Benjamin Netanyahu
About two hours after the Hague prosecutor's request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant and Sinwar was published, Netanyahu responded today (Monday) at the Likud faction meeting for the first time: "It's a scandal, it won't stop me or us." Even in the rest of the political system, the reactions were not slow to arrive: Minister Gantz said that if the orders were issued, "it would be a historical crime that will not be erased", Lapid spoke of a terrible political failure, Minister Ben Gabir accused of anti-Semitism - but named the wrong court. In Israel they said that the comparison between Netanyahu and Sinwar cannot be accepted - a symmetry that Hamas also rejected: "The decision of the Criminal Court in The Hague 'compares the victim to the executioner' and represents encouragement for the occupation to continue its 'war of extermination'."
Benjamin Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv, and grew up in Jerusalem. During his high school years, his family moved to the United States, where his father Dr. Ben-Zion Netanyahu was offered an academic post. Upon his return to Israel in 1967, he was drafted to the Israeli Army, and served 5 years in the elite Sayeret Maktal unit. He took part in several military operations, including the famed hostage rescue aboard the hijacked "Sabena" flight in 1972. During the same year he received a decoration for command of an operation from the late IDF chief-of-staff Motta Gur. He participated in the Yom Kippur war as a reserve officer and was promoted to the rank of captain.
Following his army service, Netanyahu enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he matriculated with a BS in Architecture. He remained at MIT for his graduate studies where he earned an MBA from the Sloan School of Management. As a student, he also pursued studies in political science both at MIT and at neighboring Harvard. Between 1976-1982, Netanyahu worked in the private sector, for the Boston Consulting Group, and later as a member of senior management for RIM Industries Ltd.
Netanyahu was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1982. In 1984 he was appointed the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, where he served for four years. During this period, he was known for his determined and tenacious support of the Israeli effort to influence international public opinion. He successfully led an effort to permit public access to the UN Nazi war criminals archive, which up to that time had been classified.
Upon his return to Israel in 1988, Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset as a Likud MK, and served as Deputy Foreign Minister. During the 1991 Gulf War, Mr. Netanyahu was a prominent representative of Israel in the international arena. Later that year, he was a senior member of the Israeli delegation to the Madrid peace conference. He was also a member of the first American-Israeli Committee for Strategic Cooperation.
In 1993, Netanyahu was elected to lead the Likud party, replacing former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and to serve as Leader of the Opposition. In 1996, he was elected Prime Minister of Israel. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Netanyahu pursued a firm policy against terror, while working to propel the peace process. He and his government worked hard to reach balanced agreements with the Palestinians based on the principle of Reciprocity. By the end of his 3-year term, the level of terrorism in Israel had declined drastically. On the economic front, Netanyahu liberalized the foreign-currency exchange, accelerated the privatization of government-held companies, and reduced the deficit. During his time in office, foreign investment in the Israeli High-Tech industry reached record levels of billions of dollars a year.
After leaving office in 1999, Netanyahu served as a consultant for Israeli High-Tech companies. He was a highly sought-after speaker in various forums around the world and maintained a rigorous lecturing schedule.
Netanyahu returned to public life in 2002 first as Foreign Minister and in 2003 as Finance Minister in the Sharon Government. In this position, he encouraged growth by reducing the public sector and strengthening private enterprise. His policy included reducing government spending, lowering taxes, limiting government handouts, and eliminating monopolies, renewing privatization and pension reform. The U.S. government as well as international financial institutions such as credit rating companies and the IMF lauded these actions. As a result, the decline in the Israeli economy was reversed, unemployment was reduced, and growth restored. The Israeli economy, having shrunk by 1% in the years 2001 and 2002, grew by 4.2% in 2004.
President Peres asked Likud-leader Netanyahu to form a government. Netanyahu was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second time on March 31, 2009.
Four days before the March 18, 2015 vote, Netanyahu looked all but down for the count, with the last opinion polls giving the center-left Zionist Union a four-seat lead – enough not only to win but potentially to form a governing coalition. Even Netanyahu, a veteran campaigner who has emerged victorious from three elections in the past, seemed to think his days were numbered, saying there was a "real danger" he would lose and calling on his right-wing base to turn out. But in the final three days of campaigning – and on the day of the vote itself – "Bibi" went on a tear, giving more interviews than he has in years and making a series of right-wing pledges designed to attract nationalist voters.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on 30 July 2017, "The current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to ignite the situation in the region in order to evade the ongoing investigations into him regarding many corruption cases." In his blog posts on his Facebook page, Barak considered the events that took place over the past two weeks to be a simple glimpse of Netanyahu's behavior toward the abyss. He added about Netanyahu, "This man is afraid, limping, and easily loses his judgment, so he is ready to ignite the region and the country to get out and escape investigations." He also criticized the performance of the cabinet and its uncoordinated and clear decision-making, adding: "This is the first time the cabinet has seen such weakness."
