“It is true that the Israeli Prime Minister’s name is Netanyahu; however,his first name is not Binyamin. It is Ben-Tzion.” So I wrote a year agoin an article which, for some reason, resonated particularly withjournalists abroad. Foreign correspondents phoned me urgently: How manytimes a day does Binyamin speak with Ben-Tzion? How many times a week dothey meet face to face? How am I privy to the particulars of theseconversations? I chuckled and told myself: Oh well, journalists.
I did not think that the 88-year old professor has been coaching his49-year old son in his every action. But the elder Netanyahu’s influenceis far more critical: He is the one who has molded his son’s entirespiritual world. After all, throughout childhood and youth, Binyaminabsorbed the principles of his dominating father’s beliefs, who alsoselected Binyamin’s reading booklist.
Binyamin is no intellectual. He is utterly devoid of any creativethinking, beyond tactical matters. His whole world view, his conceptsand his philosophy have been absorbed from his father. Ben-Tzionlaid down the conceptual tracks upon which the Binyamin train runs. Andthus it is Ben-Tzion Netanyahu who, in effect, is running the country.And that is a scary thought.
The isolated, alienated and embittered professor has not been seen inpublic for years. Now he has broken his silence, and in conversationswith Uri Shavit, a respected yournalist in the Haaretz weeklysupplement), he has laid out his philosophy across eight large pages.I suspect that most readers have not bothered to read this enormoustreatise, which is a shame. They would have begun to understandBinyamin’s acts, and most would have been shaken to their core.
There is a well-documented psychological syndrome: An individualbelieves in a bizarre fundamental premise (for instance, “The worldis a cube”) and proceeds to construct upon it an entire logicalstructure. The more logical and perfect the structure, themore severe the individual’s psychological problem. The veryperfection is a symptom of the disease.
Ben-Tzion Netanyahu has a few fundamental premises: We live in a jungle.All countries are predatory animals. The whole world hates the Jews. “TheArab quest to annihilate the Jewish state has neither ceased norabated…if allowed, they will slaughter us to the last person.” Whenthis happens, in Ben-Tzion’s view, Europe will not even send ships torescue the survivors.
There is absolute gloom in this. It is not by chance that the professorhas devoted decades to the study of the Spanish Inquisition. Heperceives a succession of holocausts: The annihilation of SpanishJewish community by the Catholics, the annihilation of EuropeanJewry by the Nazis and the intended annihilation of the IsraeliJews by the Arabs. “Without a shadow of a doubt,” (Netanyahu Seniornever has a single doubt about anything) “someone likeArafat…is motivated today as in the past, by the desire to destroyour state”. It is not a matter of Palestinians (“It is crystal clearto me that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people at all”)but rather a matter of all Arabs, in fact, of all Moslems. Thelatter are referred to in terms of “The Protocols of the Elders ofZion”: “Islam has always desired to subjugate the Western world”.Clearly, he must have never heard of the Christian West’s striving tosubjugate the Moslem world, as well as the world at large. It ispeculiar that he has never heard of the Crusades.
In contrast, he regards the Catholics, who got the Moslems out of Spain,following a continuous 800-year war, as a great example. It is true, theydid kill, torture and expel both Moslems and Jews, but that is notimportant. He asks of us to follow their example and wage a bloody warfrom generation to generation, for hundreds of years to come. He extolsthe virtues of those Spanish mothers who would dispatch three sons to warevery year, and who rejoiced when two came back. Our war, though, will notbe limited to 800 years; In the professor’s opinion, it will go onforever.
One of the reasons he gives is that “there is a great propensity forviolence in the Arab society, one incapable of surviving without the ruleof a despot…the old mentality…the ancient Moslem tendencies….”Were he to publish such commentary in any European university, he wouldbe branded racist and expelled forthwith. But, he states, “There is adeep cultural contrast between us and the Arabs, because Zionism is atits heart a western movement…having always constituted, in asense, as an outpost of the West in the East.” The professor doesnot mention a single word about Oriental Jews, such asMaimonides or the poet Yehuda Halevi, who were completely assimilatedin that “despised” Arab-Moslem culture. Not to mention theOriental Jews who constitute half of Israel’s Jewish population.
All these are nothing more than the classic concepts of theright-wing Zionist “revisionist” party of 70 years ago. Butthey carry very real implications: “The idea of land for peace isbankrupt.” On Oslo: “This trap, from which I am still uncertain howto extricate ourselves…the prospect of a Palestinian state is anightmare to me.” So what is one to do? “And here is where Binyamincomes in to fulfill his most important function these days. The Osloagreement, which must inevitably lead to the creation of such aPalestinian state, is leading us to the edge of the precipice. Wemust extricate ourselves from this self-imposed trap without breakingthe agreements, in such a manner as to not appear to have been theones who have violated that which had been promised; and to achievethis without leading to an open confrontation with the U.S. And mostimportant of all — without losing any of our strategic advantages” -meaning occupied territory.
But there are some difficulties: “The inherent weakness of the Jewish humanmaterial”… “our nation is utterly blind”… “the deep hatred of the Leftwing for their ideological opponents.” Hence, “the potential for acatastrophe.”
The voice is Ben-Tzion’s; the hands are Binyamin’s.
— End —