Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, born in 1949, also known as Bibi, prime minister of Israel (1996-1999). Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv-Yafo and spent his early years in Jerusalem. In 1963 his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, took an academic post. In 1967, after graduating from high school in the United States, Benjamin Netanyahu went back to Israel. He served in Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit of the Israeli army, until 1972. Netanyahu then returned to the United States and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in architecture in 1974 and a master's degree in business administration in 1976.

In 1976 Netanyahu's brother Yonatan (Jonathan), who was in Sayeret Matkal, was killed in Entebbe, Uganda, during the rescue of more than 100 hostages (most of them Israeli) being held by plane hijackers. In response to his brother's death, Benjamin Netanyahu began to organize conferences on terrorism, first in the United States and later in Israel. From 1976 until 1978 he worked as a management consultant in Boston, Massachusetts. He then returned to Israel and helped establish the Jonathan Institute in Jerusalem to research terrorism. In 1982 Moshe Arens, Israeli ambassador to the United States, appointed Netanyahu as his deputy. Netanyahu became Israel's delegate to the United Nations in 1984. In 1988 he returned to Israel as deputy foreign minister and was elected to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in that same year. He became a prominent voice in the politics of the Likud Party, and during the Persian Gulf War (1991) he acted as Israel's international spokesperson. In 1993 Netanyahu was elected leader of Likud.

As leader of Likud, Netanyahu opposed the peace agreements negotiated by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1993 and 1995. After Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by a Jewish extremist, Netanyahu was criticized for his advocacy of military policies and accused of having encouraged right-wing extremists, such as the one who killed the prime minister. In early 1996, however, four suicide bombs set by Palestinian militants exploded in Israel, killing 59 people, and security became one of the central issues in Israeli politics. Netanyahu's call for fewer compromises and more guarantees of national security in peace negotiations became more popular. In 1996 he ran for the position of prime minister against Shimon Peres, who had taken over as prime minister after Rabin's death. Netanyahu won the election by fewer than 30,000 votes, becoming the youngest person ever to serve as prime minister of Israel and the first to be popularly elected to the office.

Netanyahu formed a coalition government through alliances with other rightist parties. He continued to emphasize national security, often at the expense of implementing the peace agreements. In January 1997 he signed an agreement that withdrew Israeli forces from most of the West Bank city of Hebron. However, many of his actions, such as his decision to proceed with construction of a housing project for Jews in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem in March 1997, angered PLO leader Yasir Arafat and other Arab leaders, and the peace process stalled.

In October 1998 Netanyahu signed an accord providing for further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank in return for Palestinian security guarantees. The action angered many members of Likud, which traditionally opposed land-for-security agreements. Citing Palestinian violations, Netanyahu froze the implementation of the accord in December 1998. That same month the Knesset voted to dissolve his coalition government and to hold new elections in May 1999, a year before Netanyahu’s term was to expire. In the elections, Netanyahu ran as the Likud candidate but was defeated by Labor Party leader Ehud Barak.

Following the Labor Party victory, Netanyahu resigned the leadership of Likud and was succeeded in September 1999 by Ariel Sharon. Sharon led Likud to victory in parliamentary elections in 2001, and Netanyahu subsequently joined the government as finance minister. In 2005, however, Netanyahu broke with Sharon over his decision to unilaterally withdraw Israeli forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Netanyahu resigned from the cabinet and announced that he would challenge Sharon for leadership of Likud. Facing a revolt from within Likud, Sharon resigned and formed a new centrist party, Kadima. Netanyahu then won the leadership of Likud. After Sharon suffered a serious stroke in January 2006, placing the future of Kadima in doubt, Netanyahu’s Likud was expected to emerge in a stronger position in parliamentary elections scheduled for March 2006.

But Israeli voters coalesced around Kadima, which placed first with 28 seats, and delivered a stunning rebuke to Netanyahu’s Likud, which placed fifth and won only 11 seats. Some political observers predicted that Netanyahu’s political career was at an end.