In the late afternoon last Friday, I first heard a brief TV news item that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had undergone treatment for prostate cancer, and that he had fully recovered – thank God. It took a few more hours to retrieve at least part of the sequence of events that had led to his treatment.
First of all, we discovered that the event had occurred two months previously, and that information about it had been withheld due to the US-Israel attack on Iran, so that the Iranians would not use it to publish damaging and/or false propaganda against Israel.
Then it was recalled that a year and five months earlier – on December 29, 2024 – Netanyahu had undergone an operation to remove a benign tumor from his prostate. Later on, there were reports that the 2024 tumor had also been cancerous and that Netanyahu had undergone radiation treatment at that time as well.
However, these reports have not been substantiated.
At any rate, it was not previously reported that since the first event, Netanyahu had been under regular medical observation, and that the second “minute” (according to Netanyahu) cancerous tumor had been discovered during one of these routine check-ups.
Incidentally, there is some confusion about whether “minute” refers to a 0.9 cm. or a 0.9 mm. tumor.
There are those who dispute the accuracy of this sequence of events, arguing that it is not properly documented. However, there is no argument that from 2016 to the present, Netanyahu has not published regular, annual reports about his health.
No law in Israel obliges such reporting (as is also the case in the US). However, in the aftermath of prime minister Ariel Sharon’s second stroke in January 2006, from which he never recovered consciousness, and finally passed away in January 2014, a procedure was introduced according to which the prime minister is expected to publish a full annual medical report.
Since 2016, Netanyahu has not abided by this procedure. (Both Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid did, in the brief periods that each served as prime minister, during the Government of Change, 2021-2022).
Netanyahu’s current revelation is not the first time he has avoided publishing regular and accurate reports about his health. On July 15, 2023, less than three months before Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel and mega-atrocities, Netanyahu was briefly hospitalized, allegedly after staying in the sun without wearing a hat (according to the prime minister himself, who proceeded to lecture the public about the importance of wearing a hat when outside).
A week later, it transpired that he was in fact suffering from disturbances in his heartbeat, not (or not only) from dehydration, and that he underwent a pacemaker implantation. While Netanyahu’s heart disturbances had obviously been known to his doctors all along, until this event took place, they were not known to the public.
An ongoing dilemma
The problem of getting political leaders to report their health condition regularly is not unique to Israel, nor to the US, where there is frequent discussion of the need to require legislators, governors, and presidents to make their health records public.
Though the right to privacy, which is highly valued in all democracies, includes keeping the individual’s medical records under wraps, it is generally agreed that political leaders are excluded on the latter count, and that the public has the right to know everything about those they vote for, as it might affect the way they fulfill their role.
This applies especially to the decision-making capabilities of those elected, who must frequently make consequential decisions on issues that affect the lives and welfare of their voters.
In the case of prime ministers and presidents (in states with presidential systems), they might occasionally have to make such decisions on their own, and the voters have the right to know whether they are capable of making such decisions judiciously, based on the state of their health at the time that the decisions are to be taken.
A paper published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine during the 2020 US presidential elections (“When disease strikes leaders: What should we know,” by Dr. Salvatore Mangione) mentioned three great US presidents who kept their poor health secret from the public, putting them in embarrassing political or diplomatic situations toward the end of their political careers.
They were: Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, whose stroke in October 1919 started “the most serious case of presidential disability and White House coverup” in American history.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the US, managed to serve successfully for three terms despite severe physical disabilities caused by polio. He passed away two months after the 1945 Yalta Conference, which took place not long before Europe was completely reconquered by the Allies at the end of World War II. At the conference, Roosevelt met with Churchill and Stalin, but was in what was described as such “terrible health” that it was felt that “he didn’t have the strength to be quite as stubborn as he liked to be,” especially vis-à-vis Stalin.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president, was described as “the sickest person ever elected to the White House.” He was believed to have been “strong-armed by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev” at the 1961 Vienna summit, at least partially because of his physical weakness, caused by his various ailments. The nature of Kennedy’s chronic health ailments, including Addison’s disease (an adrenal insufficiency) and debilitating chronic back pain was only revealed to the public years after his assassination in 1963, in the early 1970s.
Hiding one’s health for political gain
There is a suspicion that leaders are inclined to hide their health conditions for electoral purposes. Many of Netanyahu’s opponents suspect that his electoral concerns are the main reason that he fails to regularly publish full medical reports, and why he doesn’t reveal the complete truth when he does address his health issues. He believes that medical problems are a sign of weakness and should not be revealed to voters.
Concurrently, Netanyahu has had to make important decisions, including those vis-à-vis the United States, on his own; no longer does he have former strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer by his side. Considering this, the thought of a sudden, unexpected breakdown in his health becomes increasingly worrying.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.
