Benjamin Netanyahu: The World’s Most Hated Man’s Ideology, Life, and Actions
Who is the most hated man on Earth now? The answer might very well be Benjamin Netanyahu. The hugely disproportionate and genocidal response to the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israeli military and civilians by Hamas has put Netanyahu on top of the most hated list. Though his public approval has almost completely been eroded even in Israel, this man is pursuing a war not only against Hamas but the entire 2 million population of Gaza.
A passionate proponent of right-wing liberalism and world order, Netanyahu has always navigated dangerous and unbelievably murky waters throughout his life as a leader and politician. Those close to him have observed that he believes himself to be a messiah with a duty to protect Israel. His one peculiar trait is that he can unflinchingly make unpopular and even genocidal decisions if he believes necessary for the protection of Israel. He has been accused of corruption but none of the allegations have put down roots. He represents an ancient yet still prevalent value system shaped by violence, vengeance, and self-protection no matter the cost.
The Path of Benjamin Netanyahu
The blood of a terrible genocide is all over him. As a journalist and writer, I have always wanted to know what drove this man to earn the place and character of an evil incarnate so notoriously. Even a large percentage of people in his own country hate him. What shaped this man and what motivates his decisions and actions?
One of my longest-held beliefs is that understanding the motives behind evil actions might help us reach their root causes and maybe prevent them. With this focus in mind, this article tries to understand the motives and behaviour of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I also try to keep in mind that in the world, every murderer, rapist, or any criminal has a justification.
Born to Benzoine Netanyahu, a conservative right-of-centre intellectual, a Revisionist Zionist who believed in a more militant Jewish and Israeli nationalism, and looking up to him as a role model, Netanyahu’s worldview was shaped by the ideological premise of his father. Benzoin Netanyahu was the editor of Encyclopedia Hebraica, of which an updated volume was published each year. In the 1950s, it was a popular book, purchased by around a quarter of Israeli households. Benzoin was a scholar and an academic who taught at different universities in the USA, who lobbied for the Jewish cause and Israeli statehood in America, and with a view that the world was hostile to Israel and that Israel needed to look out for itself. The family spent their lives in Israel and America as the children mostly grew up.
The iconic Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who personified both ultra-orthodox Jewish ethos and extreme left views, was a family friend. Benzoin Netanyahu was a liberal when it came to making friends and interacting with his community, but this did not prevent his children from assimilating Zionist exclusivism. Just like all the Jews who lived in the times soon after the Nazi Jewish genocide had just unfolded in its macabre details, who grew up seeing Nazi concentration camp inmate numbers tattooed on the arms of their relatives and neighbours, Benjamin, Jonathan, and their younger brother, Iddo felt that the Jews had no way except extremely militant options to survive, even by enforcing their strength using military prowess, and even at the expense of the security and rights of the Palestinian people. The feeling was that the Jews needed to help themselves no matter what the moral and ethical costs involved.
Benjamin Netanyahu had another equally influential and strong second role model, his brother, Yoni (Jonathan Netanyahu), who became a national hero after he was killed in action, rescuing the Israeli hostages kidnapped in an aeroplane hijack by a Palestinian militant group. A group of Palestinians hijacked an Israeli plane and landed it in Entebbe, the capital of Uganda, where they had Ugandan President Idi Amin’s support. In a dangerous rescue mission that was applauded worldwide, Israeli special forces killed the hijackers and freed the hostages. Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni, led this action heroically. Sadly, he became a casualty of this rescue mission as the hijackers shot him. Later, authors who wrote about Benjamin Netanyahu observed that this death shaped Benjamin Netanyahu’s sense of purpose and belief that he was destined to protect Israel and the Jewish people. In his autobiography, Netanyahu even indicates that he owes this as a duty to his brother.
Growing up in the conflict-ridden Middle East, which has been an arena of war and conflict for centuries, and falling under the influence of the semi-historic semi-mythical, Biblical and Jewish grand narrative, the boy matured into a nationalist Israeli and a 100% military man.
Benjamin Netanyahu grew up amidst Israeli scholars and thinkers like Joseph Klausner, a historian, professor of Jewish literature, the great uncle of Israeli Nobel Prize-winning author Amoz Oz, and a dedicated Zionist. At Clausner’s, he crossed paths with Amoz Oz, the world-renowned fiction writer and peace activist. The irony is that Benjamin Netanyahu and Amoz Oz, who were influenced and, to some extent, mentored by Joseph Klausner, turned out to be different but equally important people with diametrically opposite views that affected the world and Israel.
In his biography, Netanyahu narrates how he read books from childhood with a voracious appetite. His recent interviews also show that he still is a serious book reader. In his autobiography, ‘Bibi: My Story’, published just before the October 7 attacks, and a book that traces the Israel-Palestine conflict till 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu has dedicated a couple of paragraphs to state his perspective on the conflict in a simple and clear-cut way. Here are those paras:
“Power has the unfortunate quality of not being limited to the morally superior and the well-intentioned. If malign forces amass enough of it and have the will to use it, they will overcome the less well-armed forces of good, especially if the good lack the tenacity to fight. Being a moral person won’t save you from the conquest and carnage, which was the history of the Jewish people for two thousand years.
