Benjamin Netanyahu currently holds the record as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. As head of the Likud party, he leads what is widely regarded as the most right-wing coalition government in Israeli history.
His return to power followed a relatively brief period in the opposition. This political comeback has only deepened the belief among his supporters that he is politically unbeatable. The 75-year-old’s extended time in office has strengthened the perception that he is the most suitable leader to defend Israel. Mr. Netanyahu has previously said that, first and foremost, he wishes to be remembered as Israel's defender — something he's visibly achieved.
Netanyahu’s Legacy
Benjamin Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv. In 1963, his family moved to the United States after his father, Benzion—a prominent historian and Zionist activist—was offered an academic post.
At 18, Netanyahu returned to Israel and served five years in the military. He was a captain in Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit. In 1972, he was wounded in an operation against Palestinian gunmen who had hijacked a Belgian airliner that had landed in Israel—but he remained in service, later fighting in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In 1976, Netanyahu’s brother - Yonatan - was killed while leading a raid to free hostages from a hijacked airliner in Entebbe, Uganda. His death deeply affected the family, and Yonatan became a national hero in Israel. In his memory, Benjamin Netanyahu founded an institute focused on counter-terrorism. Netanyahu has been married three times. He met his third wife, Sara Ben-Artzi, while she was working as a flight attendant on an El Al route between New York and Israel. They married in 1991. Netanyahu has three children, two of them from his third marriage.
Rise to Power
Netanyahu’s public affairs and political career took off almost overnight. In 1982, he was appointed deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Fluent in English and known for his distinct American accent and direct style, he quickly became a familiar face on U.S. television and an effective advocate for Israel.
In 1984, he was appointed Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
He returned to Israel in 1988 and formally entered politics. He won a seat in the Knesset on the Likud party list and became deputy foreign minister. He was later elected party chairman.
The Likud Party
In terms of its economic policy, Likud is a liberal party that promotes fre competition and minimal government involvement on the market. While such views are commonplace in Israel today, they were considered revolutionary in the country’s socialist-leaning society until the late 1970s. Many voters of Mizrahi and Sephardic descent—Jews from Asian and African countries—support Likud, seeing it as a counterweight to the Labor Party's Ashkenazi dominance.
In 1995, Israel’s first directly elected prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was killed in an assassination. The country held early elections, which Netanyahu won.
He became the youngest leader in Israel’s history and the first born after the country’s founding in 1948.
Despite having strongly criticized the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians, Netanyahu signed an agreement transferring 80 percent of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority and agreed to further withdrawals from the occupied West Bank.
In 1999, he lost his post after calling early elections and being defeated by Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, who had previously been his military commander.
Political Rebirth
After his 1999 election defeat against Ehud Barak, Mr. Netanyahu withdrew from politics for a few years and resigned as Likud leader. He returned in 2001, following Ariel Sharon’s election as prime minister.
He first served as foreign minister, then as finance minister in Sharon’s government.
In 2005, Netanyahu resigned in protest against Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. That same year, Sharon left Likud to form a new centrist party, Kadima. Netanyahu reclaimed the Likud leadership and was re-elected prime minister in March 2009. He then held the office for a record 12 years, until 2021. After a brief stint in the opposition, he returned as prime minister in 2022. His approval ratings plummeted after October 2023, but later rebounded following a series of Israeli military successes—including the killings of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah—as well as a widely supported ground offensive against Hezbollah.
The Gaza Strip
Palestinian attacks and Israeli military actions have repeatedly brought Israel into conflict in and around the Gaza Strip, both before and after Netanyahu's return to power in 2009. That year, the poitician publicly announced conditional support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but later hardened his stance.
There will be no Palestinian state—not the way people talk about it. It’s not going to happen,
– he said in 2019, in an interview with an Israeli radio station.
In an unprecedented move, Netanyahu eventually agreed to a 10-month freeze on the construction of West Bank settlements to facilitate peace talks with the Palestinians, but the negotiations collapsed by the end of 2010. Though Israel continued to receive strong backing from its closest ally, the United States, Netanyahu’s relationship with President Barack Obama remained tense, according to the BBC.
A low point came in March 2015 when Netanyahu addressed Congress, warning against a "bad deal" emerging from U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran. The Obama administration viewed his visit as foreign interference.
On October 7, 2023, Israel suffered the deadliest attack in its history when hundreds of Hamas militants crossed the border from Gaza.
Roughly 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. In response, Netanyahu declared war on Hamas—a conflict that is still ongoing, although recently, the two sides have successfully established a weeks-long ceasefire.
Netanyahu Maintained Close Political Ties with Trump
Donald Trump’s 2017 presidency brought the policies of the Israeli and U.S. governments into closer alignment. Within a year, Trump announced the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—a move that sparked tensions across the Arab world. In January 2020, Netanyahu hailed Trump’s peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians as “the opportunity of the century,” although Palestinians dismissed the proposal as one-sided and irrelevant. Netanyahu also backed Trump’s approach to Iran and praised his 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions.
During Trump’s second term, the close relationship continued.
Shortly after his re-election, Netanyahu became the first foreign leader received by Trump at the White House. The issues concerning the Gaza ceasefire, U.S.–Israel strategic relations and Iran featured prominently during their first discussion.
As the re-elected president of the United States, Donald Trump played a key role in securing the early-2025 Gaza ceasefire, for which Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu publicly thanked him.
International Criminal Court Warrant
Benjamin Netanyahu became the fourth world leader to face an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity—joining Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
The arrest warrant concerns Israel’s military actions against Palestinians, beginning with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
PM Netanyahu denounced the ICC’s decision as antisemitic and rejected the arrest warrant, which also targeted former Israeli defense minister Yoav Galant on war crimes charges.
The ICC’s move sparked outrage across Israel, where PM Netanyahu is a deeply polarizing figure. Even his political opponents called the court’s decision unconscionable. As members of the ICC in The Hague, 124 countries—including nearly all of Israel’s allies except the United States—are, in principle, obligated to arrest Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Galant if they enter their territory.
Orban Backed Netanyahu
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stood by PM Netanyahu, inviting him to Hungary in December of last year. Netanyahu thanked Mr. Orban for the invitation, praising him for “moral clarity” and standing up for truth.
Thank you, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for your heartfelt support for me and for Israel. In contrast to those whose disgraceful weakness enables an outrageous decision against Israel’s right to self-defense, Hungary—like our American friends—has shown moral clarity and stood up for justice and truth,
– PM Netanyahu wrote, in response to PM Orban's invitation letter.
Hungary-Israel Relations Longstanding and Unwavering
Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Hungary and the Jewish state have deepened their relationship. Trade and cultural ties between the two nations remain strong. Several surveys also rank Hungary as one of the safest countries in Europe for Jews. Recently, Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Budapest. After their meeting, Mr. Sulyok emphasized that Hungary firmly rejects all forms of antsemitism—an issue that also ranked high on the agenda during Hungary’s rotating presidency of the European Union.
Cover photo: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: AFP)
