Binyamin Netanyahu does remind us of Winston Churchill. I only hope that Netanyahu's tenure will not end with giving away the Holy Land.

Israel’s left-wing newspaper Ha’aretz compares their Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to UK’s wartime leader and probably the greatest Prime Minister of all times, Winston Churchill, saying that Netanyahu identifies with the feeling of being a small minority that is right, warning against the danger while being ignored by the majority, which goes about enjoying itself until he is called from the political sidelines to save his people.

“Netanyahu compared himself to Churchill when he opposed the Oslo Accords and earned the hostility of the Israeli “elites” who supported the Oslo process. He saw his election in 1996 as a mission to save the nation and stop Oslo, as Churchill was appointed prime minister after his dark prophecies came true in World War II,” Ha’aretz’ journalist Aluf Benn writes.

“During his decade out of power, Netanyahu found his Nazi Germany in Iran. He stood at the head of the people warning against the terror of Iranian nuclear power in the face of the indifference of the Israeli public and international community. When he declared two years ago that “the year is 1938 and Iran is Germany,” the hidden message was “Ahmadinejad is Hitler and I am Churchill.” When he returned to power, thwarting the Iranian threat was for Netanyahu a central aim,” the newspaper says in the column.

According to Benn, the wars in Lebanon and Gaza helped Netanyahu adopt another aspect of the Churchill legacy, the bombings of German cities. “When Israel is criticized for bombing Beirut and Gaza, Netanyahu responds by mentioning Dresden and Hamburg. He commonly says Britain and the United States killed many more German civilians during World War II than vice versa, yet it is clear who was the aggressor and who was the justified side in that war. In his speech to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu mentioned how Churchill had warned that he was not heeded until the threat actually materialized, and alluded to him as the bomber of Dresden,” he writes.

However, the journalist says that the American support Churchill received during World War II came at a price: the dismantling of the British Empire. “Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed British colonialism, and in his first meeting with Churchill, when the United States was helping Britain but had not yet entered the war, the two signed the Atlantic Charter, which promised self-government for all peoples.”

“In Netanyahu’s view, the Iranian threat against Israel resembles the Nazi threat on Britain. Like Churchill, Netanyahu hopes for American help to lift the threat; like Roosevelt, US President Barack Obama demands the dismantling of Israel’s little empire in the territories and the liberation of the Palestinians from occupation. It will be interesting to see whether Netanyahu also learns this lesson from the leader he admires, or whether the analogy ends with bombing.”

The last paragraph is, however, typical left-wing demagogy. A sane person cannot compare the British Empire’s hold of India to Israel’s hold of Judea and Samaria. While I wouldn’t have supported granting India its independence and dismantling the greater empire of Britain, I do realise that British Empire and Israel are two totally different things. At least India is a country of separate nations – separate from the British. Judea and Samaria are historical parts of Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism – the 3,000 year old capital of Jews. Therefore the comparison is not valid.

However, the article is quite right in many ways other than the last paragraph. Netanyahu does resemble Winston Churchill, and he has every potential to be as great of a leader as ol’ Winston was. I hope that he uses that resemblance wisely for the benefit of Israel. It’s a gift to be a great leader.

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