“Being perfect victims who harmed no one, we were perfectly moral. Being utterly powerless, we were led to the slaughter again and again. The rise of Zionism was meant to correct this flaw by giving Jewish people the power to defend themselves. Enhancing this capacity was the central mission of my years in office.” (Bibi: My Story, Benjamin Netanyahu, 2023).
Hardened by his military training in a special operations unit of the Israel army infamous for its not-so-ethical combat strategies, Netanyahu plunged into the fights that his country fought on many fronts at a young age, even before his college days were over. In this, he is similar to the Arab-Palestinian leaders like Yasser Arafat and the present Hamas leaders.
From an early age, he decided peace had no chance in the Middle East. He felt that only by fighting as long as it was necessary to nail it into the minds of the Arab leaders that Israel was very much a Middle Eastern reality and way too powerful for them to get rid of, could his people have a chance at survival. This is a perfect example of how childhood influences and experiences shape a man. The epic socio-political background of Jewish annihilation by the Nazis provided the grand setting. The loss of his brother, his first and foremost hero of all times, nailed the combat-centered vision of the Middle Eastern reality into his brain forever.
Things changed drastically for Israel and Palestine after the six-day war of 1962. Netanyahu says that this war was thrust upon Israel by the Arab countries that surrounded it but despite fighting on multiple fronts, Israel won an astounding victory. It captured the Golan Heights, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Sinai and the area under its control tripled. This was the beginning of a wider Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands.
Netanyahu, the Man, the Leader
Netanyahu comes out as a secular leader in his autobiography, despite his known staunch commitment towards Jews and to remedying the precarious situation his people are in, surrounded by hostile Palestinian Arabs and Muslim countries on all sides. In this crusade, he never once believes in a path of peace, which he considers only a pipe dream professed by those who do not understand the Middle Eastern realities. It reflects in his biography that when he looks in a mirror, he sees a crusader for his people though the world thinks he is a war monger and a heartless dictator. Netanyahu still describes himself as a pragmatic leader and politician committed to the cause of the Jewish people and Israel.
“The Prime Minister has a messianic notion of himself as a person called to save the Jewish people,” said Eyal Arad, former advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2020 when Netanyahu went all out to stop the US nuclear deal with Iran even at the cost of facing the anger and distrust of the US President, Barak Obama. Eyal Arad was talking to an interviewer for a Frontline PBS documentary. In the same documentary, Tzachi Hanegbi, another Netanyahu advisor speaks of Netanyahu having a notion that he has a historic role to play and could not make a mistake, for the sake of the Jewish people.
In his autobiography, he advocates a liberal economy and a free world. Still, he is seen crossing the thin lines of morality in politics and statecraft whenever he deems it necessary, and very often.
India’s Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, when questioned about whether non-violence as a form of protest could ensure that no people die in violence, replied that the least number of people would die if we adopt non-violent protest when compared to other violent methods. Benjamin Netanyahu has never figured this out. He has constantly shown that he has strong reasons to believe otherwise. He believes that only fear and power could deter enemies from attacking Israel. He does not seem to have even a modicum of trust in a peace process, at least in the peace processes he and his predecessors had been in so far.
Benjamin Netanyahu has always been an aggressive and effective communicator in mass media. When he used his US Congress speech as a platform to undermine the US policy towards Iran, journalists called him audacious. In his speech, he proclaimed that the greatest danger the world faces is “the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons.” Naturally, Obama, who was on the verge of concluding a nuclear deal with Iran, was greatly angered by his speech.
Netanyahu became an early spokesperson for Israel on American television, first on his own and later in an official capacity. He became a star of the Jewish rightwing in America and soon became a diplomat formally appointed by Israel. One of his most significant assignments was as the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He presented Israel as the strongest ally the US could have in the Middle East.
A prominent leader of Israel for half a century, he began his political career when he resigned as Israel's ambassador to the UN and returned to Israel. Since then, he has succeeded in reaching the Prime Ministership many times. One must also remember that the people of Israel chose him to lead them. Yet, when the October 7 attacks happened, his public approval was at its lowest. However, when it became clear that war was the only option from an Israeli viewpoint, the political leadership of Israel entrusted Netanyahu with leading the nation at war. This is an interesting aspect of Israeli reality to peruse. Netanyahu has a public mandate that many political analysts underestimate.
Benjamin Netanyahu was instrumental in Israel’s economic, technological, and military growth and success among world nations. He also continues to lead Israel in this war with an iron grip and unrelenting resolve. Netanyahu is a strong leader, but he is not as well-analysed as Donald Trump, Putin, or Modi by the likes of Archie Brown, who wrote the world-renowned book The Myth of the Strong Leader. The life, and decisions as a leader of Benjamin Netanyahu are complex and worth investigating for any political student and researcher of international conflict and the Middle East. Though highly speculative and lacking any usefulness in an immediate context, one wonders what another man, another leader would have done differently if he were to stand in Netanyahu’s shoes.
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