Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 1996, pages 19, 106

Personality

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

by Israel Shahak

The personality and views of the new Israeli prime minister cannot be understood without going back for quite a time into Jewish history and the history of his family.

In Jewish terms, Binyamin Netanyahu (known as Bibi from his childhood on) comes from a most respectable family. His grandfather was a descendant of "The Sage,"Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (died 1797), the greatest modern rabbinical authority. His grandmother descends from Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (died 1099), also a great commentator on the Bible and the Talmud.

The first ancestor with whom I will be concerned here is Netanyahu's grandfather, Nathan Milikovsky, born in 1875 in Tsarist Russia (in what is now Lithuania). Milikovsky had early shown great capacity for Talmudic studies and graduated as a rabbi at the age of 18 from a famous yeshiva.

A short time afterward he became secular and one of the earliest and most influential followers of Herzl in the Russian empire. Later he became the headmaster of a Hebrew high school in Warsaw (an important position in those days) and a famous contributor to a Hebrew daily of that town. He emigrated to Palestine in 1920 and served as headmaster of various Hebrew high schools in several towns before settling in Jerusalem as a high official of the World Zionist Organization.

On his arrival in Palestine, Milikovsky changed the family name to Netanyahu ("Lord has given"). He was from the beginning a supporter of right-wing views in the Zionist movement, a tendency which deepened in the next generations of his closely knit family. He died, highly honored, in 1935 leaving behind him a daughter and eight sons.

The members of the next generation were very divided in their careers. Six of the sons became successful businessmen, all in the iron industry, after leaving Israel in the early 1950s because, as they say even now, "the Bolsheviks"(i.e., the Labor Zionists) who then ruled Israel did not allow any businessmen but those connected with them to succeed.

The daughter was a successful sculptor. Two sons chose intellectual careers. Elisha Netanyahu (died in 1986) was a distinguished mathematician and professor in the Haifa Technological Institute, "Technion."Ben-Zion Netanyahu, Bibi's father, became, after a short time in the late 1930s when he was Vladimir Jabotinsky's secretary, an historian, specializing in the medieval and early modern history of Spain and the Spanish Jews. He recently published a 1,300-page book (in English) on the subject of Spanish Jews and the Inquisition which got excellent reviews. In the 1950s he edited the first 10 volumes of The Hebrew Encyclopedia but left because of a quarrel with the publishers. It was then that he went with his three sons to the U.S., where he filled a succession of academic positions, the last in Cornell University. In his political views he can be described as the most extreme of a right-wing family. He condemned Menachem Begin for the Camp David peace accords with Egypt and undoubtedly he had a deep and lasting influence on his three sons.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the second son, was born in Jerusalem in 1949. He was 14 when his family went to the U.S., but he returned every summer to Israel for a few months. His elder brother Yoni (Yehonathan), chose a military career and rose to become a deputy commander of the best elite unit of the Israeli army, the "Chief-of-Staff-Patrol."He was killed in the Entebbe Operation of 1976.

Following in the footsteps of his brother, who was clearly a father-substitute, Bibi, who rushed to Israel on the outbreak of the Six-Day War and was inducted into the army on its second day, also served in "Chief-of-Staff-Patrol."His immediate commander was Ehud Barak, who later became the chief-of-staff and then Peres' foreign affairs minister. Bibi Netanyahu achieved the high distinction of being chosen (in 1969) as the most excellent cadet of his officer course.

Nevertheless, he left the army in 1972 after less than six years and returned to the U.S. where he pursued his academic studies in business management. (He rushed back to fight in the October 1973 war but left once it ended.) The first time he entered politics was after the death of his elder brother in 1976. He then wanted to found and manage a Yehonathan Institute to fight "international terror."(His great interest in terror derives from that time.) His first patron in that was Shimon Peres (defense minister in 1976) but he was also patronized by Begin after the latter became prime minister in 1977. However, his interest in this activity waned after some years and he became in 1979 a manager of the "Rim"furniture company where he discovered his talents for promotion and media. His sales campaigns for Rim were highly successful.

He was "discovered"in July 1982 by Moshe Arens (then foreign minister), who needed somebody with American manners to "explain"the invasion of Lebanon to Congress. Arens appointed Bibi as political attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Netanyahu succeeded so well in his new job that he was noticed by Peres when he became prime minister in 1984. It was Peres who appointed him in 1984 as the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. (a job that, by an Israeli tradition, is usually filled by the prime minister). Let me add that Netanyahu did not belong to a party when Peres appointed him to this position. (He joined Likud in 1988, after resigning in the morning after attacking Peres in the evening of the previous day.) Peres had, apparently, high hopes that Netanyahu would join Labor and become an electoral asset to him in the 1988 elections. In fact Peres was sure that Bibi liked him. But, as usual, Peres was outwitted in the end.

