After meeting plenty of public figures, I can class Iddo Netanyahu with those who know how to make coffee. There are some who don't, and some who do, and there are some who excel, like him.
Iddo Netanyahu, 67, is the quiet brother. He did not speak publicly until recently.
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"I started talking because of the wrongs being done to Bibi," he says when we meet in his Jerusalem apartment.
"It happened after the submarines story [which connects Bibi to questions about the financial propriety of the acquisitions of a number of submarines], which surfaces and goes deep again depending on the opposition's propaganda needs. I felt an obligation to put an end to that charade before it gained steam," he says.
Iddo Netanyahu is a radiologist by profession, as well as a successful playwright, mainly in eastern Europe, various cities in Russia, and New York and former Soviet bloc nations. His play "The Muse," a crazy satire about contemporary art that features Bach and the god Bacchus, is currently running in the city of Trento in northern Italy. He is married to Daphne, a jurist, and a father of two.
He applies his medical-analytical approach also to public and intellectual matters. Recently, he published a lengthy analysis about the question of interpretation in theater on the website Mida. The article was based on a lecture he gave at Tel Aviv University Medical School. He seems to think that science and medicine are the only fields in which there is no discrimination against those who hold right-wing views.
He dresses simply, without consideration for fashion, and is much taller than average. To those familiar with the speaking style of his brother – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is older by three years – the difference in style is marked. Iddo speaks quietly until he steps on a conversational mine and raises the tone of his voice in anger and defiance. Such displays of feeling are hard for Benjamin, with his calculated style of print-ready statements, to achieve.
"I don't need to exchange a word with him about the investigations to know that he isn't guilty of any criminal act. This is self-evident not only because of the man, but also because of the nature of the accusations. Even someone like me, who has some education and sees himself as possessing common sense, can understand that it's all based on legal acrobatics. At best, one can say it stems from what the prosecution sees as 'inappropriate behavior,' but wouldn't be considered a crime in any enlightened country."
Q: Looking at Israeli politics, certainly in the context of you and your brother, it's hard not to think in terms of fathers and sons.
"We didn't receive a 'Herut'-style worldview, if that's what you mean. [A reference to Menachem Begin's party in the early years of the state.] We didn't discuss those ideas. We were raised right-wing, overall, anti-communist, but not much beyond that.
Q: Your father, Professor Benzion Netanyahu, didn't have ties to Herut?
"No. He wasn't a party member. But he was active politically. He had been the head of the new New Zionist Organization of America. He headed the Revisionist delegation in the US after Jabotinsky passed away, when he agitated for the creation of a Jewish state.
"But when you read his letters back home, you can see he wanted to devote himself to academics. He waited for the moment the state would be created so he could leave politics.
"[Menachem] Begin did in fact reach out to him and ask him to join the party. They had one conversation. My father asked him a theoretical question. Begin supported a policy of non-alignment, not identifying with either the Soviets or the West, but my father opposed that. He asked Begin, 'What would happen if I fought against this line and won?' Begin answered he would adopt my father's line.
"My father supposed Begin would say he would step aside and whoever represented the pro-western line would take the leadership. It strengthened my father's decision not to enter politics and to focus on historical research. That doesn't mean he didn't have clear political views.
"We started learning about our father's opinions when we were much older. The first one who got it was Bibi. This was after the Yom Kippur War. He became politically active as a student at MIT and would talk to people. Suddenly, he began to realize that father was a wellspring of ideas and that people should learn from him. He brought Father to Boston to lecture to students."
Q: So until 1973 you only had a vague sense of Zionism.
"Not vague: a strong one. Until 1967 the issue of Judea and Samaria was irrelevant because we weren't in possession of these areas of the Land of Israel. After 1967 and 1973 the matter of the territories and the difference between the right-wing and the left-wing started to be more relevant. The argument was more focused.
"My father opposed any withdrawal. Regardless, I should probably lay to rest this matter, which comes up all the time – we didn't feel persecuted or rejected growing up. My father was the chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, so rejected? Nonsense."
