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Netanyahu
Netanyahu
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President Donald Trump; Psychology Prof.
Shaul Kimhi of Tel Hai College notes Netanyahu’s ‘ability to mobilize his supporters,’ a
trait he says that also characterizes Trump(photo credit: CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS)
On April 9, some 6.3 million Israeli voters are eligible to go to polling stations for the
21st elections since the establishment of the state in 1948. So far, this election campaign
has been ugly, shallow and negative with punches under the belt by the two major
contenders – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz of the newly-formed
Blue and White list, with worse to come in the remaining days. In a nutshell, both their
campaigns revolve around the personality of Netanyahu, who is under several corruption
investigations.
For the last 20 years he has dominated Israeli politics and his character has been the subject
of speculation by journalists, who have tried to analyze his behavior with what is termed
“pop psychology.”
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But there is also “conventional psychology,” with research studies written by serious,
professional psychologists and psychiatrists, studies, which for the most part have gone
under the radar of the Israeli public and international audiences.
One of them appears in a book published in 2015 by Jerold Post, a professor of psychiatry
and political psychology. For 21 years, Post served in the CIA and was the founder of its
Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior. The center focuses on
“Leadership Analysis,” the art of breaking down a leader into basic psychological
components for study and for the use of American presidents.
Four years ago, Prof. Post published a book titled Narcissism and Politics: Dreams of
Glory.
The book examines the dramatic proliferation of politicians with significant narcissistic
personality features. Driven by dreams of glory, they seem to find the spotlight that the
arena of politics provides irresistible. The book explores the psychology of narcissism – the
entitlement, grandiosity and arrogance overlying insecurity, the sensitivity to criticism and
the hunger for acclaim – illustrating different narcissistic personality features through a
spectrum of international and national politicians.
One of the leaders dissected by Post is Netanyahu. He is one of four leaders who star in a
chapter called, “Leaders by Default: Second Choice Sons.” The other three are Joseph
Kennedy Jr., Bashar Assad and Rajiv Gandhi.
All four share at least one common trait. Their dominant fathers – and mother in the case of
Gandhi – had cultivated other sons as their favorites to be groomed for glory. But their
preferred sons unexpectedly died in wars and accidents, and the ambitious parents had no
choice but to settle for the sons who were their second choice and invest in them by
default.
Following in the footsteps of the CIA, the Israeli intelligence community – the Mossad and
Military Intelligence – established a unit, though much smaller, to write psychological
profiles of enemy and rival leaders such as PLO chief Yasser Arafat, Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan, Syria’s Hafez and Bashar Assad,
and more.
One of their main psychologists was Shaul Kimhi, today a professor of psychology at the
Tel-Hai College and director of its Center for International Resilience.
In January 2001, using what was termed “behavior analysis,” Kimhi published an elaborate
profile of Netanyahu after his first term as prime minister (1996-99).
The research followed the young Netanyahu’s relations with his parents. Cela, his mother,
who was a housewife, is described as a “cold iron woman,” who taught her three sons –
Yonatan, the eldest, who was the favorite, died in the rescue operation at Entebbe in 1976;
Benjamin, the second son, and Iddo, who became a physician and a writer – to be tough and
to conceal their emotions.
Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, a right-wing Zionist, was a professor of Jewish
history. After being rejected by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he moved to the US.
For the rest of his life, he held a bitter grudge against the Labor party establishment and
Israel’s intellectual elites. His sons adored their father.
Kimhi found in Benzion traits such as “egocentric, highly motivated achiever, emotionally
detached, a man of the spoken and written word” – which wasn’t necessarily compatible
with his actions.
According to Kimhi, Benjamin Netanyahu inherited some of these features from his father.
He found in the Israeli prime minister the following “distinguishing traits”:
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