How Sergeant Netanyahu Cheated Death

On May 13, 1969 Sgt. Benjamin Netanyahu made his way west through the marshlands of northwestern Sinai. He was seated in an armored half-track. Night had just fallen and the future prime minister would soon be in a battle for his life in the warm, tidal waters of the Suez Canal.

 

Speaking before a joint session of Congress in 2011, Netanyahu made a terse and uncharacteristic mention of that evening. “I remember what it was like before we had peace,” he told the ardently hospitable crowd. ”I was nearly killed in a firefight inside the Suez Canal. I mean that literally.”

 

Israel’s prime minister, who was inducted into the army two months after the end of the Six-Day War and returned from MIT to fight in the Yom Kippur War, was twice wounded in battle but has never been closer to death than on that night, 43 years ago. It is hard to say that it shaped him as a leader, or made him into the man he is today. But surely his prolonged fight in those dark waters, struggling with an impossibly heavy pack and a life vest that wouldn’t inflate, as he got passed from hand to hand and was brought to the surface only to be lost again amid the deadly fire and the bedlam of an ambush, brought to the fore qualities he already possessed – fierce determination and uncommon strength. Those, along with the devotion of his friends, are what stood between him and a watery grave.

 

Time has weathered and eroded the memories of the men who saved him. The details of the mission do not always match up. There are holes and contradictions within their stories. Some, for instance, remember the long retreat, in the face of the dawning day and the certain artillery fire that would follow, as spread out and disorderly, much “like Napoleon’s army leaving Russia.” Others say they rode back in the half-tracks. But all have a clear memory of that awful moment when the Egyptians lit up the night with machine gun fire, and all remember the “dreadfully slow” moments that ensued during which Netanyahu nearly sank to the bottom of Ferdinand de Lesseps’ manually-dug canal.

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