O. J. Simpson is back in the news, as we learn of a knife that is being examined by the Los Angeles Police Department. Might it be the murder weapon used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman? O. J. Simpson has a connection to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What is that connection?
Image courtesy of Charles LeBlanc is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
A. Netanyahu lived in America on and off in the 1950’s and 1960’s, as well as throughout most of the 1970’s, when he studied at MIT and Harvard. As a result, he was a huge football fan, in particular of the Philadelphia Eagles, as he had graduated from Cheltenham High School, a Philadelphia suburb. In 1976, Netanyahu attended a game between the Eagles and O. J.’s team, the Buffalo Bills, and after the game Netanyahu met with Simpson in the Bills locker room. Said Netanyahu at the time, “It was great to meet O. J. No matter what else I ever do in my life, I think this will always rank as the most thrilling.”
B. When Benjamin Netanyahu was studying at Harvard, he earned extra money by tutoring bar and bat mitzvah students. One of his students was Ron Goldman. Netanyahu attended Goldman’s bar mitzvah, and when Goldman was murdered, Netanyahu flew from Israel to the United States to pay a shiva call to the Goldman family.
C. In the late 1970’s, O. J. was hired as a spokesman for Hertz rental car company, and he filmed a famous series of ads depicting him racing to the Hertz rental car counter, sometimes jumping over furniture and barricades, sometimes flying above the crowd. When one of these ads began running in Israel, Netanyahu called on the Israeli Broadcasting Authority to ban the ad. He said, “At a time when our enemies are attempting to hijack and blow up airplanes, we cannot encourage people to run past barriers in our airports.” Despite his efforts, the ads remained on the air.
D. Shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister for the first time, Attorney Alan Dershowitz met with him in Israel. At one point, Netanyahu said, “I want to go to the secret office where no one can can overhear. I want to ask you something.” After entering this secure space, Netanyahu proceeded to ask, “So, did O. J. do it?” Dershowitz replied, “Mr. Prime Minister, does Israel have nuclear weapons?” to which Bibi responded, “Alan you know I can’t tell you that.” Said Dershowitz, “Aha! You know I can’t tell you that.”
E. Netanyahu is a huge fan of the Naked Gun trilogy of movies, and his favorite character is Officer Nordberg, who was played by O. J. Simpson. Nordberg’s claim to fame in these movies is that he always found himself in terrible and absurd situations where he sustained what should have been fatal injuries. For example, in the first film, Nordberg is shot multiple times and falls, banging his head on a pipe and burning his hand on a stove, eventually falling head first into a wedding cake and stepping into a bear trap. He goes on to suffer continued injuries and indignities while in intensive care, but recovers, only to suffer more injuries throughout that movie as well as Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Naked Gun 33 1/3. It is rumored that Netanyahu, whose own political career of frequently rising from the dead closely parallels that of Officer Nordberg, keeps a photo of O. J. Simpson in his private office.