Yonatan Netanyahu

 

La vida de Yonatan Netanyahu, el hermano mayor del primer ministro israelí, Benjamín Netanyahu, contada aquí (en inglés). Desde siempre Yonatan sintió la necesidad de participar de la defensa de su país, que se veía amenazado por varios frentes. Yoni estuvo en Operation Entebbe, Six-Day War, Operation Spring of Youth, entre otras, como comando. En vocabulario: meager, skirmish, thwart

 

 

The trouble with the youth here is that their lives are meager in content. I ought to be ready at every moment of my life to confront myself and say—'This is what I've done'…

 

Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu (1946 – 1976) was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who commanded the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal during Operation Entebbe, an operation to rescue hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. The mission was successful, with 102 of the 106 hostages rescued, but Netanyahu was killed in action—the only IDF fatality during the operation.

 

Yonatan Netanyahu was born in New York City, the eldest son of Zila and Benzion Netanyahu. His mother had been born in Petah Tikva, in what is now Israel, which was then in the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, while his father was born in Warsaw and immigrated to Palestine in 1920.

 

While in high school, he began contemplating his purpose in life, when he wrote in a 1963 letter,

 

"The trouble with the youth here is that their lives are meager in content. I ought to be ready at every moment of my life to confront myself and say—'This is what I've done'."

 

After graduating in June 1964, he returned to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He joined the Paratroopers Brigade and fought in the Six-Day War.

 

Netanyahu married his long-time girlfriend Tirza in 1967. Shortly after their wedding, they flew to the U.S., where Yoni enrolled at Harvard University. He took classes in philosophy and mathematics, excelling in both, and was on the Dean's List at the end of his first year. However, feeling restless at being away from Israel, especially with Israel skirmishing against Egypt during the War of Attrition, Yoni transferred to Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 1968. In early 1969, he left his studies and returned to the army.

 

In 1967 he considered college, but the constant threat of war made him stay in Israel: "This is my country and my homeland. It is here that I belong," he wrote.

 

Centurion tank moved in the Negev, 1967

On June 5, 1967, during the Six-Day War, his battalion fought the battle of Um Katef in Sinai, then reinforced the Golan Heights battle. During the Golan Heights battle, he was wounded while helping rescue a fellow soldier who lay wounded deep behind enemy lines.

After being wounded, he returned to the U.S. to study at Harvard. But after a year he felt the need to return to Israel to rejoin the army. "At this time," he wrote in a letter, "I should be defending my country. Harvard is a luxury I cannot afford." He next returned to Harvard in the summer of 1973, but again gave up academic life for Israel's military.

By 1970 he was leading an anti-terrorist reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Matkal, and in the summer of 1972 was appointed as the unit's deputy commander. That year he commanded a raid, Operation Crate 3, in which senior Syrian officers were captured as a bargaining chip to be later exchanged in return for captive Israeli pilots. The following year he participated in Operation Spring of Youth, in which the terrorists and leadership of Black September were selectively killed by Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet-13 and the Mossad.

During the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Netanyahu commanded a Sayeret Matkal force in the Golan Heights that killed more than 40 Syrian commandos in a battle which thwarted the Syrian commandos' raid in the Golan's heartland. During the same war, he also rescued Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Ben Hanan from Tel Shams, while Ben Hanan was lying wounded behind Syrian lines.

 

"In another week I'll be 23. On me, on us, the young men of Israel, rests the duty of keeping our country safe. This is a heavy responsibility, which matures us early... I do not regret what I have done and what I'm about to do. I'm convinced that what I am doing is right. I believe in myself, in my country and in my future" (To his parents, March 6, 1969)

 

Author Herman Wouk wrote that Netanyahu was already a legend in Israel even before his death at the age of 30. Wouk wrote:

 

"He was a taciturn philosopher-soldier of terrific endurance, a hard-fibered, charismatic young leader, a magnificent fighting man. On the Golan Heights, in the Yom Kippur War, the unit he led was part of the force that held back a sea of Soviet tanks manned by Syrians, in a celebrated stand; and after Entebbe, "Yoni" became in Israel almost a symbol of the nation itself. Today his name is spoken there with somber reverence. "

 

Para saber

Operation Spring of Youth took place on the night of April 9 and early morning of April 10, 1973, when Israeli army special forces units attacked several Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) targets in Beirut and Sidon, Lebanon. During the operation, three of the highest-level PLO leaders, surprised at home, were killed, along with other PLO members.

 

Vocabulario

Meager: lacking in quality and quantity.

 

Skirmish: irregular or unpremeditated fighting, especially between small or outlying parts of armies or fleets.

 

Thwart: to stop something from happening or someone from doing something:

Our holiday plans were thwarted by the airline pilots' strike

 

Artículos relacionados

Los secuestradores tenían el objetivo de liberar a 40 palestinos presos en Israel… Noticias de un secuestro

 

Su mando se caracterizó por abusos a los derechos humanos, represión política, persecución étnica, matanzas extrajudiciales… Idi Amin

 

… es famoso por la frase “Segregación ahora, segregación mañana, segregación para siempre”… El discurso de George Wallace

 

Esto es parte del archivo: Operación Entebbe