Benjamin Netanyahu (1949- )
Israel's 9th Prime Minister, 1996-1999

Updated by Steven Klein November 2002

Benjamin Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv in 1949, but he grew up in Jerusalem and then moved with his family to the United States as a teenager. After attending high school in Philadelphia, he returned to Israel and served in an elite commando unit from 1967 to 1972, which engaged in anti-terrorist activity and special missions. He studied architecture and business administration at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, returning to Israel to work in business. His appointment in 1982 as assistant ambassador to Washington brought him back to the United States, and in 1984 he became Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1988 he was elected a Member of Knesset for the Likud Party and served as deputy Foreign Minister and special assistant minister in the government, playing a key role at the Madrid Conference of 1991. In 1993, following the defeat of Yitzhak Shamir's Likud government in the previous year's elections, Netanyahu decisively defeated three other candidates for Likud party head. He remained leader of the opposition during the Rabin and Peres governments. Following the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in 1995, Netanyahu was accused of abetting sedition and incitement against the government, but refuted the allegations. He went on to oust Shimon Peres as Prime Minister in the May 1996 elections and restore the Likud to power. Netanyahu became not only the youngest Prime Minister but also the first to be elected directly. In elections of May 1996, he narrowly defeated then Prime Minister Shimon Peres, earning 50.5% of the vote to Peres' 49.5%.

Netanyahu struggled through his three years in power, partly due to lack of experience and partly due to the new system, which weakened the two largest political parties in favor of smaller, socially-oriented factions. Without a stable coalition, he was unable to take the country in one decisive direction. Externally, relations with the Palestinians soured. He deferred Israel's planned redeployment in Hebron and ignored Arafat for the first few months, placating the right but aggravating the Left. The opening of a tunnel door along the Western Wall into the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City triggered riots and fighting that left 15 Israelis and over 80 Palestinians dead. He then met with Arafat, signing the Hebron Accords. By withdrawing from large parts of Hebron, he placated the Left but aggravated the Right. He then dragged his feet between the spring of 1997 and the fall of 1998, when Clinton pressured him into meeting Arafat again in the US, where they signed the Wye River Memorandum, calling for Israel to make three land transfers to the PA in return for security guarantees. Demanding reciprocity, Netanyahu did not fulfill the agreement beyond the first redeployment, and the peace process remained stagnant until the government fell shortly thereafter.

Netanyahu, who had run a brilliant campaign to upset Peres in 1996, could not repeat his magic in 1999. His opponent, Labor leader Ehud Barak, took Netanyahu's practice of hiring spin-doctors hired his own PR team. Though more experienced politically, Netanyahu could not compete with Barak's image as a general and former chief-of-staff. He was roundly defeated by Barak and resigned on election night in 1999. Netanyahu went into self-imposed political exile, but from the day he left office he planned his eventual return. His first opportunity came when the Barak government fell in 2001. Although polls pegged him to defeat Likud leader Sharon for the top spot, he refused to enter a race with the Knesset as fractured as it was. He declared that he would only run for Prime Minister if he could lead Likud back to the top, and not as a relatively small faction of 19 Knesset members.

When the National Unity government crumbled in the fall of 2002, Prime Minister Sharon offered him the Foreign Affairs post to replace Shimon Peres. However, Netanyahu responded that he would only take the post if new elections were held. Sharon turned him down but offered the position again a few days later when it became clear that he could not set up a stable government, he dispersed the Knesset and invited Netanyahu to be Minister of Foreign Affairs in the caretaker government. Now leading side-by-side, the two would face each other for party leadership in December 2002.

One of Netanyahu's primary themes throughout his public career has been the fight against terrorism. This concern originated with the 1976 Entebbe raid, where Israeli troops successfully freed the hostages of a hijacked Air France airplane held by Arab terrorists, but in which Netanyahu's older brother, Yonatan, was killed. Netanyahu has repeatedly emphasized the need to fight terror and to build peace upon security, both in his policies and in his books. His resistance to relinquishing territory stems more from belief in the prerequisite of strength for a successful peace than from a "Greater Land of Israel" ideology. He is the author of A Place Among the Nations (1995) and Fighting Terrorism (1996) and the editor of Terrorism: How the West Can Win (1986).

Biography Links:

Knesset
http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/exmk_eng.asp?ID=90

Campaign website
http://netanyahu.org/biography.html and http://netanyahu.org/biogheb.html

Wikipedia:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu

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