Report: New police chief said seeing men kiss in public disgusts him
Daniel Levy said to have made comments in presence of then-district spokesman, who reportedly peppered his daily conversations with officers with ‘homo’ slur
Recently appointed Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy made homophobic comments in a conversation in his office earlier this year, according to a Channel 12 news report on Sunday.
Levy, who was sworn into his new role as police chief a few weeks ago, reportedly made the comments while chief of the Coastal District, in conversation with Israel Police spokesman Aryeh Doron, then the Coastal District spokesman, who invited the visitor into Levy’s office.
“Hi, how are you? What are those tight jeans? Don’t tell me you are part of the [LGBT] community now?” Levy said according to the quotes cited by the news network.
When the visitor replied that he was not, Levy reportedly said, “Are you sure? Not that I care, I don’t have anything personal against them, but it disgusts me.”
“I don’t understand, what is disgusting?” the visitor asked. Doron chimed in: “Those that do it in public.”
“I can’t look at two men together in the street holding hands or two men kissing outside, it’s disgusting,” Levy reportedly said.
The network did not publish a recording of the conversation, but rather a transcript of what was reportedly said in the room.
Additionally, a former officer in the Coastal District told Channel 12 that Doron would regularly use the phrase “you homo” as a derogatory slur peppered in his everyday conversation when speaking to other police officers.
“That’s the guy, that’s his style and with time you get used to it because he was backed up by the district chief [Levy],” the unnamed officer said.
In response to the report, police told Channel 12 that Levy had “friendly and excellent relations with the LGBT community and its leaders, and worked a lot to strengthen the police’s ties with them” throughout his career in law enforcement.
However, the statement did not convince The Aguda – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel, which told Channel 12 that such comments had no place in the police “or any other body responsible for the security of the members of the LGBTQ community.”
“We can only wonder whether LGBT-phobia was one of the criteria for choosing a new police chief. We invite the commissioner, if it does not disgust him too much, to sit with us and hear about the violence the members of the community experience because of the unprecedented incitement and hatred toward us in the last two years,” the organization added.
Levy was appointed as the new police chief after far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s first choice, Avshalom Peled, withdrew his candidacy over heavy opposition to him filling the role.
He was sworn in last month in a ceremony where Ben Gvir praised Levy as someone who “comes with a Zionist and Jewish agenda and will lead the police according to the policy I have set for him.”
The day after Levy was sworn in, the Movement for Quality of Government petitioned the High Court of Justice to cancel his appointment, claiming that the process of selecting him was deeply flawed and adding that he was not qualified for the position.
The petition pointed to a rise in crime rates in Coastal District while Levy commanded it and added that the new police chief lacked independence and was willing to fulfill Ben Gvir’s instructions without question.
The court gave the respondents — the Israeli government, Ben Gvir, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, and Levy — until September 26 to respond but refused to freeze Levy’s appointment in the meantime.
Critics have accused Ben Gvir of effectively taking over the police and subjugating the force to his control. The far-right minister has reportedly ordered the police not to prevent extremists from attacking trucks bringing supplies to Gaza amid the war there.
Police officers have also been accused of failing to arrest settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank, and of standing idly by when far-right mobs stormed army bases on July 29 following the arrest of IDF reservists accused of sodomizing a Palestinian inmate.
