David Keyes

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For the director of the Extreme Computing Center, see David E. Keyes.

David Keyes
File:David Keyes 2013-11-16 18-16.jpg
Born
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
CitizenshipAmerican, Israeli
Alma materUCLA
Tel Aviv University
OccupationFormer foreign media advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu
PredecessorMark Regev
SuccessorEvan Cohen

David Keyes (/kiːz/) is an Israeli-American public relations representative and human rights activist. Keyes was the executive director[1] of Advancing Human Rights, the co-founder of CyberDissidents.org, and the head of Movements.org, a platform for crowdsourcing human rights.[2] The New York Times called Keyes "a pioneer in online activism."[3] From 2016 to 2018, Keyes was the foreign media advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In December 2018, Keyes resigned from his role as Netanyahu's spokesperson following allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied.[4]

Early life

Keyes was born in Los Angeles, California.[5] He attended Shalhevet High School and University High School.[6] In his youth, he was a top-ranked tennis player in California and played in the junior national championships.[7] He once trained with Andre Agassi and wanted to be a professional tennis player.[7] Keyes graduated with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Middle Eastern studies.[8] While in college, he ran a group called Students Against Dictators and wrote for the UCLA newspaper, the Daily Bruin.[7] In 2004, Keyes conducted research at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he specialized in terrorism and assisted Dore Gold, Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations.[9][10][11] In 2005, Keyes was a research intern at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.[12] He studied Arabic in Cairo in 2006.[13] After immigrating to Israel, Keyes served in the Strategic Division of the Israel Defense Forces and completed a master's degree in diplomacy at Tel Aviv University.[8][14] He is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic.[15]

Career

Satirical stunts

Keyes is a fellow at the Disruptor Foundation, an organization whose mission is to raise awareness of disruptive innovation theory and encourage its application in order to bring about changes in society.[16][17][18] In 2015, Keyes increased his use of humor and satire in order to highlight the human rights records of various countries. He published a number of videos documenting his "punkings" of Saudi and Iranian diplomats.[19] In April 2015, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif gave a talk at New York University. Outside the hall, Keyes led a "celebration" of a milestone: Iran hanging 1,000 prisoners in 18 months.[19] Keyes parked a van on the street and offered free ice cream to passers-by. The theme of the mock celebration was, "Free ice cream; free Iran’s political prisoners."[20]   In summer 2015, Keyes ambushed Iranian diplomats at the nuclear negotiations in Vienna and asked them on camera, "Who's your favorite political prisoner, if you could only pick one?"[19][21] In a hallway inside the hotel, Keyes told Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator in Vienna, "Wendy, congrats on all the success of reducing the rate of hangings in Iran hopefully to only once every two-and-a-half hours."[22][23]

Spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister

In March 2016, Keyes was named the Prime Minister of Israel's spokesperson to foreign media.[22] Keyes replaced Mark Regev, who became Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom.[24] A senior official close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actively recruited Keyes for the position.[25] Before his appointment, Keyes was known as a "wunderkind of online activism."[26] Keyes boosted Netanyahu's performance on social media.[27] Over the next few months, Netanyahu published a series of videos that garnered nearly 40 million views.[28] The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu's viral videos "bear the hallmark of David Keyes."[28] In February 2018, an armed Iranian drone infiltrated Israeli airspace from Syria and was shot down by the Israeli Air Force.[29][30] Keyes proposed that Netanyahu display a piece of the drone at the upcoming Munich Security Conference.[31] Keyes stashed the drone piece under the podium before Netanyahu's speech.[32] While delivering his remarks, Netanyahu brandished the wing flap from the Iranian drone and asked, "Mr. Zarif, do you recognize this? You should. It's yours."[33] Netanyahu's display grabbed headlines around the world and inspired memes on social media.[34] Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called Netanyahu's prop a "cartoonish circus" that "does not even deserve the dignity of a response."[35] Netanyahu said the fact that Zarif was forced to respond was "the whole point" of the display and a public relations win.[32] Keyes was credited for his role in shaping the prime minister's media strategy.[31] In April 2018, Keyes said that Yaser Murtaja, a Palestinian photographer killed by Israeli soldiers during demonstrations on the Gaza border, was a Hamas officer who used his drone to collect intelligence on Israeli positions.[36] "I saw the intelligence myself," Keyes said. "There is not a scintilla of doubt."[37]

