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Emanuel’s father, living comfortably in retirement in Chicago, was responsible, according to some sources, for terrorist attacks on buses full of Arabs and of British soldiers in the 1945-48 period. Feith’s father was similarly involved in campaigns to induce terror among non-Jewish residents of Palestine prior to his emigration to the US in 1942.

This gives us some context in which to interpret Benjamin Emanuel’s remarks on accession of his son to the role of White House chief of Staff: “Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”

After Israeli independence in 1948, the internal politics of the country were dominated by the Labor partywhich believed in the creation of European-style Social Democracy and a relatively discreet maltreatment/dispossession of Palestinians. In this context, the Revisionists were considered to be nuts from the fringe, and as such, were largely cut out of the structures of official power. I have been told by an Israeli academic that this contributed to Netanyahu’s father—a scholar of the Spanish inquisition who had also been Jabotinsky’s personal secretary in New York between 1935-1940—having difficulties in securing a regular academic appointment in Eretz Israel. Hence, he shuttled back and forth several times between that country and the US. This is the reason why Benjamin Netanyahu speaks perfect American English; he spent much of his youth in the US.