Yesterday Bibi Netanyahu went to the Ziv hospital in Safed to have a minor operation on his hand. Only this Netanyahu is only 21 years old and he’s not even Jewish! He’s a Christian Arab from Kfar Ra’amah. The uptake nurses asked: “What’s your name?” And he answered: “Benjamin Netanyahu”. He whipped out his ID card to verify what they thought was a practical joke.
According to Yediot Acharonot this young man named Benjamin Netanyahu is also nicknamed Bibi and his name sometimes gets him into big trouble. This young man was born in 1996, 2 months after the first time Prime Minister Netanyahu was voted into office. “My family was ecstatic with Netanyahu getting into office and when I was born they decided to name me after him.”
“Nobody believes me when I tell them my name! They say you’re joking with us and ask for my ID. My father was a Likud (Conservative Israeli Party which Netanyahu is the head of) man and his father is also a Likud man and I also vote Likud.” Our young Netanyahu’s last name is Nikola.
“As a child I was teased a lot for my name and it continues until today. I’m a truck driver shipping cleaning supplies around the triangle area wedged between the Sharon and the Shomron regions. People there call me ‘traitor’. I got to the point I was disgusted and wanted to change my name and I asked my father why he did this to me! He answered: “It’s a good name; we’re ‘Likudniks’!”
Benjamin’s father Wahid told Yediot about the name he chose for his son. I’m 53 and I served in Lebanon in an Armor Battalion and we’re as Israeli as can be. I was the brunt of a lot on account of my son’s name whether from Muslims or from my own group of Christians But I have no pans of changing my son’s name at all’, Wahid says decisively.
Bibi’s grandfather Razik who is 78 also interviewed for the article. “In 1996 on election day Defense Minister Moshe Arens who is an old friend of our family was a guest at my home,” Razik relates. Up to that election our village would get 50 votes for the Likud. But for that election our broader family rallied and we got the Likud 300 votes of the villagers and Netanyahu was elected prime minister.”
“Netanyahu’s victory made us very happy and when my grandson was born 2 months later my son and I decided that we would call him Benjamin Netanyahu,” Razik explained.
Maybe one day He will meet his namesake.