Netanyahu displays piece of armed Iranian drone
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu displays a piece of an armed Iranian drone that was shot down over Israel after infiltrating from Syria.[38] The idea to display the drone piece came from David Keyes.[39]

In June 2018, Keyes was credited with producing a viral video in which Netanyahu offered to share Israeli water technology with Iran, which suffers from severe drought.[40][41] "The Iranian people are the victims of a cruel and tyrannical regime that denies them vital water," Netanyahu said. "Israel stands with the people of Iran and that is why I want to help save countless Iranian lives."[41] The video received five million views in five days.[42] In addition, nearly 100,000 Iranians joined the Israeli government's Persian-language Telegram account in a 24-hour period. The video received wide media coverage in Iran, and many Iranian people reacted positively. The Iranian government responded to the video by rejecting Netanyahu's offer of help.[42] Keyes said that the main goal of publishing videos about Iran was to "[r]each out directly to the Iranian people and show them that Israel is their friend, not – as the Iranian regime says – their enemy."[41] Eli Lake, a foreign policy columnist for Bloomberg, credited Keyes' "revolutionary pedigree" from his time as a human rights activist for encouraging Netanyahu to speak directly to the Iranian people.[43] In July 2018, Keyes crafted a video for Netanyahu that called on the world to help Iranians improve their lives by standing up to "a regime that oppresses them and denies them a life of dignity, prosperity, and respect."[44][45] Netanyahu told the story of an imaginary 15-year-old girl called Fatemeh whose daily life is full of hardships.[46] The video was viewed more than 1.5 million times in ten days on Netanyahu's social media accounts.[45] Fox News' Sean Hannity put the video on the top of his Twitter feed for more than 16 hours, where US President Donald Trump, along with Hannity's 3.6 million other followers, would likely see it.[47] An Iranian student seeking political asylum in the United States said that Netanyahu's video messages to the Iranian people "resonated with many Iranians" and "made Israel popular in Iran."[48] In July 2018, Keyes was reported to be the leading candidate to replace Danny Danon as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.[49] Keyes resigned from his position in December 2018 following accusations of sexual misconduct, which he denied.[4]

Controversy

File:Sebastian Kurz Arbeitsbesuch Israel (26981343221).jpg
Keyes looks on as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz sign a memorandum of understanding, 16 May 2016.

