Israel’s PM Visits Grave of Fallen Brother, IDF Hero Yoni Netanyahu

By Lea Speyer April 19, 2015 , 10:30 am

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:13)

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife Sara, visit the grave of the prime minister’s brother Yoni, who died during the Entebbe raid. (Photo: Avi Ohayon/ GPO)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the grave of his older brother, Yoni, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, ahead of Memorial Day. Accompanied by his wife Sara, the couple paid their respects to the IDF war hero Saturday night so as not to interfere with visitors to the cemetery throughout the week. Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu was killed during the 1976 Operation Entebbe, a daring IDF rescue mission to release hostages being held by Palestinian terrorists. Over 100 elite Israeli commandos were covertly transported into Uganda to rescue the hostages. 102 hostages were rescued, five Israeli commandos wounded, and Netanyahu, who was the commander of the operation, was killed.

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Israel’s Memorial Day will begin Tuesday night with a one-minute long siren at 8 pm. The siren also marks the beginning of the national memorial service, held annually at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. A second siren on Wednesday at 11 am will last two minutes and signal the beginning of memorial services at 52 military cemeteries across Israel. This year, Israel will remember 23,320 casualties of war and terrorism since 1860. According to statistics released by the IDF on Friday, 16,760 families are “bereaved families” in Israel. There are 9,753 grieving parents, 4,958 widows and 2,098 orphans.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/36692/netanyahu-pays-respects-to-late-brother-yoni-ahead-of-israels-memorial-day-jerusalem/#1ogfAjzP4R6sKCG3.99

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Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu (Hebrew: יוֹנָתָן "יוֹנִי" נְתַנְיָהוּ; March 13, 1946 – July 4, 1976), was the commander of the elite Israeli army commando unit Sayeret Matkal. He was the only Israeli soldier killed in action during Operation Entebbe in Uganda. He was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for his conduct in the Yom Kippur War. His younger brother, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the current Prime Minister of Israel.Yonatan Netanyahu was born in New York City, the eldest son of Zila (née Segal; 1912–2000) and Benzion Netanyahu (1910–2012), a professor emeritus of history at Cornell University. He was named after his paternal grandfather, rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky, and John Henry Patterson. His two brothers are Benjamin and Iddo.Benjamin (nicknamed "Bibi") was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1996, in 2009 and reelected in both 2013 and 2015. Iddo, the youngest of the three, is a radiologist and writer. All three brothers served in Sayeret Matkal. Netanyahu attended Cheltenham High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1964 as a classmate of Baseball Hall of Fame member Reggie Jackson.

Netanyahu married his long-time girlfriend Tirza ("Tuti") on August 17, 1967. Shortly after theirHarvard 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.^[3] 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.

Netanyahu joined the Israeli Defense Forces in 1964. He volunteered to serve in the Paratroopers Brigade, and excelled in the Officer Training Course. He was eventually given command of a paratroopers company. On June 5, 1967, during the Six Day War, his battalion fought the battle of Um Katef in Sinai, then reinforced the Golan Heights. During the battle, Yonatan received a wound to his elbow while helping rescue a fellow soldier who lay wounded deep behind enemy lines.

After the Six Day War, Netanyahu went to the United States to study at Harvard University, but returned a year later because of the War of Attrition. Instead, he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, returning to active military service after half a year. In the early 1970s he joined Sayeret Matkal (Israeli special forces), and in the summer of 1972 was appointed as the unit's deputy commander. During that year, he commanded a raid (Operation Crate 3) in which senior Syrian officers were captured and exchanged in return for captive Israeli pilots. The following year he participated in Operation Spring of Youth (Hebrew: מבצע אביב נעורים‎), in which the alleged terrorists and leadership of Black September were selectively killed bySayeret 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.

