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David Keyes

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

David Keyes
Born
Los Angeles, California
CitizenshipAmerican, Israeli[citation needed]
Alma materUCLA
Tel Aviv University[citation needed]
OccupationFormer foreign media advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu

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[2] of CyberDissidents.org, and the head of Movements.org, a platform for crowdsourcing human rights.[3] The New York Times called Keyes "a pioneer in online activism."[4] From 2016 to 2018, Keyes was the foreign media advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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 in 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] After immigrating to Israel, he served in the Strategic Division of the Israel Defense Forces and pursued a master’s degree in diplomacy at Tel Aviv University.[8] He is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic.[9]

Career

Human rights activism

While working for former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky in Israel, Keyes founded CyberDissidents.org, a site meant to “highlight the voices of democratic online activists in the Middle East.”[10] CyberDissidents was a database and a platform for dissidents who wanted to reach a wider audience.[10] Keyes was a keynote speaker at a conference on internet freedom organized by former President George W. Bush.[11]

In 2008, Keyes organized a protest at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv to decry the ongoing detention of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer.[12] The assistant Egyptian consul emerged to speak with the protesters and claimed he had no knowledge of Amer's imprisonment.[12]

In 2010, Keyes was approached by Robert L. Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch. Bernstein was interested in finding new ways to open closed societies. Bernstein saw potential in CyberDissidents and asked Keyes to help establish a new group called Advancing Human Rights.[10]

In 2012, Advancing Human Rights joined forces with Movements, an online platform for human rights activists founded in 2008 by Jared Cohen, the director of Google Ideas.[4] Cohen said his group was looking for a partner and reviewed many human rights organizations before approaching Keyes.[4] Cohen said he was impressed with Keyes' “phenomenal network of cyberactivists in the Middle East and North Africa.”[4] Keyes reintroduced Movements in 2014 as a platform for crowdsourcing human rights.[3]

In 2013, Keyes confronted Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in New York about human rights in Iran.[13] Keyes asked Zarif when Majid Tavakoli, one of Iran's most prominent student activists, would be freed from prison.[13] Zarif responded: "I don't know him."[13][14] Soon after, thousands of Iranians took to social media to demand to know how it was possible that their foreign minister was unaware of his nation's most famous political prisoners. As a result of the uproar, Tavakoli was granted leave from prison.[15] Keyes said he was "totally overjoyed" that his confrontation with Zarif led to Tavakoli's release.[13]

On 13 October 2013, Keyes co-authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal with Garry Kasparov, a former presidential candidate in Russia and former world chess champion.[16] The article launched Keyes' new initiative, Dissident Squared, to rename the streets in front of the embassies of dictatorships after political prisoners. The Daily Beast cited Keyes as the "brainchild" of Dissident Squared and said it had "earned the support of major human rights luminaries and fighters for freedom around the world."[17]

In 2014, Keyes was the driving force behind the bipartisan effort in Congress to rename the street address of the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, to No. 1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza, after the famed Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner.[18][19] The regime of Xi Jinping became obsessed with the possibility that Congress would pass legislation renaming the street.[20] The Washington Post reported that Chinese officials demanded that the U.S. administration bury the bill.[20] The issue threatened to became a major irritant in U.S.-China relations.[20]

Satirical stunts

In 2015, Keyes increased his use of humor and satire in order to highlight the human rights records of oppressive regimes. 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."[21]  

In spring 2015, the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission announced that its annual job fair would be taking place at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Keyes used the opportunity to protest Saudi Arabia's treatment of homosexuals; he threw a "big gay party" in the lobby of the Gaylord.[22][23] Keyes also prodded Saudi Arabia in a video called "Abdullah: Let Your Women Drive."[19] He delivered his address in fluent Arabic.[19]

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][24] 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."[25] After hearing Keyes' comment, Sherman dropped her purse.[25][26]

Spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister

File:Benjamin Netanyahu and David Keyes.jpg
David Keyes (right) in a discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

In March 2016, Keyes was named the Prime Minister of Israel's spokesperson to foreign media.[25][27] A senior official close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actively recruited Keyes for the position.[28]