Before Keyes formally began his role as Netanyahu's spokesman, he underwent a lengthy vetting process for the job that brought him into the prime minister's inner circle.[50] As part of the vetting process, Keyes passed a polygraph test during which he was asked questions about whether he was involved in any criminal or sexual offenses.[50] In April 2016, one day after Keyes posted his first official tweet as Netanyahu's spokesperson, an anonymous complaint of sexual assault against Keyes was reported in Israeli media.[50] The Jerusalem Post reported at the time that the complaint came from an anti-Israel activist who was denied entry to Israel in 2014.[50] Keyes unequivocally denied the allegation.[50] In September 2018, New York Senate candidate Julia Salazar publicly accused Keyes of sexual assault.[51] Salazar said she did so in order to preempt a planned story by The Daily Caller that she learned about beforehand which would have named her as the anonymous complainant from April 2016.[52][53] Keyes denied her allegations, saying, "This false accusation is made by someone who has proven to be repeatedly dishonest about her own life. This is yet another example of her dishonesty."[53] Following these reports, a total of fourteen additional women subsequently came out with allegations of improper behavior; ten of them remained anonymous.[54] One report said that in 2013, Keyes had been barred from entering The Wall Street Journal opinion section's offices without appointment due to complaints made by female employees. Bret Stephens, then the deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's opinion section, called Keyes a "disgrace to men" and "a disgrace as a Jew" in barring him from the office, and Keyes later sent apology emails "for being less than gentlemanly."[55] Another women, a North American immigrant to Israel, described an "aggressive, sexual advance", which she described in detail, made by Keyes weeks after he became Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesperson for the international media. Israel's Channel 10 reported that two female employees at the Washington, DC, think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies had also complained to their superiors about Keyes having "harassed" them in 2013.[56] In response, Keyes said that "all of the accusations are deeply misleading and many of them are categorically false."[54] In September 2018, the Israeli Civil Service Commission looked into the complaints voiced about Keyes.[57] The commission also investigated the role of Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer who had acknowledged that he was warned that Keyes was likely to be a threat to women working at the Prime Minister's office, but failed to alert the relevant authorities.[58] Two months later, the commission closed its case, with its spokesperson stating that while Keyes may have acted improperly, it did not constitute a criminal or disciplinary offense.[58][59] "There is no evidence or even a snippet of evidence to indicate a disciplinary offense or an act that constitutes sexual harassment by Keyes during the time he served as a civil servant," the commission said in a letter, but that its decision "does not determine anything regarding other questions that were raised concerning the allegations against Keyes, including the question of whether he is fit to serve in his role."[59] The commissioner, Prof. Hershkovitz explained that his reason for closing the enquiry was that the alleged offences had taken place before Mr Keyes was a government employee and that no criminal complaint had been registered with the police. On 12 December 2018, Keyes resigned from his post.[60] Keyes released a statement after his resignation, saying, "I thank the Israel Civil Service Commission for closing its probe against me, stating 'There is no evidence or even a shred of evidence' of wrongdoing as an employee of the government."[61] Following Keyes' resignation, Netanyahu published a statement praising Keyes for his work[62] saying, "I thank David Keyes for his great contribution to Israel's information effort. David pioneered groundbreaking videos which presented basic facts about Israel and enabled me to present Israel's policies to a global audience. Millions of people around the world viewed these videos with appreciation, and the messages aimed at the Iranian public were received with particular enthusiasm by many Iranian citizens. All this attests to David's talents and his contribution. I wish him much success on his future course."[63]

