A boy named Bibi

There are two different stories about Benjamin Netanyahu. It is difficult to understand that they include the same person.

The first is that Netanyahu is a reason politician, devoid of ideas and opinions; one who is driven by his own obsession with remaining in the room of power. This Netanyahu has a good voice and is good at holding superficial speeches on television, speeches that lack some kind of intellectual content – and that's all.

This Netanyahu is extremely "pressable" (a Hebrew word invented almost exclusively for him) – a man who changes opinions based on political gain, who disclaims tomorrow's statements that night. His words are not to be trusted. He will always lie and cheat to ensure his own survival.

The second Netanyahu is almost the opposite. A patriot with principles, a thinking man, a statesman who foresees dangers. This Netanyahu is a gifted speaker, able to influence the US Congress and the UN General Assembly, and admired by the populous Israel.

So – which of these descriptions is true?

None of them.

If it is true that personality traits are formed in early childhood, we must explore Netanyahu's background in order to understand him.

He grew up in the shade by his father. Benzion Millikowsky, who changed his foreign name to the Hebrew Netanyahu, was a very dominant – and unhappy – person. He was born in Warsaw, a provincial city in the then Russian Empire. As a young man, he immigrated to Palestine, where he studied history at the new Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with the ambition of becoming a professor there. He was not admitted to further studies.

Benzion's father was a supporter of right-wing extremist Zionist leader Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. He inherited a very extremist mindset from his father, who in turn was passed on to his three sons. Benjamin was the middle son. As a little boy, his big brother called him Bibi, and the infantile nickname has passed.

The three Netanyahu boys lived in awe of their father.

The rejection of the prestigious, newly established Hebrew University made Benzion a bitter man – a bitterness that lasted until his death in 2012 at the age of 102. He was certain that this rejection was not about his academic qualifications, but rather about his ultranationalist viewpoints.

Benzion's extreme Zionism did not prevent him from leaving Palestine and seeking better academic success in the United States, where a second-rate university earned him a professorship. His life work as a historian dealt with the fate of the Jews in medieval Christian Spain – the expulsion and the Inquisition. This brought with it a very gloomy worldview: a belief that Jews will always be persecuted, that everyone goyim (non-Jews) hate Jews, that a straight line can be drawn between auto-da-cattle from the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust.

During these years, the Netanyahu family traveled back and forth between the United States and Israel. Benjamin grew up in the United States and acquired a fluent American-English accent – a necessity for his future career -, studying and eventually becoming a salesman. His obvious talent for this profession was discovered by a Likud foreign minister, who sent him to the UN as Israel's spokesman.

Benzion Netanyahu was not only a very bitter person who blamed the Zionist and Israeli academic system for not understanding his academic potential. He was also a very autocratic person.

The three Netanyahu boys lived in awe of their father. Noise was not allowed in the home while the big man was working in his closed office. Nor did they bring friends home. Their mother was completely surrendered to her husband, for whom she did everything. With this, she also sacrificed her own personality.

In all families is the middle child of three in a tough position. He is not admired as the oldest, nor pampered as the youngest. Because of the big brother's personality, this unfortunate location became even more difficult for Benjamin. Jonathan Netanyahu (both names mean "God has given") was a very blessed boy. He was attractive, gifted, well-liked, even admired. In the military, he became an officer in the Special Forces Sayeret Matkal – the elite of the military's elite. On that occasion, he led Operation Entebbe in Uganda in 1976, releasing the hostages in a plane hijacked by Palestinian and German guerrilla forces on their way to Israel. Jonathan was killed, and then a people hero. He was adored by the father – the father who never accepted his middle son.

Between his father – the embittered big thinker – and his older brother – the legendary hero – Benjamin grew up as a shy but ambitious boy – partly Israeli and partly American. He worked as a salesman for a while, until he was discovered by the very right-wing Likud Foreign Minister Moshe Arens.

Netanyahu adapted and shaped his personality to achieve his father's acceptance and to be aligned with his adored brother. He was never really appreciated by his father, who once said that his son would be a good foreign minister, but no prime minister.

Like his father's son, Netanayahu led the people towards Yitzhak Rabin under the Oslo Agreement, and was photographed on the speaker's balcony during the demonstration, carrying a symbolic coffin of Rabin around. Later, when Rabin was murdered, he renounced all responsibility.

Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, failed terribly, and Netanyahu became prime minister. This was a total disaster. The evening after the ensuing election, when it became known that he had lost, the masses flocked to Tel Aviv's city center (now named after Rabin) in a spontaneous joy demonstration, such as the liberation of Paris.

More luck had nor his successor, the Labor Party's Ehud Barak. As a former military "chief of staff", he was admired by many, especially by himself. He was pressured by President Bill Clinton to convene an Israel-Palestine Peace Conference at Camp David. Barak, who was rather ignorant of Palestinian attitudes, ended up dictating his terms and was shocked when they were rejected. When he returned home, he declared that the Palestinians wanted to throw us all at sea. When the people heard this, they brought him out and deployed the brutal, right-wing general Ariel Sharon, the founder of Likud.

It's like his Likud predecessor Yitzhak Shamir said: "It is permissible to lie to his fatherland."

Netanyahu became Minister of Finance, a job he succeeded in. By cultivating the neoliberal, ultra-capitalist teachings he had adopted in the United States, he made the poor poor and the rich richer. The poor people seemed to like it.

Sharon was the catalyst for settlements on the West Bank. To strengthen these, he decided to relinquish the Gaza Strip with his few settlements, which was a disproportionate struggle for the military. But his unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip shocked the right wing. Elder Netanyahu called the act "a crime against humanity."

Saturated by the opposition, Sharon Likud split and formed his own party, Kadima ("Progress"). Netanayhu became the leader of Likud.

And as usual, he was lucky. Sharon got hit and ended up in a coma, and never recovered. His successor, Ehud Olmert, was accused of corruption and had to resign. The next in line was Tzipi Livni, who was incompetent and unable to form any government, despite all the ingredients to succeed.

Netanyahu, the man who was ejected just a few years earlier by a jubilant congregation, entered that imperator. Again the masses cheered. Shakespeare had loved it.

Since then have Netanyahu has been re-elected again and again. The last time was a clear personal victory; he defeated all his competitors on the right.

So who is this Netanyahu? Despite what many believe, he is a man with very strong opinions – the opinions he has inherited from his right-wing extremist father: The whole world is looking to murder us, all the time. We need a powerful state that can defend us. All land between the Mediterranean and Jordan has been given to us by God (regardless of whether he exists or not). Everything else is lies, tricks and tactics.

When Netanyahu embraced the principle of "two states for two peoples" in a famous speech at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, those who knew him could do nothing but smile. It was as if he had been encouraged to eat pork on the day of fasting kippur. He waved this alluring statement before the eyes of the naïve Americans, and allowed Defense Minister Tzipi Livni to lead endless negotiations with the Palestinians – a people he despised. Each time the negotiations seemed to be pointing to progress, he was quick to come up with new terms, such as the ridiculous demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Of course, he did not fail to recognize the Palestinian territories as the nation-state of the Palestinian people – the Palestinians as peoples did not exist for him at all.

In the evening during his last election campaign – the one that took place recently – Netanyahu announced that there will be no Palestinian state as long as he is in power. When the Americans expressed dissatisfaction, he moderated the statement. Why not? It's like his Likud predecessor Yitzhak Shamir said: "It is permissible to lie to his fatherland."

Netanyahu will continue to lie, cheat and moderate himself, waving false flags – all to achieve his only desire, the "stone of life" (as he liked to say), the legacy of his father – the Jewish state from the sea to the river.

The problem is that this area consists of an Arab majority – a small majority, but one that will grow steadily.

A Jewish and democratic state covering the whole country is impossible. Many tend to know that this would be too much, even for God, and so he decided that we must choose two of three options: a Jewish and democratic state in one part of the country, a Jewish state in the whole country that will not. be democratic, or a democratic state in the whole country that will not be Jewish.

Netanyahu's solution to the problem is to ignore it. He continues as he contends, expanding settlements and focusing on the immediate problem: to get his fourth government in place, and to prepare his fifth, four years ahead.

And of course, to show the father looking down on him from heaven, that little Bibi, his middle son, was still worthy of him.

Avnery is a former member of the Israeli Knesset and correspondent for Ny Tid.