Over the next few months, Netanyahu published a series of videos on social media that garnered hundreds of thousands of viewers across a number of platforms in a matter of hours.[29] The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu's viral videos "bear the hallmark of David Keyes."[29]

Keyes was credited with writing Netanyahu's viral video response to the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016.[30][31] In the video, Netanyahu said the casualties were victims of homophobia and intolerance and called on people not to give in to "hate and fear." Netanyahu called on people to embrace the LGBT community, "comfort them, tell them you stand together, we stand together as one, and that you will always remember the victims."[32] The Financial Times called the video "a masterclass in responding to tragedy."[33] The video was seen by more than 22 million people.[30] It was by far the most-watched video statement ever put out by Netanyahu.[30]

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.[31][34] "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."[34] The video received five million views in five days.[35] In addition, nearly 100,000 Iranians joined the Israeli government's Farsi-language Telegram account in a 24-hour period. The video received wide media coverage in Iran, and many Iranian people reacted positively. The Iranian regime responded to the video by rejecting Netanyahu's offer of help.[35] 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."[34]

In July 2018, Keyes was reported to be the leading candidate to replace Danny Danon as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.[36]

Keyes resigned from his position in December 2018 in order to pursue opportunities in the private sector.[37]

Sexual assault accusations

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.[38] 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.[38] 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.[38] The Jerusalem Post reported at the time that the complaint came from an anti-Israel activist who was denied entry to Israel in 2014.[38] Keyes unequivocally denied the allegation.[38]

In September 2018, New York Senate candidate Julia Salazar, publicly accused Keyes of sexual assault.[39] 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.[40][41][42] 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."[42] Eleven additional women subsequently came out with allegations of improper behavior; ten of them remained anonymous.[43] In response, Keyes said that “all of the accusations are deeply misleading and many of them are categorically false.”[43] It further emerged 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.[44] In addition to establishing that arrangement in response to Keyes’ alleged behavior, Bret Stephens, then the section’s deputy editor and now a New York Times columnist, said in response to queries that he had at the time called Keyes a “disgrace to men” and a “disgrace as a Jew” on account of his misconduct.[45] Keyes said he was taking a leave of absence from his position to clear his name.[46]

In September 2018, the Israeli Civil Service Commission looked into the complaints voiced about Keyes.[47] Two months later, the commission closed its case.[48] "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.[48] On December 12, 2018, Keyes resigned from his post.[49] 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."[50] In a statement following Keyes' resignation, Netanyahu praised Keyes for his "groundbreaking videos" and "great contribution to Israel's information effort."[51]