Q: There is a story that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem rejected your father, and he passed on a to you sense of persecution.
"There was no sense of persecution. He never talked about something like that. And the university didn't reject him because he never applied for a position, nor was he ever offered anything. I can't know for sure why that was, but I suppose that he didn't think he would be hired anyway, for political reasons. This is the same university that didn't allow Professor Joseph Klausner, the foremost historian of the Second Temple Era, to teach history because of his political opinions.
"We didn't know any of this as kids in Jerusalem. We knew that we were going to America in the 1960s because father wanted to do his historical research. It was never presented as us as if we were going there because he wasn't hired by the university. But it's possible that if the university had invited him to teach and conduct his research, we might have stayed."
But the world benefitted. In the last part of his life, from the time he published his great work 'The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain' at age 85, Professor Benzion Netanyahu was considered one of the greatest historians living. One day, I was at his house on Haportzim St. when the great British researcher of the Spanish Civil War, Hugh Thomas, was begging him to write a blurb for his upcoming book about Spain's imperialist conquests.
Q: Did your father think you boys should return to Israel to serve in the IDF, or what that your idea?
"Whether he thought so or not, it was forgone we would do it. He didn't press us either way. But if Yoni had decided to stay and study at Harvard, Father wouldn't have told him no."
Q: In effect, you were all drafted into Palmach II – Sayeret Matkal.
"We weren't drafted. Yoni recommended to Bibi that he serve there, he thought it was a serious unit. Yoni rejoined the IDF (he had stopped his studies because of the War of Attrition) and he joined the unit when Bibi was already serving there. Then I joined later."
The years 1970-1972 was a time rich in reconnaissance and counter-terror ops. It was also a time when the three Netanyahu boys – Yoni, Bibi, and Iddo – were serving together in the same unit. Sometimes one of them had to sit out so they wouldn't take part in the same operation. Iddo, more than Bibi, has devoted much time to establish the facts of the Entebbe hostage mission and dispel the false stories about his brother Yoni, who was killed on that mission.
'Bibi made the right decision'
Q: Do you think Bibi's troubles began when he began take over the Likud and then run for prime minister?
"Of course! Obviously, entering politics comes at a personal cost."
Q: Would you have preferred him not to?
"Given his success, not in terms of his personal life but in terms of the country, he made the right decision."
Q: Do you remember him ever discussing the possibility of becoming prime minister?
"I don't want to go into the personal conversations we've had. But I think that it was clear that if there was an opportunity, that he would succeed in politics and move up, it leads in that direction. To me, at least, it was clear. But it's a wonder how he did it, that he succeeded. It's no wonder they are trying to bring him down any way they can. I realized that from the start. The wonder is that he succeeded."
Q: As soon as he returned from his term as ambassador to the UN, he was targeted.
"I don't remember. Yossi Sarid [a former Meretz minister], yes. His political sense told him that [Bibi] was a danger, so they launched a frontal attack to eliminate the danger while it was still young. The truth is, what they are doing to Bibi is nothing compared to what they tried to do to Yoni years ago. Lies. The newspapers, in unison, were promoting these lies."
Q: The attack on Yoni happened because Bibi got into politics?
"I think it started even earlier. They used one man from the unit. But you discover something about Israeli media: the facts don't always matter. Even when you present the facts – and I quoted people from the unit, whose statements couldn't be denied – you see that it changes nothing. The press repeats the lies over and over. Even when they understood – or should have understood – that what they were writing was a lie."
"When you see the willingness to attack someone who gave his life for the country, slander him with lies, you realize the nature of the Left and the nature of Israeli journalism."
Q: Did the way they hounded Bibi lead to the investigations? To the criminalization of political debate?
"Anyone who looks at what happened has to conclude that the results were intended from the start of the investigations up through to the indictment, to get to a trial on the most serious charge of all, which is bribery.
"This isn't the first time in history that people have tried to use legal means to take down a political rival. That's how the Roman Republic fell and became a dictatorship. There was a long period in which leaders were indicted day in and day out for alleged acts of corruption. There was an orgy of indictments. When they tried to take out a politician, they would accuse him of public corruption, of improper use of public funds."
