Self-Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu [1963-1976] With Notes and an Afterword by his Brothers Benjamin and Iddo Netanyahu.

NETANYAHU, Benjamin and Iddo. Introduction by Herman Wouk.

Item Number: 127621

New York : Random House, 1980.

First edition of this group of letters by Jonathan Netanyahu, the fallen hero of the raid at Entebbe Airport. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by Benjamin Netanyahu on the front free endpaper, “To Tara, Fondly B. Netanyahu 12.4.86.” Fine in a fine dust jacket. Introduction by Herman Wouk. Translated by Shoshana Perla and Miriam Arad.

Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of future prime minister Benjamin, was killed in battle during Israel's 1976 daring hostage rescue mission in Africa, his personal reflections live on in these letters written to his family and friends. Yonatan Yoni Netanyahu 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. The eldest son of the Israeli professor Benzion Netanyahu, Jonatan was born in New York City and spent much of his youth in the United States, where he attended high school. After serving in the IDF during the Six-Day War of 1967, he briefly attended Harvard University before transferring to Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 1968; soon thereafter he left his studies and returned to the IDF. He joined Sayeret Matkal in the early 1970s and was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for his conduct in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Operation Entebbe was renamed Operation Yonatan in his honor. Benjamin Netanyahu, has been Prime Minister of Israel. Benjamin and their younger brother, Iddo Netanyahu, served in Sayeret Matkal. 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 clear sightedly 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. In 1979, the Jonathan Institute was founded by Benjamin Netanyahu in order to sponsor international conferences on terrorism. One of its first speakers, U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson, then Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who gave a talk titled Terrorism as a Weapon in International Politics, described the purpose of the conference and its relation to Jonathan Netanyahu. Derived from a Kirkus review: Netanyahu, 30 at the time, led and was the only one to die in the breathtaking Israeli Defense Forces paratroop raid on Entebbe in 1976, Operation Jonathan. Already a hero in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars, Yoni had a background of American education--high school and, briefly, Harvard--but Israel and the Israeli army were his true allegiances. In the army I have learned to appreciate the beauty of life, the immense pleasure of sleep, the taste of water, which is irreplaceable, the matchless value of willpower and all the marvels a man can do if only he will. This fortitude runs throughout the letters, utterly incredible but for the fact that Netanyahu was an outstanding commander, was astoundingly brave.