References

  1. ^ Advancing Human Rights. "People". Advancing Human Rights. Archived from the original on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 11 November 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "Experts and Board of Advisors". CyberDissidents.org. 15 November 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
  3. ^ a b Bornstein, David (2 October 2015). "Crowdsourcing for Human Rights". Opinionator. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Shane, Scott (11 June 2012). "Groups to Aid Online Activists in Authoritarian Countries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  5. ^ "Netanyahu appoints provocative activist as spokesperson". Ynetnews. 18 March 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  6. ^ Gray, Beverly (23 August 2011). "Kitchen Classroom". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  7. ^ a b c "A Conversation with David Keyes on Advancing Human Rights | Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs". www.carnegiecouncil.org. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  8. ^ a b Ahren, Raphael. "PM to tap US-born human rights activist as new spokesman". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  9. ^ "Keyes officially appointed PM's English language spokesman - Breaking News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  10. ^ a b c Plante, Stephie Grob. "Google wants to bring out the digital activist in you". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  11. ^ Morozov, Evgeny. (2011). The net delusion : the dark side of internet freedom (1st ed.). New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 9781586488741. OCLC 515438457.
  12. ^ a b "Let my blogger go!". Ynetnews. 11 June 2008. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  13. ^ a b c d "Majid Tavakoli, prominent Iranian political prisoner, freed after Facebook backlash". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  14. ^ Keyes, David (9 October 2013). "Iran's Foreign Minister Loves Facebook Despite Banning It at Home". Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  15. ^ "Iranian Activist Granted Prison Leave". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  16. ^ "Issuing a Streetwise Challenge to Dictators". The Wall Street Journal. 13 November 2012.
  17. ^ James Kirchick (4 November 2012). "Magnitsky Plaza? Let's Rename the Streets Outside Dictators' Embassies". The Daily Beast.
  18. ^ Taylor, Adam (25 June 2014). "The not-so-subtle diplomatic tactic of renaming streets to troll other countries". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  19. ^ a b c d e f Booth, William (18 March 2016). "Netanyahu's new spokesman liked to 'punk' Iranian diplomats". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  20. ^ a b c Rogin, Josh (30 July 2017). "Trump administration quietly pressing China to free Liu Xiaobo's widow". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  21. ^ Weiss, David Feith And Bari. "Ice Cream With Raspberries, Iranian-Style". WSJ. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  22. ^ "WATCH: Saudi Arabian Job Fair at Gaylord Gets Punked". www.advocate.com. 2 June 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  23. ^ Mael, Daniel; Center, ContributorFellow at the Salomon (1 June 2015). "Activist Punks Saudi Arabia With Gay Rights Party". HuffPost. Retrieved 1 July 2019. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  24. ^ "WATCH: Activist Trolls Iranian Diplomats Negotiating Nuclear Deal in Vienna". Haaretz. 11 July 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  25. ^ a b c Eichner, Itamar (18 March 2016). "Netanyahu appoints provocative activist as spokesperson". Ynetnews. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  26. ^ "Iran's Nuclear Negotiators Punked in Vienna". The Weekly Standard. 9 July 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  27. ^ Cook, Jonathan (18 March 2016). "Netanyahu's spokesman David Keyes viewed as snub to US". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 20 September 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  28. ^ "Meet some of the most influential English-speakers in Israeli politics - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  29. ^ a b "Netanyahu falls in love with video clips, the new Israel-Palestinian battleground - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  30. ^ a b c "More than 22 million click on Netanyahu social media response to Orlando massacre - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  31. ^ a b "'I asked Netanyahu's chief social media man why he made his football video about Iran – this is what he told me'". The Independent. 27 June 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  32. ^ Ahren, Raphael. "Netanyahu: Orlando casualties were victims of homophobia". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  33. ^ Leith, Sam (June 2016). "Benjamin Netanyahu's masterclass in responding to tragedy". Financial Times. Retrieved 1 July 2019. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  34. ^ a b c "Are Netanyahu's messages to the Iranians working? - Middle East - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  35. ^ a b Kahana, Ariel (18 June 2018). "Netanyahu's water tech offer draws wave of Iranian support". Israel Hayom. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  36. ^ "Jewish Insider's Daily Kickoff: July 30, 2018". Haaretz. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  37. ^ "Netanyahu spokesman resigns in aftermath of sexual misconduct allegations". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  38. ^ a b c d e "New PM spokesman 'unequivocally' denies sexual assault allegation - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  39. ^ Netanyahu Spokesman Denies Sexual Assault Claim by N.Y. State Senate Candidate Julia Salazar, Haaretz, 12 September 2018
  40. ^ "Julia Salazar Campaign Says Daily Caller Plans To Out Her As Sexual Assault Survivor". Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  41. ^ "Julia Salazar accuses Netanyahu spokesman of sexual assault". 11 September 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  42. ^ a b Schapiro, Rich. "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.
  43. ^ a b Sommer, Allison Kaplan (12 September 2018). "Ten More Women Accuse Netanyahu Spokesman Keyes of Improper Behavior". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  44. ^ 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.
  45. ^ "Israel's US ambassador did not pass on warning of sexual misconduct by Netanyahu aide". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 14 September 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  46. ^ "Netanyahu aide on leave after allegations from NY state Senate candidate Salazar, others". Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  47. ^ "Civil Service Commission drops probe into Keyes's alleged misconduct in Israel". Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  48. ^ a b Heruti-Sover, Tali (29 November 2018). "Sexual Misconduct Case Against Netanyahu Spokesman Keyes Closed". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  49. ^ "Netanyahu's adviser accused of sexual assault, including by NY politician, resigns". NBC News. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  50. ^ Ahren, Raphael. "Netanyahu spokesman Keyes officially quits after sexual misconduct allegations". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  51. ^ "i24NEWS". www.i24news.tv. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
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