Q: Have you talked to Bibi about the investigations?
"When I do, we don't get into the details simply because there's no need to. For us, in terms of the charge, what's happening is self-evident. And as far as the defense, he doesn't need my non-expert advice."
'They are redefining the law'
Q: Eliad Shraga has a theory that the war on corruption is designed to prevent the state from rotting and collapsing. That corruption rots the structure.
"That's one kind of corruption. There is also another kind: when you operate a legal system improperly. That's also a kind of corruption. In the Roman Republic it was easy to accuse any general who returned from war of embezzling public money. That was how things were done.
"Why did Julius Caesar come back with an army? Because it was obvious to him he would be put on trial the moment he reached Rome. They would put him in jail and in the worst case scenario they would execute him on charges of corruption. So he thought he had no choice but to return with an army to capture Rome.
"That was the moral decline of the Roman Republic – if you sue every politician, you can't trust anyone. There is no trust between the different strata of the population. A society like that cannot continue to exist.
"What is unique in Bibi's case is that however much they searched and however many millions of shekels they spent, they couldn't find a bribe. They were constantly trying to discover he had taken money, but found nothing, of course. He isn't built like that. He can't even think that way.
"So they had to come up with something that would get him out of politics. Bribery is a crime that according to Israeli law prohibits a person from continuing to serve in politics. They needed the word 'bribery,' because without it the charges would have been ineffective. So they came up with a new definition of bribery – the receipt of positive press coverage, something that never existed before. Like Shai Nitzan [the chief prosecutor in Bibi's case] said, 'we can create a precedent.'"
Q: Has Bibi ever received a moment of positive coverage since he entered politics?
"Let's say he did. That's not what the law is meant for. There isn't a single MK who voted for that law – that is, the law defining what constitutes bribery – who thought that good press would be considered an act of bribery. Not a single one. It's impossible this was the intent of the law, because that's what politicians always do – try to secure good press to promote the agenda on which they were elected. Was their intent in adopting the law to put themselves in jail? In that case, every MK since then should be in jail under this rationale. Or certainly most of them.
"So it can't be that this is what the legislative body intended. So what do they do? They take this law and give it a new meaning. Judges are already doing that, and now for the first time the prosecutors are doing it. And that's something egregious.
"Jews are a smart people, I guess. 'Through inventiveness, shall you wage war.' They are redefining the law to criminalize the prime minister. I'm sure that they're doing this because this is what [former Chief Justice] Aharon Barak enabled, giving new meaning to a law, not merely interpreting it. Now it's the prosecution's turn.
"And the people, the common man, realize that something here is wrong. People realize that tricks are being played to seize power, not only when it comes to the prime ministership, but also with other things.
Q: What's interesting is that you are willing to get into this bloodbath and fight rather than keeping your distance.
"You can't keep away from all this. There is a special situation here, which is different from the rest of the world. The entire political structure of this state is anomalous. Throughout the Western world, bureaucrats are trying to gain more power at the expense of elected officials, or in other words, at the expense of the people. You see it all over the world.
"So there is a reaction. Brexit isn't just a British national issue, where people feel that their country is being taken away from them. It's also that they don't want bureaucrats from Brussels, who are not elected, deciding on laws for them. So there is a backlash.
In our Supreme Court there are judges who interpret the laws very liberally, what we call "activist" judges. And although it's happening in the Western world, here it is much more extreme.
"There is a book that's very worthwhile reading – 'Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges' by Robert Bork. He is the jurist the Democrats rejected for the Supreme Court because of his ideas. The Senate rejected a very worthy candidate by all accounts because of his opinions.
"In the book, he describes this process, that is, the judges' ability to impose upon us laws according to their world view. He talks about Israel being the most extreme case, and of Aharon Barak as someone who is the driving force behind this extreme change. Barak did not invent anything: He took existing trends in the West and applied them to Israel, but in the most severe way."
