Benzion Netanyahu, Hawkish Scholar, Dies at 102

Benzion Netanyahu, a scholar of Judaic history who lobbied in the United States for the creation of the Jewish state, wrote a revisionist account of the Spanish Inquisition and became a behind-the-scenes adviser to his son Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, died on Monday at his home in Jerusalem. He was 102.

The prime minister’s office announced the death.

The elder Mr. Netanyahu’s views were relentlessly hawkish. He argued that Jews inevitably faced discrimination that was racial, not religious, and that compromising with Arabs was futile.

In the 1940s, as the executive director of the New Zionist Organization in the United States, he met with policy makers like Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He also wrote hard-hitting full-page advertisements that appeared in The New York Times and other newspapers....