Culminating a two-year police investigation, Israel Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced 28 February 2019 his intention to indict Netanyahu on bribery, breach of trust and fraud charges. The prime minister is suspected of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of gifts from billionaires — including expensive champagne and cigars — and doing favors for an Israeli media magnate in exchange for favorable coverage in newspapers and the internet. The justice ministry must hold a hearing to give Netanyahu a chance to defend himself before formal charges are filed — a process that could take months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing indictment for alleged corruption, said he will lead Israel for "many more years." "Don't believe all the spin," Netanyahu told Israelis during a televised address Thursday. "But it's up to you. It's not up to the civil servants. It's not up to the television studios. It's not up to the pundits and journalists." Echoing his close friend and ally U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu called the case against him a political "witch hunt."
Netanyahu was indicted 21 November 2019 on corruption charges, raising more uncertainty over who will ultimately lead a country mired in political chaos after two inconclusive elections this year. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced the decision in a statement. The charges included bribery, breach of trust, and fraud. Netanyahu vehemently denied all the allegations, calling the corruption investigation a "witch-hunt" and alleging it has been motivated by his enemies' desire to force him from office. Israeli law does not require Netanyahu to step down from the post of prime minister if indicted. The entire process of an indictment and trial could take two years.
As prime minister, he would only be forced to resign from the post if he is eventually convicted, where he could face up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine for bribery charges alone, while fraud and breach of trust carry a prison sentence of up to three years. Netanyahu seemed likely to end up in prison like his predecessor Ehud Olmert, because Israel is far more likely to punish its leaders for corruption than for war crimes.
The right-winger Netanyahu, who had been in power since 2009, was Israel's longest-serving prime minister and dominated the country's political scene. on 13 June 2021 Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure as Israeli prime minister came to an end, as the country’s parliament on Sunday approved a new coalition government led by right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett. Bennett led an unlikely alliance of left-wing, centrist and right-wing parties, as well as a party that represents Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for 21 percent of the country’s population. The parties have little in common apart from a desire to unseat Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sent a message to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu which stipulated that Netanyahu must leave the official prime ministerial residence at Balfour Street in Jerusalem within two weeks, N12 reported 18 June 2021. In addition, N12 also reported that the Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak will propose a new amendment next week to guarantee that outgoing prime ministers will not vacate the official residence any later than 14-days after the swearing in of a new government. In 1999, after losing the election to Ehud Barak, Netanyahu and his wife Sara took six weeks before vacating the residence.
Justin Salhani, writing 01 November 2023 for al-Jazeera, noted that Gal Hirsch had no known experience in hostage negotiations, and in 2006, he left the Israeli forces, disgraced over his role in military failures during the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu picked the former military commander to lead efforts for the release of captives taken by Hamas to Gaza after its October 7 attack, that decision made sense to political psychologist Saul Kimhi. “He’s choosing people [to join his wartime administration] based on their opinions of him and not on how fit they are for the job,” Kimhi said. Hirsch is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, and — like Israel’s prime minister himself — has faced charges of corruption.
Kimhi, who teaches at Tel Aviv University, has studied Netanyahu’s mind for almost a quarter of a century. In 1999, the same year that Netanyahu’s first term as premier would end, Kimhi’s behavioural analysis of the leader found a concerning pattern of behaviour. Some of his conclusions: Netanyahu was narcissistic, entitled and paranoid, and he reacted poorly under stress.
Kimhi revisited Netanyahu as a subject in 2017 but found not much had changed. As people age, Kimhi said, their behaviours tend to become more extreme. For Netanyahu, his paranoia and narcissism have grown. He trusts no one, except maybe his immediate family, and prioritises his “personal future” over all else, Kimhi’s research found. Netanyahu’s behavioural analysis, according to Kimhi, suggests that he is indecisive and struggles with difficult decisions. “He is not a resilient person at all,” Kimhi told Al Jazeera.
Netanyahu also has qualities that appear to have helped him emerge as one of the world’s great political survivors. A 2021 personality study by the Jordanian professor of political science Walid ‘Abd al-Hay, found Netanyahu to be highly charismatic, “with a strong memory and high analytical ability”. In a career at the top of Israeli politics spanning almost three decades, those attributes have frequently worked for him.
"Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996 and has been pushing the country further right ever since, replacing a Thatcherite pro-free market agenda with a populist campaign, stirring the nation’s “Mizrahim” (Israelis with Middle Eastern roots) and anti-socialist Russian immigrants against the educated Ashkenazi “elites.”" accordingn to Leon Hadar, contributing editor at the National Interest website and senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
Netanyahu has aligned himself with illiberal leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and has even established relations with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Netanyahu met with Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Israel. The two have bonded over their shared loathing of anything connected to the liberal, Jewish, Hungarian-born financier George Soros, as well as their shared anti-refugee views.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. He first came to power in 1996 and served a three-year term before he was replaced by Ehud Barak. He would return to power in 2009 and then serve for 13 of the last 14 years. On a handful of occasions, Netanyahu’s time appeared to be running out. In 2015, with his back to the wall, he used a scaremongering tactic, saying “Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves.” He was re-elected.
After losing the premiership for a year, he came back to power in 2022, this time, by assembling the most far-right government in Israel’s history. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has been convicted of incitement to racism, destroying property, and joining a “terror” organisation when he was 16 years old. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads the hardline Religious Zionist Party that not only rejects Palestinian statehood but denies the existence of the Palestinian people and has condemned LGBTQ activists. Interior and Health Minister Aryeh Deri is an ultraorthodox rabbi who was sentenced to three years in jail for taking bribes. An op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has described some of Netanyahu’s ministers as “neo-Nazi” and “neo-fascist”.
Netanyahu’s paranoia and entitlement have arguably shaped his view on a Palestinian state as well. Despite publicly saying he is open to a two-state solution, he has undermined the process at every turn — including by insisting that a Palestinian state should have no military or security oversight over its territory.
Under his reign, settlement expansion has flourished and political repression of Palestinians is rampant. Even before October 7, this year was the deadliest on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank with more than 150 people killed by Israeli forces, 38 of those children. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7. Netanyahu has tried to circumvent a Palestinian state by building regional agreements with Arab states through the Abraham Accords.
The issue of settlements and Netanyahu’s perceived unwillingness to engage in good-faith peace talks has grated many of Netanyahu’s foreign contemporaries over the years. “I cannot bear Netanyahu,” former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was caught telling then-American President Obama on a hot mic in 2011. “He’s a liar.” Obama replied “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you”.
Netanyahu believes that all of historical Palestine should belong to Israel. It is a belief with roots in Netanyahu’s upbringing. Benzion Netanyahu, the prime minister’s father, was a proponent of Ze’ev Jabotinsky – a proponent of what is known as Revisionist Zionism – who believed a Jewish state should extend to both sides of the Jordan River. In effect, that means an Israel that includes the country’s current territory, the West Bank, Gaza and part or all of Jordan.
After failing to be awarded a position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Benzion moved his family to the United States and took a position at Cornell University where he taught Judaic Studies. He carried that rejection for the rest of his life, and along with it, a distrust of intellectuals and the Israeli Labor Party. Netanyahu held his father, who died in 2012 at the age of 102, in high regard. He said his father knew “how to identify danger in time” and “draw the necessary conclusions”.
Netanyahu learned that relationships were transactional – not altruistic – and “that humans live in constant Darwinian struggle for survival”, according to ‘Abd al-Hay’s study.
Expert Tami Elashvili or the Jerusalem Post 26 February 2024 analyzed the facial features of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through two photos before and after the war, confirming that he is currently “in a bad place emotionally and mentally.” The first photo was taken on September 28, 2023, that is, nine days before the outbreak of war on October 7, and the second was taken approximately four months after the beginning of the war, on January 31, 2024.
According to Elashvili, the inventor of the methodology for analyzing people through facial features, in the photo taken before the war, Netanyahu appears “less pessimistic, with thick eyebrows that indicate self-confidence and charisma.” In the photo taken after the war: “His eyebrows are so thin that they are practically non-existent. This indicates the effects of severe trauma. The eyes are raised upwards, and the lower part is white, indicating extreme pressure. The sides of the lips indicate a more fundamental pessimism than before.” "War. Eyes droop and narrow. Emotionally, he is devastated. The broad, square chin that characterized people in key managerial roles before the war has diminished."
Al-Ashvili explained, “The hair before the war hid the forehead, and after the war it became more exposed. After the war... he became very thin, and thus the corners of his face became sharper,” noting that “untidy eyebrows indicate that he is mentally and emotionally distracted. Before the war, they were clean and this “It indicates that Netanyahu was very focused, and knew what he wanted and intended to do.”
She added: "Everyone is aware of the fact that Bibi knows how to express himself. But the reality at the moment is different. It is now clear that he is very emotionally and mentally distracted and does not know how to do things, and he is in a whirlwind inside himself. He is in a bad place emotionally and mentally."
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