In his book, Bork writes: "The place of honor in the world at distorting democratic government is held not by the USA or Canada, but by the State of Israel. Israel has achieved a standard of judicial imperialism which probably will never be surpassed."
'Getting to the truth'
Q: Has the fact that you are the brother of the prime minister, that your last name is Netanyahu, ever hampered your medial career?
"Never. Thank God, there is separation of powers between the humanities and the world of science. You see that at universities and in the scientific world: there is no way a talented physicist wouldn't rise to the heights of academia because he holds right-wing views. I didn't pursue an academic career, I wasn't interested."
Q: In your article on interpretation, you dive into a very complex concept – the truth. You come from the medical discipline and write that in medicine, there is no other choice – something is correct or it is not.
"Often, we can't know the absolute truth, but we want to get as close to the truth as possible. I'm not a lawyer, but it's obvious to me that if the law isn't entirely clear, the judge needs to do his utmost to get to the intent of the law.
"Modern judges use new ideas, including that of the relativity of truth, when it comes to the law. They say the law is relative too – that they can interpret it as they see fit, according to their understanding. They see the intention of the legislators as something vague. There is no truth, so I'll interpret the law this way or that. It's part of that same process – that truth doesn't exist, or is relative."
Q: People tend to say that fields like law and art aren't exact sciences.
"'Not an exact science' can be said of anything. But society can't exist without laws. Social structure is defined by an agreement that anyone can do whatever they want as long as it's not against the law. If the law isn't defined, we are living on shaky ground.
"It's true that it's sometimes hard to define the law, but we need to try and define it as precisely as possible. That is the role of the judge. The minute a judge starts handing down his own interpretations, according to his personal tastes, it means there is no law. And if there is no law, society can't exist.
"You lose trust – not just in judges, but in everything. You have no standard to go by. And this causes society's destruction. It's not just me saying this. Judges have said it, who have seen what Aharon Barak was doing – judges like [former chief justice] Moshe Landau, who was against it entirely.
What you are saying is that the stands taken by the Supreme Court affected also the State Attorney's Office, which is supposed to be disconnected from it?
"No doubt. Shai Nitzan [chief prosecutor in the Netanyahu case] clerked for Barak. They are all influenced. In Israel, it's one system. It doesn't mean that the court gives orders to the prosecution. I have no idea how it works, and I have no idea whether Shai Nitzan consulted with Barak regarding this particular offense.
'The Left's moral utopia'
Q: If your father were to return to us for a moment and see the prime minister, his son, charged with three different counts, how would he react?
"He would be very pained, but not surprised. Because he knew the tendency of the Left to use illegitimate means to achieve political ends. When you get into this kind of politics, it's really like the blood libel after the murder of Haim Arlosoroff in 1933. My father was a student at the time, and didn't really grasp what was happening. People were being accused of murder.
So then Yehoshua Yeivin (who spent four months in jail after Arlosoroff's murder) told him: 'What's happening here is a blood libel.'
"My grandfather, Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky, didn't understand at first, either. He thought that maybe there was a real issue here, but after he looked into the matter, it became clear to him that these people were innocent. That they were being libeled. The lie wasn't concocted by the British authorities in Palestine, but by Mapai [the precursor to the Labor party.]
"Throughout the world, the Left believes they represent what's good and proper on Earth. Therefore, those who obstruct the achievement of this moral utopia must be bad by definition. And because they're bad, it's right to fight them in any manner. They believe they are doing the proper thing, and this is true in the case of Bibi, as well. They wouldn't have done something like this to a politician from the Left. Impossible."
Q: You have no ties to any party, not even the Likud. Have you ever considered entering politics?
"I'm not suited. As an artist, you need to be completely honest. To define the truth without considering public opinion, without thinking about what people think of you. That doesn't mean you don't need to speak to the audience. You have to. Everything you do is after all a form of communication. But an artist who takes into account what people will say about him isn't an artist, he has become a politician. A politician, when he speaks, can't be totally honest. It's not that they lie, but they can't say everything that is on their minds."
