among the 134 hostages who are still trapped in Gaza are a number of Thai citizens. And a nationals of other countries.

This was an attack, a source of crime against humanity. And Hamas also deliberately targeted Israeli Arabs as well during that attack. And by the way, when we see what is happening around the world with sentiment amongst Muslim communities, it's fascinating to see the change that is happening inside Israel, where the level of identification with the country has gone up among the Israeli Arab community. Or if August 7 has made them feel even more a part of this country than they were before.

When the massacre happened, people were terrified that we would have a repeat of 2021. In 2021, there was a conflict with Gaza, but it wasn't just with us. We saw this mass civil and refugee group of pogroms even conducted by local Arabs that joined in fighting and five homes, synagogues. And that didn't happen this time.

And part of the reason it didn't happen this time is that Israel's Arabs looked around, saw what we were all seeing with the atrocities of October 7. And said, we want to have nothing to do with this. This doesn't represent us. This is not right to us as well, because I also abducted and murdered our people from inside the Arab community as well.

And that's a fascinating shift that we're seeing within Israel as well. Also to a shift. A very positive shift. Absolutely positive shift.

If something positive was contagious, I mean, look, everything about this has been horrific. Everything around this has been horrific. But I hope that one of the effects will be to strengthen Israeli society and make it even more resilient than it was before. The defining feature, I think, of Israeli society has been an ongoing attempt to find normality in the most abnormal circumstances.

People here are used to living at the most incredible pressures and to find ways to try to live and function in this impossible reality. The fact that after a year intense political polarization in Israel, and it was horrific, people were speaking in a language of civil war, whether we should have a two states, there should be Israel, and just liberal Israel and religious Israel just goes separate ways. It was awful. The fact that when October 7 happened, everyone dropped everything and came together is really a mark of credit to Israeli society.

The fact that within days, D.C. off Square and Central Tel Aviv became a central master point for people to collect and distribute donations to gift to soldiers and displaced families. People just took responsibility, didn't wait for the state to act for them, they took responsibility in the act. It's a credit to Israeli society.

And I hope that when you were done with the protesters, wouldn't you? The Jews said the rebellion, reform or rebellion? Yes, yes, yes. It's no secret.

I thought this was going to happen. I was involved in the protest against the government's judicial reform policies. And then what happened happened? And when I was called to the flag and asked whether I would come on board as an official spokesman for the war time emergency government.

I said yes, obviously, because we understand that we are fighting for our lives and the only one. It matters right now. Total victory over our hearts. And I hope that we escape this war after total victory.

Much stronger. And you'll see this by the way with the reservists. 350,000 reservists right now, who have been called up, ripped away from their ordinary lives. These are people who want October 7, like normal jobs or planning vacations, why exploit friends, but you name it.

Who are now fighting shoulder to shoulder, the people from the other side of society that in ordinary lives they would never have anything in common with or any interactions. But they're putting the tank and sent it to Gaza together. I hope that those human interactions will mean that we will leave this war on a much stronger footing as a society. Not that anything good will come from this awful war.

But I think that Israelis are slightly more resilient after this battle by fire. So if we look at the Iranian proxies, all our duties, Iraq, Yishiyy, and the force of us in Gaza, why cut off the tail of the snake? Not its head. Israel has warned that if Hezbollah draws us into a full-scale war, Iran will face consequences.

It cannot activate its proxy forces against Israel and not face consequences. What Israel may or may not be doing on the clandestine level, obviously, I can't go into it. I'm going to want to speculate. But our policy at the moment is to destroy Hamas in Gaza and to aggressively deter anyone else thinking of entering this war, because we don't want the conflict to escalate.

We don't want it too wide. We want to finish the job of bringing to justice the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre and not give others who want to escalate this conflict an opportunity to do so. But they need to know that if they force Israel into a full-scale war in which we will have our backs against the war and will be fighting for our lives, we will fight. We will fight for our democracy.

What do you think the Biden administration's reaction to be around the Iranian aggression has been so weak? Do you think they suspect that Iran already has the bomb or, look, since the start of the war, America's support for Israel against Hamas has been truly remarkable? President Biden paid the first wartime visit of any US president to Israel. The second visit by the president of the United States to any wars that are not controlled by the United States since his own visit to Ukraine.

They've backed us morally, materially, diplomatically, and the fact that they are still standing firm over full months since Damascus is a large reason for it. But the rest of the Western world is also essentially backing Israel's goals. Well, Britain, for instance, and the US are now talking about unilaterally acknowledging the best thing in the United States. When it comes to Hamas, they are still on board with Israel's goal of destroying Hamas.

