10 | JULY 8 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay
Yoni Netanyahu: A Hero’s Story 
Y

oni Netanyahu, the 
famed hero of the 
Entebbe operation, was 
killed in action 45 years ago on 
July 4. Benjamin Netanyahu’s 
older brother was 
named Jonathan 
(Yonatan) and is 
usually remem-
bered as Yoni. 
He died fighting 
anti-Israel terror-
ists on July 4, 1976, 
just as the world’s oldest democ-
racy celebrated its Bicentennial. 
Yoni died in a heroic effort that 
successfully freed more than 
100 hijacked Jewish hostages in 
Entebbe, Uganda. 
America’s commemoration of 
liberty shared the world’s head-
lines with Israel’s celebration of 
the liberation of the hostages.
The daring of Israel’s comman-
dos captured the world’s imagina-
tion like no other anti-terrorism 
action in history. Books and 
movies recall the Entebbe rescue, 
but there’s more to the story. 
Much more.
It is not widely known that 
Yoni Netanyahu was a hero 
long before he commanded the 
Entebbe operation. He played a 
key role in many other crucial 
Israeli security operations, exhib-
iting courage and valor in the 
most dangerous of circumstanc-
es. He was a living example to the 
world’s statesmen that terrorism 
can be beaten — if the nations of 
the world have the will to fight 
back.
Yoni was born in New York 
into a family of dedicated 
Zionists who greeted the news 
of the establishment of Israel by 
packing up and moving there in 
1948. He returned to the U.S. in 
1963 where his father, a distin-
guished Jewish studies scholar, 

Benzion Netanyahu, (1910-2012), 
accepted a professorship in 
Philadelphia.
After graduating high school in 
a suburb of Philadelphia in 1964, 
Yoni returned to Israel to join the 
army, and it was not long before 
he had worked his way up to the 
leadership of an elite paratrooper 
unit.
The mid-1960s was a time 
of growing danger for Israel. 
The Palestine Liberation 
Organization, established in 1964 
for the purpose of “liberating” all 
of “Palestine” from the Israelis, 
had begun mounting terrorist 
attacks across Israel’s borders — 
and those were precarious bor-
ders indeed. In those days, before 
the 1967 war, Israel was just 9 
miles wide at its strategic midsec-
tion, and all of Israeli’s major cit-
ies were within striking distance 
of Yasser Arafat’s terrorists.
Yoni did not fear the possibility 
of losing his life in the war to 
protect Israel from its enemies.
“Death does not frighten me,
” 
he wrote to a friend. “I do not 
fear it because I attribute little to 
a life without purpose. And if it is 
necessary for me to lay down my 
life to attain an important goal, I 
will do so willingly.
” 
 
BLACK SEPTEMBER 
The path that led to Yoni’s 
renown within Israel’s comman-
do ranks may have begun in 1971 
battling the Black September 
Organization, founded by Arafat’s 
Fatah faction. One of Black 
September’s first attacks was the 
assassination of Jordan’s Prime 
Minister Wasfi Tal. One of the 
assassins earned a permanent 
place in the history of savagery 
by drinking their victim’s blood 
in full view of photographers. 
In 1972, a Black September 

unit carried out the murder of 
11 Israeli athletes at Munich’s 
Olympic Village.
Yoni was a member of a 
commando unit sent the night 
of April 19, 1973, to Beirut to 
attack the planners of the Munich 
Massacre.
Israeli commandos landed on 
a Lebanese beach and slipped 
into Beirut. Yoni and his unit 
made their way to the apart-
ment of Black September leader 
Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar 
(Abu Youssef). He had not been 
originally assigned to the mis-
sion; Yoni volunteered.
The last to leave the apartment, 
Yoni grabbed a satchel of papers 
just as Lebanese police jeeps 
arrived. The papers contained 
operational plans for the PLO’s 
terrorist network throughout 
Israel. Yoni’s discovery undoubt-
edly saved hundreds of lives.

MORE HEROICS
Details of another example of 
Yoni’s heroism are to be found 
in Moshe Dayan’s autobiography 
Story of My Life. Dayan recalls 
how Yoni suffered a serious 
wound in the Six-Day War and 
yet had returned to his army unit 

and fought valiantly in the Yom 
Kippur War, despite his perma-
nent injuries.
Yoni and his unit “stalked and 
killed more than 40 Syrian com-
mandos who had landed behind 
our lines,
” wrote Dayan.
After that, Yoni was responsi-
ble for an extraordinary mission 
that rescued Lt. Col. Yossi Ben 
Hanan from behind enemy lines. 
Again, Yoni volunteered. He had 
overheard a radio transmission 
about a severely injured tank 
officer and led his men on foot, 
braving a nonstop artillery bar-
rage.
Recalling the Ben Hanan res-
cue, Dayan wrote: “I do not know 
how many young men there are 
like Yoni. But, I am convinced 
there are enough to ensure that 
Israel can meet the grim tests 
which face her in the future.
”
Dayan’s memoirs were pub-
lished before the Entebbe oper-
ation. Yoni’s last name is not 
revealed by Dayan in the book. 
His portrayal of Yoni seems 
visionary in retrospect.
Self Portrait of a Hero is a must 
read; it contains Yoni’s letters to 
family and friends from 1963, 
when he first entered high school 
in the Philadelphia suburbs, to 
just days before the rescue of 
hostages at Entebbe. His intellect, 
patriotism, compassion, dedica-
tion to duty and leadership are 
all on full display, amplifying the 
loss of someone who had just 
turned 30. 
The book has had a profound 
effect on its readers for decades. 
If you have not yet read it, do 
yourself a favor and get a copy. 
You too will be forever changed 
by it. 

Moshe Phillips is national director of 

Herut North America’s U.S. division. 

Moshe 
Phillips

WIKIPEDIA

Last known photo of Netanyahu, 
taken shortly before his death 
leading Operation Entebbe

