Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Page 11

Corrections for the Record From Prof. Benzion Netanyahu

An attorney for Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, father of Israel’s prime minister, has contacted this magazine concerning references to Professor Netanyahu in an article that began on p. 11 of the Jan./Feb. issue of the Washington Report (see full text of letter on p. 97 of this issue). The article was entitled “Netanyahu and Saddam: U.S. Diplomacy’s Problem Children Have More in Common Than Supporters Admit.”

Professor Netanyahu had specific objections to the references to him. He denied that he had ever told his son, or anyone else, in reference to the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967, that the war was a great triumph but within 25 years some Israeli leader would try to give all of this land back for peace. We accept Professor Netanyahu’s denial of the quotation attributed to him.

Professor Netanyahu also objected to a reference to himself as a “long-time associate of Menachem Begin” and a member “in the Jewish national underground,” and to another statement that “in fact, [Binyamin] Netanyahu’s father was one of the top Jewish terrorists, competing for that honor with Yitzhak Shamir, who beat him out as leader of the extremist Jewish revisionists when their founder, Vladimir Jabotinsky, died in 1940.”

Professor Netanyahu’s lawyer informed us that “Professor Netanyahu never had any association with Menachem Begin when the latter was the leader of the ‘underground movement,’ or when Begin led the political opposition movement, the Herut. They did not have any association when Mr. Begin was Prime Minister either...Professor Netanyahu did not join Mr. Begin’s political party, and was never an associate of his in any undertaking.”

In the same letter Professor Netanyahu’s lawyer informed us that “Professor Netanyahu was never a ‘terrorist’ and never competed with Yitzhak Shamir for anything. When Mr. Jabotinsky died, Mr. Shamir had no position of leadership in the revisionist movement. Professor Netanyahu did not belong to any group that Mr. Shamir belonged to. These two gentlemen, Mr. Shamir and Professor Netanyahu, had no relationship.”

The Washington Report accepts the truth of all of these statements. We assume that our author reached his conclusions because of uncertainty as to when Professor Netanyahu left Revisionist circles and when the two armed organizations that grew out of the revisionist movement, the Irgun Zvai Leumi headed by Menachem Begin and Lehi (the Stern Gang) later headed by Yitzhak Shamir, began their terrorist activities.

Below are two citations from an article about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu written by staff writer Serge Schmeman in the Nov. 23, 1997 New York Times Magazine. We believe the citations do not contradict Professor Netanyahu’s denials, but also clarify how our author reached what we now recognize as unwarranted conclusions:

“...Netanyahu also deflects questions about his relations with his father, Benzion Netanyahu, a historian and zealous student of the radical nationalist teachings of Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Russian Zionist who advocated Jewish military strength and no accommodation with the Arabs. In the late 40s, the elder Netanyahu broke with younger followers of Jabotinsky, led by Menachem Begin. As a result, he spent much of his adult life in bitter, self-imposed exile in the United States, primarily at a small Jewish college outside of Philadelphia...

“The elder Netanyahu’s frustrated political ambitions and his extreme and fiercely held beliefs have generated considerable speculation about the impact of father on son, speculation that the Prime Minister reflexively dismisses. ‘The attributions given to my family and to my father sometimes make me chuckle,’ Benjamin Netanyahu says. ‘He’s a historian, which is a particular kind of academic. The assessment of my father as a one-dimensional ideologue is funny. Even if he was, and he isn’t, he is what he is and I’m a different person. It’s all psychobabble.’”

The Washington Report regrets publishing the erroneous statements regarding Professor Benzion Netanyahu, and any embarrassment they may have caused him.