When you hear Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the European Parliament, calling for a permanent ceasefire, after Hamas has laid down its arms and the hostages are returning. It has a roundabout way of saying, packaging it in a way that is politically palatable, that they subscribe to Israel's war goals of ending this war that Hamas started with a destruction of Hamas in the return of the hostages. Now, that's for the long-term political advisor. Personally, I've been surprised by the constant questioning in interviews about the two states' solution.

Because for us, October, senators changed everything. It's dramatically changed our understanding of the threat level of what is the worst-case scenario and the realistic-case scenario. Let's be honest. Following an Israeli territorial withdrawal, Israelis have been sealed for experience.

In 2000, we withdrew from Lebanon under international pressure, now controlled by an Iranian proxy with 150,000 rockets. Israel withdrew from the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, as part of the Oslo Accords. They were used as a base for the suicide bombings of the 2000s, and we had to recapture those cities. In 2005, we withdrew from the Gaza Strip, gave it to the Palestinians, and in exchange received not only rocket fire at Israeli cities, but also the deaths called to October 7th.

So Israelis think that world leaders are slightly mad when they come to Israel and say, the response to the barbaric massacre that emanated from territory that Israel withdrew from, should be to give the same people the mountains overlooking Tel Aviv, surrounding Jerusalem, that leave Israel nine miles wide at the narrows, from which you can see boats on the sea with the naked eye, populated by people who overwhelmingly up into every Palestinian pole, believe that the October 7th massacre was justified. It's the definition of insanity. It is to give a reward to terrorism. It is also to misdiagnose the problem.

The conflict exists because of the persistent Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish stake any borders whatsoever in the land between the river and the sea, and that's why they chant from the river to the sea, and that's why all their supporters around the West are charted from the river to the sea. They call it for the elimination of the state of Israel. Now, if your response to those demands is to come to Israel, say, listen, we know that on multiple occasions in history, every time you have withdrawn from territory, it has exploded in your faces, in ways far more barbaric and violent than you can imagine, but we need you to take this risk again. Which Israelis say, we've learned from experience, we've learned from experience that this is a real threat to our lives, because we are the ones who have skin in the game and if it backfires.

We are the ones who are going to have to deal with it, and not only are we then going to have to reclaim territory and fight or war, emanating from territory that we withdrew from, but the worst thing of all, we know we're not going to have your support. We know we're not going to have your support when we fight to defend ourselves against an invasion from territory that you told us to withdraw from. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Expected is raised genuinely expected.

But the first rocket that would fall in Israel from Gaza, the international community would support us in fighting against that threat, because we withdrew from territory, you asked us to do that, and therefore obviously we have international legitimacy to defend ourselves against attacks emanating from that territory. And it didn't happen. Every time it was an attack, it was pressure on Israel to stop with a stalemate with a stalemate with a stalemate with a stalemate, until it was brought up amongst just proportions of the deaths, what incinerated families alive and committed in that act of rape on October 7. So it's really to think that suddenly the timing of saying the response to the October 7 massacre should be to get the Palestinians in more territory is madness.

But it has also dramatically changed our assessment of what the threat is and what the worst case scenario is. It's not just that if we withdraw from the West Bank, it could be used as a base for rocket attacks against Israel, like every other territory Israel has withdraw from. Rocket attacks that we can do 20 seconds to run for shelter in Tel Aviv and even less in Jerusalem. It's the threat of similar armed invasions like we saw on October 7 of death sports with a single mission.

A mission they perpetrated by dragging themselves to the eye-walls to make it possible to commit such barbaric atrocities, of murdering as many people as possible, as brutally as possible, it confronted us with the horrific reality of what we are up against. I have two more questions. First, when I brought up the US week response to Iranian aggression, I wasn't talking about Iranian aggression against Israel. I was talking about Iranian aggression against the US because they have been attacking US lists all over the least as well, with casualties as consequence.

So I was wondering what we thought about America's response to that from its own point of view, so to speak. I understand that the United States will have its own complicated set of considerations to take into account. It is also clearly trying to contain the Iranian problem. It does not want to see escalation, but it's going to have to make its own decisions about how it confronts the Iranian.

It's no secret that there have been profound policy disagreements between Israel and the United States about how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat and the threat of Iran acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We would certainly expect the international community to take a much more assertive stance against Iran to make sure that it can never acquire weapons with which to dangle the nuclear solid damages over Israel. God forbid I try to use those weapons. I think it probably wouldn't get my hopes up about the international community.

Well, history teaches us that when people say they want to kill the Jews, it probably takes them seriously. And Israel has been very clear, we will not allow any enemy regime to acquire weapons with which to eliminate our country as they are threatened. So Israel is the only country in the history of the world that has destroyed a nuclear reactor, not once, but twice. In the early 1980s, when the Nakhimbagan's government sent in planes to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor, it was condemned internationally, of course.

