Who is Benjamin Netanyahu, the man leading Israel against Hamas?

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Key Points
  • Benjamin Netanyahu created a commando image after serving in the Israel Defence Forces.
  • A recent decision to overhaul the judiciary system has prompted strikes and anger which plunged his popularity.
  • Some analysts think the conflict with Hamas could spell the end of Netanyahu’s three-decade career.
Israelis around the world have mourned and rallied together after 1,300 people were killed by Hamas militants on 7 October.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long prided himself on being called Mr Security by supporters, is now facing criticism for dropping the country’s guard.

So who is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, known to many as “Bibi, King of Israel”, and how has the conflict in Gaza impacted his popularity among residents?

The rise of a hawkish leader

The veteran Israeli politician has a hawkish commando image after his time in the Israel Defence Forces, having served as part of the special forces unit Sayeret Matkal.

He is a fluent English speaker with an American accent after completing an architecture degree at MIT and enrolling in acting classes while living in New York.

A man surrounded by army soldiers

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as a captain for the Israel Defense Force before going into politics. Source: Getty / GPO

Ran Porat is a lecturer and analyst on Israel and Middle Eastern Affairs with the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University in Melbourne.

Porat said that Netanyahu stayed in the US after discovering he was “very eloquent” in “what we call Hasbara, which is explaining Israel’s position in the world” and became Israeli spokesperson during the 1982 war with Lebanon.

After growing in prominence as an Israeli diplomat in the US, he made his political debut as part of the right-wing Likud party in the 1990s and became the country’s youngest leader in 1996, aged 46.

A divisive figure with sharp political instinct

Netanyahu has served, lost power and , more than once. He is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, with 12 consecutive years between 2009 and 2021.
“Netanyahu’s political instinct is very sharp. He’s the master of creating coalitions, sometimes manoeuvring between left and right, between the ultra-Orthodox, centre right or centre,” Porat said.

He added Netanyahu was “really good at speaking to his base” but also made statements that alienated centre-left voters, like when he said, “The left has forgotten what it means to be Jews”, in 1999.

Netanyahu has been perceived as pro-business, tough on security and described himself in his autobiography as “conservative but decidedly not extreme”.

He harnessed his comeback prowess in 2022, forming one of the most right-wing coalitions in Israel’s history, with ultra-Orthodox and extreme-right parties that have a history of inflammatory remarks about Palestinians.

Domestic unrest and an army divided

Netanyahu has faced court over accusations of fraud, breach of trust, and corruption, all of which he denied. He was indicted in 2019 and the long-running cases which he labelled a “witch hunt” contributed to his loss in 2021.
However, that has divided Israelis. He passed a bill to curtail the Supreme Court’s power to rein in activist judges who he and his allies see as encroaching on politics.
Critics noted that the proposals could potentially help save him from conviction and imprisonment over his own charges.
From January it forced huge crowds to take to the streets in protests with opposition coming from almost all of Israel’s business sector, lawyers, academics and, notably, the Israeli army.
It included a number of military reservists members of the elite Special Forces like Netanyahu’s old Sayeret Matkal unit. Israel’s top general, Herzi Halevi, warned that the divisions risk creating “dangerous cracks” in the military.

Porat said the threat by Israeli forces that they would not serve due to the changes could have been perceived as a “weakness” by enemies of Israel.

“That could be one of the reasons why Hamas chose this timing to attack, believing Israel is about to collapse, but it just needs a little bit of push and collapse. So Netanyahu is being blamed,” he said.

Drop in popularity

Netanyahu’s popularity has been declining since the judicial reform outrage, but his actions since the 7 October attacks have made it plummet further.

An opinion poll in Israel’s Maariv newspaper found that 21 per cent of Israelis want Netanyahu to remain prime minister after the war. Sixty-six per cent said “someone else” and 13 per cent were undecided. Were an election called, Likud would lose a third of its seats.

Amotz Asa-El, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, predicted that the conflict will seal the fate of Netanyahu and his long-dominant, conservative Likud party.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s a commission of inquiry or not, or whether or not he admits fault. All that matters is what ‘middle Israelis’ think – which is that this is a fiasco and that the prime minister is responsible,” Asa-El told Reuters.

Is the Hamas-Israeli conflict the end of Netanyahu?

Porat said while the Israeli leader could never be completely written off, he believed the war should be the “end of Netanyahu” as his policies over the last two decades have led to the “failure”.

“The way he’s running the war is not impressive in any way I don’t think. People rally around the flag in hope or around the army, not around Netanyahu,” Porat said.
“The public don’t trust the people around Netanyahu … His name is all over this failure.
“His policies have failed. Failed very badly. And the Israeli public is saying that out loud, even his former supporters.”

Asa-El said: “The wrath is only going to grow, and this apparent effort by Netanyahu to evade his own responsibility only makes people angrier. He just can’t bring himself to say: ‘We screwed up.'”

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