'My Brother's Keeper': Ex-Netanyahu aide comes clean about 2014 - review

Ari Harow found himself at the very heart of the Israeli political scene over a critical period in its history. In My Brother’s Keeper: Netanyahu, Obama, & The Year of Terror & Conflict That Changed the Middle East Forever, he gives his readers a full, frank, and detailed account of what he experienced.

Born in the United States, Harow made aliyah with his family at the age of 12 and thus experienced a predominantly Israeli upbringing. He returned to the US for a period to attend the City University of New York, where he joined and eventually headed the American Friends of Likud. His education was completed with an MA in political science from Tel Aviv University. 

This background positioned him as an ideal and compatible friend and confidant for Benjamin Netanyahu, whose background similarly combined US and Israeli elements, and Harow acted as an unofficial political adviser to Netanyahu for some years.  

Later, he became Netanyahu’s official foreign affairs adviser, and in 2008 his bureau chief. After a short break from working in government, Harow returned in 2014 as Netanyahu’s chief of staff and witnessed, at the right hand of Israel’s prime minister, the critical events of that year.

His close liaison with Netanyahu had its downsides. One, to which he refers in his “Author’s Note” at the front of the book, is his involvement with the criminal charges brought – and still being pursued – against Netanyahu. 

Harow, himself charged with various offenses, was induced to agree to a plea bargain in exchange for his appearing as a witness for the state. Harow promises a full account of the episode as soon as he is legally free to provide one.

Although My Brother’s Keeper spans a period up to the presidency of Donald Trump, Harow pivots his memoir on the year 2014. The book’s title is drawn from Israel’s Operation Brother’s Keeper, a seminal event of that year with far-reaching consequences. 

2014: The year of terror and conflict that changed the Middle East

ON JUNE 12, 2014, Hamas terrorists kidnapped three Israeli teenagers – Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel. The boys were last seen in the Gush Etzion area near Jerusalem. Within hours, as Harow tells us, a determined effort was mounted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to locate them and attempt a rescue. 

Operation Brother’s Keeper became one of the largest anti-terrorist dragnets in the country’s history. For more than two weeks, hundreds of sites were searched, and about 400 suspects were arrested. Of them, 56 had previously been released as part of a deal with Hamas involving the freeing, in 2011, of one captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, held since 2006, in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Harow, at Netanyahu’s right hand throughout, takes the reader through the events, episode by episode, painting a vivid picture of the drama as it unfolded. 

On June 30, when Netanyahu and the War Cabinet received the news that the bodies of the slaughtered teenagers had been discovered by the IDF, Harow provides unique and moving testimony of the emotional response and the tears shed.

The number of Palestinian suspects questioned and imprisoned during Operation Brother’s Keeper was not to Hamas’s liking. 

Within days, it started unleashing a barrage of indiscriminate short- and medium-range warheads from the Gaza Strip, aiming them at Israel’s population centers. Israel endured the onslaught for a time, but the constant rocket bombardment had to be halted.  

Two days before Christmas, Israel launched its response – an armed attack on Hamas which it dubbed Operation Cast Lead – and the Middle East was plunged into a ground, sea, and air conflict that lasted 50 days. Cast Lead ended two days before Barack Obama took up the post of president of the United States.

Taking his readers into the very heart of Israel’s political scene, Harow provides an in-depth account of Netanyahu’s efforts to cope with the determination of America’s new president to bring Iran back into the comity of nations. 

Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech, made in Cairo just a few weeks after he took office, laid the foundation, while it also confirmed Obama’s support for a two-state solution to the perennial Israel-Palestine dispute. Later meetings between Obama and Netanyahu put extra strains on the US-Israel relationship; and when, with the nuclear deal with Iran imminent, the Republican house speaker invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without informing Obama, relations reached a breaking point. The occasion was a resounding triumph for Netanyahu, but the nuclear deal went ahead in any event.

Harow tells, in graphic detail, the effect working as Netanyahu’s aide had on him – the relentless pressure of being at the PM’s beck and call 24 hours a day. It led to a minor heart attack and his resignation. 

And yet, a few years later, he was unable to resist the call from a newly re-elected Netanyahu to return as his chief of staff. 

Harow may not have intended it, but there is a secondary meaning to be read into the title he selected for his wonderfully readable book, My Brother’s Keeper. 

• MY BROTHER’S KEEPER: NETANYAHU, OBAMA, & THE YEAR OF TERROR & CONFLICT THAT CHANGED THE MIDDLE EAST FOREVER
• By Ari Harow
• Bombardier Books
• 304 pages; $27