And I think years later, people say it's a dangle that the Israelis destroyed Saddam Hussein's WMD program. And then again, in 2008, 9 was it, when Israel destroyed Bashar al-Assad's nuclear reactor, a nuclear reactor he had built in secret with the North Koreans, that the Americans discovered only thanks to Israeli intelligence that brought it to their attention. We cannot allow enemy regimes to acquire the weapons with which they could put some existential threats to our country. And if it is genuinely existential, that is why Israel's policy has always been, we will do whatever it takes to stop that, because ultimately it is our lives on the line.

So what will happen today after you win your war against Hamas? Today after victory over Hamas, we're going to have a new reality at Gaza. And it's a new reality that I hope will create opportunities that people will latch onto. There will be an opportunity for reconstruction in Gaza in a way that ensures that the concrete goes to people's houses this time, and not to the tunnels underneath their houses.

But there needs to be de-radicalization. The Prime Minister has set out his 3D vision for these destroy Hamas, de-military rights Gaza, de-radicalized Palestinian society. We cannot have another generation of Palestinian children. How do you do that?

How do you de-radicalize a population of millions that have, for 18 years, been indoctrinated in some sort of Nazi, is so much a deal to do? So it's a much deeper problem than that. It's not 18 years. It's much longer, because even Hamas uses the Palestinian Authority curriculum in its schools, the same curriculum taught by the UN, by UNRUN.

In those so-called refugee camps that have always acted as breeding routes for violent extrigors, make us digital, de-radicalization can be done. If it could be done in Nazi Germany, I have hoped for Hamas Gaza. If it could be done in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, which has been a huge strides in recent years to promote a different version of Islam, they're not doing what you have. Correct, correct, correct.

But de-radicalization can be done. But here's the challenge. Destroying the Hamas military machine in Gaza? On us.

De-military rights in Gaza? On us. De-radicalizing Palestinian society, that is going to require the involvement of the international community. All the countries that have been funding UNRUN.

The same UNRUN which had employees that took part in the massacre. 12% of whose employees are Hamas or Islamic Jihad activists, operatives. The same UNRUN whose headquarters is sat above a Hamas server farm in a bunker 20 meters underground that was leaching its electricity and setting up the same UNRUN that has been indoctrinating Palestinian children for decades. We need our Western allies to understand the damage that has been done with their tax dollars, their tax pounds, their tax euros.

How instead of fostering an education for peace, they have been exacerbating the conflict. There is a difference between doing things that feel good and doing things that do good. And giving money to an organization that says it's helping refugees feels good. It's done a tremendous amount of damage by entrenching and aggravating this conflict.

And that is why we are calling for UNRUN to be replaced. It's humanitarian functions. It's education functions. We need allies, what to help the Palestinian people, to understand how much damage they have done to the Palestinian people.

And the knowledge of what is in UNRUN is curricula and the way that they glorify violence in Jihad. This is known. All this is known to Western countries. The question isn't how many UNRUN staff took part in the October 7 massacre?

How many UNRUN graduates? How many UNRUN alumni took part in the massacre? And by a rough calculation, if UNRUN provides an education to 70% of Gaza's, 70% of the two 3000 terrorists who took part in October 7th, this time it's to reason. Came out of the UNR education system.

Yes, that is quite important. People with European taxes are horrific. So we are trying to shape the world by the shoulders. And explain the depth of the problem that has emerged under their noses, using their funding, abusing the best of intentions to drive to genuinely do good.

But it's not a tremendous harm. And if the world takes seriously, the task of de-radicalization, it can be done. They just need to tell the Palestinians some tough truths. 1948 is over.

The State of Israel is here to stay. People who are Palestinians, then again, what they call Palestine, under Palestine is government. They do not have a right to recycle in Tel Aviv. Gaza is their home.

And their best hope is to build a prosperous reality next to Israel. Instead of thinking that one day they will violently destroy it. As the presence of an agency that 80 years after the 48 war, still calls on refugees, tells them by indulging that dream of this conflict is going to end, not with a prosperous reality in Gaza, but with the ultimate elimination of the State of Israel. Thank you so much Mr.

Levee. It's been a pleasure. I hope that was interesting. No doubt, we'll provide a slightly different perspective for your listeners and viewers from the ordinary perspective and lens provided within the European media.

And I hope that it will provide the social thought about how we got here and where we got next. I hope so too. Thank you for listening to Deconstructive Criticism with this episode's guest, Mr. Aylon Levee.

You can find Aylon on the X and Instagram as well as in his new podcast, State of a Nation. If you are a patron of Deconstructive Criticism, you can watch all the interviews recorded so far on mypatreon, patreon.com. They will be published to the general public in the coming weeks, but if you can't wait for them to come out, I suggest becoming a patreon. I'm Aaron Flam.

Until next, have a good unit of time.