Once and Future Prime Minister of Israel Bibi Netanyahu On His New Autobiography “Bibi: My Story”
Former and future Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu joined me this morning. The audio is available at my podcast
Audio:
Transcript:
HH: 50 years ago, my next guest stormed an airplane, got shot for his efforts, saved a bunch of passengers, four Palestinian terrorists killed. But you probably better know him as the once and future prime minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu. Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Great to have you on.
BN: Good to be with you, very much, and with your audience as well.
HH: I have, I have greatly enjoyed Bibi: My Story. Jonathan Carp sent it to me on Friday, and I’ve done nothing but read it and listen to it. And I enjoyed the fact that you recorded the end of the book, but not the beginning. So I got through your accent pretty good at the end there. Let’s start with the beginning, though. And an argument among brothers on a tarmac about who was going to rush into an airplane, I’ve never read that before. That might be familiar to listeners in Israel, but it ain’t familiar to Americans. That’s kind of an extraordinary story.
BN: Well, indeed it was. I can tell you that far from being just an extraordinary story, it was an extraordinary, in many ways, an unbelievable moment in my life. And it’s one where my brother was pitted against me. We had 16 soldiers from our unit dressed as mechanics about to “fix” a hijacked plane. That was a ruse arranged by Defense Minister Dayan to overtake these, this hijacked plane that landed near Tel Aviv. The terrorists demanded that we release 300 jailed terrorists, and if we didn’t, if Israel didn’t agree, they’d blow up the plane with all its passengers. Dayan seemed to acquiesce to their request, falsely, of course. But we have to fix the plane to allow it to fly with the released terrorists to a destination of the choice of the hijackers. We got on the plane. We were to get on the plane as mechanics, situate ourselves in front of these various entrances, and then storm on a prearranged signal, storm the plane and kill the terrorists and release the hostages. No one had ever done that before, so we were all ready to go. We had practiced, dressed up in mechanic’s, white mechanic’s overalls, stuck Baretta pistols in our boots. We couldn’t use our Uzis and Kalashnikov assault rifles which were our normal weapon, because they were too big to hide, and also their firepower could have engaged with the passengers. And now we’re all ready to go, and my older brother, Jonathan, Yoni, who was senior to me in our unit, came to me and he said, well, I’m going, too. And I said you can’t go. He said why not? And I said well, because I’m already there, and you can’t have two brothers in such close quarters, because obviously, one of us could, or even both of us could get killed. We were afraid the terrorists would blow up the plane with prearranged charges that they put on the aircraft. Then he said to me, well, I’ll go in your stead. And I said you can’t go in my place, because these are my soldiers. And he said so, we’ll both go. And I said Yoni, what are you talking about? Think of father and mother. Think of what would happen if one of us got hurt or killed. And he said something to me that was unbelievable. He said very slowly and very deliberately, he said Bibi, my life is my own, and my death is my own. And I saw that iron resolution that he had. And of course, I pushed him off as far as I could, but we had to go to the commander of the unit, and he sided with me. So my brother was left behind. Well…











