The Other Netanyahu
Caption: Yoni Netanyahu, in a photograph taken shortly before his death at Entebbe in 1976. (GPO, Wikimedia)
Benjamin Netanyahu was the second of three brothers. His older brother, Yoni, was the outstanding soldier of his officers’ training course, fought in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, was the commander of a tank battalion and led the Entebbe rescue operation in which he lost his life.
Since his death, the Netanyahu family has guarded the reputation of Yoni. They oversaw the publication of his letters and promoted him as a warrior hero of Israel, which he was.
I cannot help but wonder what Yoni would make of his younger brother Benjamin. No one can say for sure, but I think that his letters give us a good idea. The collection includes the text of Yoni’s farewell speech to the tank battalion that he commanded. In it, he offered these thoughts:
“I believe in a number of things that I consider essential for maintaining any organization, of whatever size – and these I’d like to leave with you…
- I believe first of all in common sense, which should guide all of our actions.
- I also believe in the responsibility of commanders. A good commander – whether in charge of a tank, a platoon, a company, transport or supply – is one who feels absolutely responsible for anything connected, even indirectly, with his command.
- I believe that the buck should not be passed to anyone else – that it should stop here, with us.”
Those simple words capture for me the failure of Benjamin Netanyahu as a politician, a Prime Minister and a Commander-in-Chief.
Benjamin Netanyahu has denied all responsibility for the situation that gave rise to the events of October 7, including funding Hamas via Qatar, failing to appreciate the threat from Gaza, believing that Hamas was subjugated and becoming more ‘accommodating,’ ignoring intelligence in the years, months and weeks before October 7, relying on inadequate defense barriers and other technology and failing to prepare a rapid response in case of emergency.
Common sense would demand that a Commission of Inquiry be urgently appointed to learn the lessons. But Netanyahu has blocked it. And he has deliberately made the collection of evidence about October 7 difficult by, for example, refusing to allow the recording of cabinet meetings.
He has forced the resignation of the head of the army, the intelligence forces, the Shin Bet, the Head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and is trying but has not yet succeeded in getting the attorney general to resign. All of these individuals and others besides are guilty of massive failings in his view. But Bibi is innocent because the Shin Bet commander failed to wake him early on October 7.
I wish that Yoni Netanyahu’s words were inscribed on the wall of the Prime Minister’s office like the Gettysburg address in the Lincoln Memorial: “I believe that the buck should not be passed to anyone else – that it should stop here, with us.”
The preface to Yoni’s letters is an ‘Ode to Yoni’ written by Benjamin Netanyahu. It includes the following tribute:
“Shortly after Yoni fell at Entebbe, I met with a British television producer to discuss a dramatization of my brother’s life. After reviewing the events of Yoni’s life and death, the producer said to me: “Leave it alone. A great biography of a great life needs the perspective of decades.” Two decades have passed since that day and each year I am reminded of the wisdom of that advice. For Yoni’s image grows with the passage of time, as does the appreciation of his unique character.”
We don’t need to wait two decades to know how Benjamin Netanyahu will be remembered. No amount of obfuscation, political maneuvering or destruction of evidence will disguise the shambolic decisions, the inept judgments, the blundering cover ups and the shockingly misdirected actions of Benjamin Netanyahu in the war that followed October 7. Benjamin Netanyahu will be reviled as one of the worst leaders in Jewish history, responsible for incalculable damage to the world’s only Jewish state and to the reputation of Judaism itself.
And Yoni, I imagine, is turning in his grave on Mount Herzl.