For Netanyahu the six years (1982-88) in which he served as an Israeli political representative in the U.S. were crucial. It was in these years that he began to build a following among American Jews. But more important was the effect on the Israelis of his speeches at the U.N., regularly shown on Israeli TV, and speeches made in Israel on his many visits home. What happened was that Netanyahu peddled a propaganda line, known to be best suited to the tastes of the organized U.S. Jews and the fundamentalist Christians. He never tired of assaulting Arab leaders (and also the Arabs as a people). Oma Kadosh (Ma'ariv, March 26, 1993) quoted a statement he made on American TV in his capacity as an Israeli ambassador to the U.N., to the effect that "Yasser Arafat was worse than Hitler."While well-received in the U.S., the statement was resented by the Holocaust survivors in Israel. Kadosh also mentions "the frequent complaints of U.S. administrations to the Israeli government"against Netanyahu's pronouncements implying that the U.S. policies could bring a second Holocaust upon the Jews.

It was in those years that Netanyahu established the preconditions for his future political career. He secured a lot of money donated by wealthy American Jews and a cadre of Israelis very devoted to him, composed mainly of successful middle-aged businessmen with military experience. It was then that the semi-secret organization "Submarine,"which contributed to Netanyahu's victory even more decisively than money, was founded. The members of the "Submarine"provided Netanyahu with office space, computer expertise and political connections within Likud, which he himself did not have. Due to their influence he was elected as one of the first seven Likud candidates to the Knesset right after his joining the party in 1988. His success among the Likud activists on that occasion was tremendous.

The next stage was winning Likud leadership after its debacle in the 1992 elections and Shamir's retirement. The reasons for the victory can be summarized as a combination of demagogic oratory adapted to the tastes of "Israel B"of which Netanyahu is a master, with plenty of money. Here are some of Netanyahu's popular statements made in that contest, as recorded by Doron Rosenblum (Ha'aretz, March 5, 1993), many of which reappeared in his subsequent speeches: "Wars break out between states at peace.""We can give the Arabs peace for peace.""Peace with Syria, perhapsreturn of the Golan, never.""We can always influence the U.S. administration in our favor.""The answer to terror is that every Jew carry a revolver."

Controversial Promises

The circumstances of Bibi's making this statement illustrate his mastery of the art of dealing with hecklers. Replying to one who objected that many Jews are too poor to buy a revolver, he said, "Israel should distribute revolvers to all adult Jews,"hastily adding in answer to a female heckler "and also to every Jewish woman."The audience rose to its feet and applauded wildly. Needless to say, Netanyahu the prime minister is not going to distribute free revolvers to Israeli Jews, but it is such promises that made him the most controversial figure among them: especially hated in "Israel A"and much beloved by "Israel B."

In explanation of these terms let me add that it is by now conceded by all Israeli observers that Israeli Jews are divided into two parts, nicknamed "Israel A"and "Israel B"(or variants of these expressions). "Israel A"is represented by Labor and Meretz; "Israel B"comprises all other parties.

Although "Israel A"and a great majority of "Israel B" both adhere strongly to Zionist ideology, the exception being the followers of the two Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, Agudat Israel and Shas, there exists a strong and increasing enmity between the two parts of Israeli society.

The results of the primaries, held on March 25, 1993, showed the extent of Netanyahu's victory. Out of Likud's 216,000 members at that time, about 100,000 joined Likud in the short period of time between October 1992 and the two weeks before the primaries, due primarily to Netanyahu's recruitment drive. Most of them voted for him. Many of them were religious Jews who joined Likud against the advice of their own rabbis. It was in religious localities that Netanyahu's victory was greatest, a fact which repeated itself in the 1996 election.

The first thing which Netanyahu did after the victory was to revitalize Likud. He convened a convention which passed a detailed set of rules and used his financial resources to pay the enormous debts he inherited from Shamir. He then reaffirmed his position as the leader of "Israel B."His opposition to the Oslo peace process in its two forms (before and after Rabin's assassination) was but an essential part of this role. Finally, he kept and even improved the flow of money from the rich Jews of the U.S.

It is important to recall that behind the demagoguery and fund-raising, Netanyahu—by family tradition, his political advantages and personal choice—represents an ideology within Zionism to which he is dedicated. His past makes it relatively easy to predict his future policies. Let me do so in four important areas: relations with the Arab states, Palestinians in the territories, Israeli Palestinians and the Israeli economy.

The difference between his and Peres' policies is greatest in their attitudes to the Arab states. Netanyahu does not desire peace. He desires an Israel sitting secure behind its "Iron Wall."This approach reduces dangers of future Israeli adventures inherent in Peres' "New Middle East"concept. Real peace is anyhow not possible in this stage of development because a majority of Israeli Jews (and of Arabs too) don't desire it, except under conditions impossible of realization.

Netanyahu's real policy toward Palestinians in the territories is not so different from Peres' real policy. For both, Oslo II represents the permanent solution. The difference is in their attitude to Arafat. While both consider him as a tool to be used to rule the Palestinians, Peres wants to flatter Arafat while Netanyahu wants to frighten him. The second method appeals more to the tastes of "Israel B.”

It can be expected that the situation of Israeli Palestinians will much improve under Netanyahu, although equality for non-Jews is out of the question under Zionism. It was Begin, after all, who stopped the massive confiscation of Arab land in Israel, carried out under the first Rabin government, which caused the first Land Day in 1976.

Finally, one can expect a series of privatizations and an economic policy in accord with the tastes of the World Bank, but with a greater regard to keeping some residue of welfare than Peres would have exhibited. In general, it can be asserted that (except for demagogic phrases) Israeli policy under Netanyahu will probably show a great degree of continuity with the real policies carried out by Rabin and Peres.