Jonathan Netanyahu

Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu was born on March 13, 1946 in New York City. When Yonatan was 2 years old his family moved to Israel. Yonatan’s father was a historian and his family always moved from Israel to the United States or from the United States to Israel. Yonatan went to High School at the Hebrew Gymnasium and was a brilliant student. Yonatan was also very active in school sports and excelled in academic studies and school sports. In 1964 Yonatan went to the Israeli army. Then in 1967, when Yonatan was discharged from the Israeli army, he attended college at Harvard University.

            In May of 1967, after being at college for only 6 months, Yonatan heard about the bad news in the Middle East. The Arab’s declared their intention to destroy the state of Israel and Yonatan returned to Israel. On June 5th war broke out and Yonatan took place in the battle of Um Katef. A few days before the war ended Yonatan was shot in the arm and his left elbow was permanently disabled. Yonatan felt that he wanted to help Israel and therefore resigned from Harvard and enrolled in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. By the middle of Yonatan’s school year, he enlisted once more to the Israeli army. In the summer of 1972, Yonatan was promoted to deputy commander of Sayeret Matkal (a commando unit where he served for the Israeli army). In the summer of 1973 Yonatan took a break from the Israeli army and returned to the United States to study at Harvard University.

            On October 6th, 1973, with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war, Yonatan returned to Israel to serve Israel. Yonatan returned to his old unit, Sayeret Matkal and was put in charge of a force that was fighting on the Golan Heights. Yonatan was then put in charge of another operation, which was to rescue Yossi Ben Hanan, who was a wounded soldier behind the enemy lines. After the Yom Kippur war ended, Yonatan joined the armored brigade. In June 1975, Yonatan left the armored brigade to become the commander of Sayeret Matkal. As the commander of Sayeret Matkal, Yonatan was put in charge of many operations. The most important operation that Yonatan led was operation Entebbe (also known as operation Thrunderbolt and Yonatan operation).