During what is believed to have been his first television appearance in the U.S., 28-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu (then known as Ben Nitay) was a panelist on a debate show in Boston. He was asked a question that would define the future Israeli prime minister’s career.
“Is the issue of [Palestinian] self-determination the core of the conflict in the Middle East?” the moderator asked.
“No, I don’t believe it is,” Mr. Nitay said. “The real core of the conflict is the Arab refusal to accept the state of Israel.”
More than 45 years later, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is waging a war of immense destruction against a group that, like the PLO of the 1970s, rejects Israel’s right to exist, Hamas. In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu is alienating his most important ally, the United States, because of the enormous civilian death toll in Gaza.
Now 74 and dogged by numerous corruption charges, Mr. Netanyahu is also fighting for his political survival, as his decades-long vow to protect Israel’s security was upended by the failure to prevent the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. The slaughter of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians also exposed the failure of Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy of “mowing the grass” — periodic bouts of violence followed by periods of relative quiet as Qatari money was allowed into Hamas’ coffers in Gaza.
In this episode of History As It Happens, political scientist Nimrod Goren of the Middle East Institute discusses Mr. Netanyahu’s long career in the limelight, including his implacable opposition to Palestinian statehood and his influence in U.S. politics, as when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress to attack then-President Obama’s diplomacy with Iran.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