Following the war, Netanyahu was awarded Medal of Distinguished Service (Hebrew: עיטור המופת‎), Israel's third highest military decoration, for his wartime conduct. Netanyahu then volunteered to serve as an armor commander, due to the heavy casualties inflicted on the Israeli Armored Corps during the war, with a disproportionate number of these in the officer ranks. Netanyahu excelled in Tank Officers course, and was given command of the Barak Armored Brigade, which had been shattered during the war. Netanyahu turned his brigade into the leading military unit in the Golan Heights.

In June 1975, Netanyahu left the Armored Corps and returned to Sayeret Matkal as unit commander. He was killed in action on July 4, 1976, while commanding an assault unit in Operation Entebbe, his first big operation since returning to the unit. Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid (along with three hostages, all of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members, and dozens of Ugandan soldiers). Netanyahu was shot outside the building being stormed, and would soon die in the arms of Efraim Sneh, commander of the mission's medical unit. The operation itself was considered a success by Israel, and is known as Mivtsa Yonatan (Operation Yonatan) in honor of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu was buried in Jerusalem's Military Cemetery at Mount Herzl on July 6 following a military funeral attended by enormous crowds and top-ranking officials.Shimon Peres, then Defense Minister, said during the eulogy that "a bullet had torn the young heart of one of Israel's finest sons, one of its most courageous warriors, one of its most promising commanders – the magnificent Yonatan Netanyahu. In 1972, he and Tuti were divorced. Netanyahu was living with his girlfriend of two years, Bruria, at the time of his death.

In 1980 many of Netanyahu's personal letters were published. Author Herman Wouk describes them as a "remarkable work of literature, possibly one of the great documents of our time." Many of his letters were written hurriedly under trying conditions in the field, but according to a review in the New York Times, give a "convincing portrayal of a talented, sensitive man of our times who might have excelled at many things yet chose clearsightedly to devote himself to the practice and mastery of the art of war, not because he liked to kill or wanted to, but because he knew that, as always in human history, good is no match for evil without the power to physically defend itself."

(excerpts)

Letter to his parents, March 6, 1969:

"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"

Letter to his brother Benjamin, December 2, 1973:

"We're preparing for war, and it's hard to know what to expect. What I'm positive of is that there will be a next round, and others after that. But I would rather opt for living here in continual battle than for becoming part of the wandering Jewish people. Any compromise will simply hasten the end. As I don't intend to tell my grandchildren about the Jewish State in the twentieth century as a mere brief and transient episode in thousands of years of wandering, I intend to hold on here with all my might."

Letter to his parents, April 13, 1974:

"I have no real girl friend at the moment. My last romance is over, and as I don't have time to run around anyway, it looks as if I'll remain on my own for the time being. . . On the whole, I've nothing to complain of. I'm up to my neck in my army work, and during leaves I move about a lot in our lovely land.

The whole world marvels at the Inca and Aztec civilizations and such—and they do indeed deserve admiration. Nevertheless almost all of these came into being after the start of the Christian Era (not that this detracts from their value), whereas here it seems that the cradle of world civilization is all around us, everything dating back thousands and thousands of years. A few Saturdays ago I visited the Biblical Gibeon, and saw the remarkable ancient pool there (I'll take you to see it when you come). It's this pool that's mentioned in II Samuel in connection with Abner ben Ner and Joab ben Zeruiah, who 'met together by the pool of Gibeon' and let 'the young men arise and play before them.' And the country is all like that!"

Letter to his girlfriend Bruria, Dec., 1974:

"I told you that I had lost my innocence and my blind faith in the eternity of love. And that's a pity—truly a pity, because I want to believe in it with my whole being. If I'm skeptical, it's not about now, but about the distant future. We are separated for too long at a time for us to be bound together forever. There's something hopeless and very sad about this feeling. You asked me about a child, and I said what I did because I'm not thinking that far ahead—because a child is the most wonderful creation and the final bond between a man and a woman (at least, that's how I see it, or let's say, that's how it should be and how I'd want it to be). And I'm not thinking that far ahead because I'm not convinced it's eternal. I only wish I could free myself of this doubt."