Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu was born into a prominent Zionist family in Tel Aviv. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a distinguished historian specializing in Spanish Jewish history during the Inquisition, and his mother, Tzila Segal, was born in Petah Tikva to an American family. He grew up as the middle of three sons. His older brother, Yonatan, became a national hero after dying while leading the 1976 Entebbe raid, and his younger brother, Iddo, became a playwright.

Netanyahu has been married three times. His first marriage was to Miriam Weizmann (also referred to as Miriam Haran), with whom he had a daughter named Noa. After their divorce, he married Fleur Cates in 1981, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1988. In 1991, he married Sara Ben-Artzi, an educational and child psychologist. The couple has two sons, Yair and Avner. Yair later became an influential and vocal media figure who actively participated in his father's political communication campaigns.

Over the course of his political career, Netanyahu has experienced several public health treatments. In July 2023, he was fitted with a cardiac pacemaker at a hospital near Tel Aviv, and in December 2024, he underwent successful prostate surgery followed by radiation therapy.

Netanyahu spent part of his youth in the United States, attending high school in the Philadelphia area while his father taught at Dropsie College. He returned to Israel in 1967 to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces, joining the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal. Under the command of future prime minister Ehud Barak, he took part in several cross-border operations, including the dramatic May 1972 rescue of passengers aboard the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 at Tel Aviv airport.

Following his initial military service, Netanyahu moved to Massachusetts to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1975 and a master's degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1976. During his studies, he briefly returned to Israel to serve during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After graduation, he worked as a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group before returning to Israel after his brother Yonatan was killed at Entebbe in 1976. In memory of his brother, he founded the Jonathan Institute to host international symposia on counterterrorism.

Netanyahu entered public diplomacy in 1982 when he was appointed deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1988, he served as Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations, where he gained international prominence for his English-language oratory and successfully led efforts to open the United Nations War Crimes Commission archives concerning Nazi war crimes.

Netanyahu returned to Israel to run for parliament, winning a seat in the Knesset with Likud in 1988 and serving as deputy minister of foreign affairs under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. In 1993, he won the chairmanship of Likud, succeeding Shamir. From the opposition, he was a vocal critic of the 1993 Oslo Accords negotiated by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In the May 1996 direct prime ministerial election, held months after Rabin's assassination, Netanyahu narrowly defeated Shimon Peres by approximately one percent, becoming the youngest person and the first born in Israel after independence to serve as prime minister. His administration focused on market liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity. Despite his earlier rhetoric, he negotiated the 1997 Hebron Protocol and the 1998 Wye River Memorandum with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, placing parts of the West Bank under Palestinian control. These concessions alienated right-wing coalition partners, leading to the collapse of his government and an election loss to Ehud Barak in 1999.

After stepping down from parliament, Netanyahu returned to the cabinet under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, serving as minister of foreign affairs from 2002 to 2003 and minister of finance from 2003 to 2005. As finance minister, he enacted free-market reforms, reduced government spending, and loosened currency regulations. He resigned from Sharon's cabinet in August 2005 in protest over the unilateral disengagement plan that removed Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.

After Sharon founded the centrist Kadima party, Netanyahu reclaimed leadership of Likud. In the 2009 election, Likud finished second behind Kadima, but Netanyahu successfully formed a governing coalition and took office as prime minister in March 2009. In a June 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, he conditionally endorsed a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognized Israel as a Jewish state, though formal peace talks remained stalled for most of his tenure. In July 2019, he surpassed David Ben-Gurion to become Israel's longest-serving head of government.

Netanyahu's foreign policy focused heavily on countering Iran's regional influence and nuclear ambitions. He repeatedly characterized the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between world powers and Iran as a historic error, culminating in a contentious address to a joint session of the United States Congress in March 2015 without coordination with President Barack Obama. Under President Donald Trump, bilateral relations warmed substantially, resulting in the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2017 and facilitating the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Netanyahu's later years in office were clouded by domestic corruption investigations. In November 2019, the attorney general formally indicted him on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust across three separate cases involving alleged regulatory favors, gifts, and media manipulation. After an unprecedented series of inconclusive national elections between 2019 and 2021, a broad coalition government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid ousted Netanyahu in June 2021, moving him to the role of opposition leader.

Netanyahu staged a swift political return in the November 2022 elections, forming a parliamentary majority with religious and far-right parties. His coalition advanced comprehensive judicial overhaul legislation intended to limit the authority of the Supreme Court to strike down government actions. The proposed reforms provoked mass street demonstrations across Israel in early 2023, including walkouts by military reservists and vocal concerns from defense officials regarding national readiness.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages. In response, Netanyahu declared a state of war, formed an emergency war cabinet with opposition leader Benny Gantz, and initiated an extensive military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The conflict quickly escalated into a wider regional confrontation involving Hezbollah in Lebanon and missile exchanges with Iran.

Netanyahu faced significant domestic and international pressure over his wartime objectives, post-conflict governance plans, and the prolonged hostage crisis. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the military campaign in Gaza, charges that Netanyahu strongly rejected.