References

  1. ↑ Advancing Human Rights. "People". Advancing Human Rights. Archived from the original on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
  2. ↑ Bornstein, David (2 October 2015). "Crowdsourcing for Human Rights". Opinionator. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  3. ↑ Shane, Scott (11 June 2012). "Groups to Aid Online Activists in Authoritarian Countries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Netanyahu spokesman resigns in aftermath of sexual misconduct allegations". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 12 December 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  5. ↑ Eichner, Itamar (18 March 2016). "Netanyahu appoints provocative activist as spokesperson". Ynetnews. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  6. ↑ Gray, Beverly (23 August 2011). "Kitchen Classroom". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "A Conversation with David Keyes on Advancing Human Rights | Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs". www.carnegiecouncil.org. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Ahren, Raphael. "PM to tap US-born human rights activist as new spokesman". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  9. ↑ Ravid, Barak (19 January 2019). "Netanyahu Taps U.S. Activist Critical of China, Egypt as Media Czar". Haaretz. Keyes also worked at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which was headed until a few months ago by the current director general of the Foreign Ministry and another close Netanyahu associate, Dr. Dore Gold. David Keyes stepped down from this role in 2018 after multiple sexual assault allegations surfaced regarding him.
  10. ↑ Amidror, Yaakov; Keyes, David (8 November 2004). "Will a Gaza "Hamas-stan" Become a Future Al-Qaeda Sanctuary?". www.jcpa.org. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Archived from the original on 9 November 2004. David Keyes is specializing on terrorism at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and assisting Dr. Dore Gold.
  11. ↑ Gold, Dore (2007). The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Washington, D.C.: Regnery. pp. 326. ISBN 978-1-59698-042-6. OCLC 826516649. David Keyes resumed my past collaboration with him on studying the lessons of the Camp David/Taba period from 2000-2001 and produced first-class analytical work in this area.
  12. ↑ Abu Libdeh, Samer; Keyes, David (18 November 2005). "Terror Attacks Highlight Case for Reform in Jordan". Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Archived from the original on 3 January 2020. David Keyes is a research intern with the Institute's Military and Security Studies Program.
  13. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :10
  14. ↑ "David Keyes". Warsaw Dialogue for Democracy. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  15. ↑ "Keyes officially appointed PM's English language spokesman - Breaking News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  16. ↑ "FELLOWS: K". Disruptor Awards. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019.
  17. ↑ "Disruptor Foundation". Disruptor Awards. Archived from the original on 9 July 2018. Disruptor Foundation is co-founded by Craig Hatkoff, Irwin Kula and Professor Clayton Christensen in 2009, the Disruptor Foundation is a private 501(C)3 non-profit whose mission is to raise awareness of and encourage the advancement of disruptive innovation theory and its application in societally-critical domains.
  18. ↑ "Disruptor David Keyes on The Sony Hack". Disruptor Awards. 25 January 2017. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. This blog post is a re-post of an article written by 'The Daily Beast' contributor David M. Keyes, one of our Disruptor Foundation Fellows.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :0
  20. ↑ Weiss, David Feith And Bari (May 2015). "Ice Cream With Raspberries, Iranian-Style". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  21. ↑ "WATCH: Activist Trolls Iranian Diplomats Negotiating Nuclear Deal in Vienna". Haaretz. 11 July 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Eichner, Itamar (18 March 2016). "Netanyahu appoints provocative activist as spokesperson". Ynetnews. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  23. ↑ "Iran's Nuclear Negotiators Punked in Vienna". The Weekly Standard. 9 July 2015. Archived from the original on 5 December 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  24. ↑ "Netanyahu Appoints U.S. Activist Critical of China, Egypt as Foreign Media Czar". Haaretz. 14 March 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  25. ↑ "Meet some of the most influential English-speakers in Israeli politics - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  26. ↑ "In crisis after crisis, Israel is losing the public relations war. Is it winnable?". Los Angeles Times. 8 August 2018. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  27. ↑ Lubell, Maayan; Baker, Luke (31 January 2017). "Netanyahu tweets like Trump. Great idea!". Reuters. Retrieved 21 October 2019. The ramping-up of Netanyahu's presence on Twitter and Facebook has largely taken place since he appointed a new English-language spokesman in early 2016 - American-born David Keyes, who has a background in online video campaigns.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Keinon, Herb (3 August 2016). "Netanyahu falls in love with video clips, the new Israel-Palestinian battleground". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  29. ↑ Kershner, Isabel (14 April 2018). "Iranian Drone Launched From Syria was Armed, Israel Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  30. ↑ Alexander Fulbright. "Iranian drone shot down in northern Israel in February was armed with explosives". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Landau, Noa; Levinson, Chaim (6 March 2018). "Netanyahu's Millennials: The Loyal Crew That's Sticking Around Israel's Embattled Leader". Haaretz. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Gross, Judah Ari. "Netanyahu: My Iran speech was meant to sway US to renew sanctions". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  33. ↑ Witte, Griffe; Birnbaum, Michael (18 February 2018). "Brandishing drone fragment, Netanyahu warns that Iran risks conflict". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  34. ↑ Sommer, Allison Kaplan (18 February 2018). "Props to Bibi: How Netanyahu's Visual Aids Made Him an Unlikely Trendsetter". Haaretz. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  35. ↑ Schreck, Carl. "Israel, Iran Trade Barbs at Munich Security Conference". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  36. ↑ Frantzman, Seth (13 April 2018). "Terrorist or journalist? Who really was the slain Gazan Yaser Murtaja?". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 13 April 2018.
  37. ↑ Tarnopolsky, Noga; Abu Alouf, Rushdi (2 April 2019). "Journalist or terrorist? Palestinian's death at Gaza border a year ago still unresolved". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019.
  38. ↑ "Benjamin Netanyahu warns Iran: 'Do not test Israel's resolve'". The Independent. 18 February 2018. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  39. ↑ "Netanyahu got idea for drone stunt from adviser". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  40. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Ind Ask Iran
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 "Are Netanyahu's messages to the Iranians working? - Middle East - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Kahana, Ariel (18 June 2018). "Netanyahu's water tech offer draws wave of Iranian support". Israel Hayom. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  43. ↑ Lake, Eli (2 July 2018). "Benjamin Netanyahu, YouTube Star". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019.
  44. ↑ "In latest English-language video, Netanyahu asks the world to help Iran". The Times of Israel. 30 July 2018. Archived from the original on 30 July 2018.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 "In crisis after crisis, Israel is losing the public relations war. Is it winnable?". Los Angeles Times. 8 August 2018. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018.
  46. ↑ "Netanyahu (Love) Bombs Iran on Twitter: Effective Public Diplomacy or Geopolitical Trolling?". Haaretz. 31 July 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  47. ↑ Kaplan Sommer, Allison (31 July 2018). "Netanyahu (Love) Bombs Iran on Twitter: Effective Public Diplomacy or Geopolitical Trolling?". Haaretz. The video sat on top of the Twitter feed of Fox News' Sean Hannity for more than 16 hours – from Sunday night into Monday – where Trump, along with Hannity's 3.6 million other followers, would likely spot it as they began their week.
  48. ↑ Khatiri, Shay (9 December 2019). "Netanyahu's social media campaign has revived Israel's image in Iran". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 9 December 2019. One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's greatest foreign policy legacies remains unseen to most Israelis and the world: He has made Israel popular in Iran! It all started with Netanyahu's video campaign on social media, which coincided with the Islamic Republic's rapid deterioration of popularity. In a series of social media videos, Netanyahu directly spoke with the Iranian people with Persian subtitles, and the videos went viral on social media and messaging apps among Iranian users.
  49. ↑ "Jewish Insider's Daily Kickoff: July 30, 2018". Haaretz. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 50.2 50.3 50.4 "New PM spokesman 'unequivocally' denies sexual assault allegation - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  51. ↑ Netanyahu Spokesman Denies Sexual Assault Claim by N.Y. State Senate Candidate Julia Salazar, Haaretz, 12 September 2018
  52. ↑ "Julia Salazar Campaign Says Daily Caller Plans To Out Her As Sexual Assault Survivor". Archived from the original on 11 September 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Schapiro, Rich (11 September 2018). "Brooklyn state Senate hopeful Julia Salazar says she was sexually assaulted by spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu". NY Daily News. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Sommer, Allison Kaplan (12 September 2018). "Ten More Women Accuse Netanyahu Spokesman Keyes of Improper Behavior". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  55. ↑ Halbfinger, David M. (13 September 2018). "Netanyahu Aide Steps Aside After Sexual Assault Allegations". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  56. ↑ Ahren, Raphael. "Keyes accused of making 'aggressive' sexual advance while serving as PM's aide". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  57. ↑ "Civil Service Commission drops probe into Keyes's alleged misconduct in Israel". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 Ahren, Raphael. "Civil Service Commission looking into complaints against Keyes, Dermer". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 Heruti-Sover, Tali (29 November 2018). "Sexual Misconduct Case Against Netanyahu Spokesman Keyes Closed". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  60. ↑ "Netanyahu's adviser accused of sexual assault, including by NY politician, resigns". NBC News. 12 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  61. ↑ Keidar, Nitsan (13 December 2018). "Netanyahu's Public Diplomacy Adviser steps down". Israel National News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021.
  62. ↑ "Netanyahu's adviser accused of sexual assault resigns". AP NEWS. 12 December 2018. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  63. ↑ "i24NEWS". www.i24news.tv. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
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