WhatsappThere has never been a Prime Minister in Israel that has served as long as Benjamin Netanyahu. He has not served as Prime Minister for 25 years straight. But he has most certainly dominated Israeli politics for the last 25 years.
Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected Prime Minister in 1996, following one of the most tumultuous periods in Israel’s history. In the early 90’s the Israeli government led by Yitzhak Rabin as Prime Minister and Shimon Peres as Foreign Minister embarked on the controversial peace process that led to the peace agreement in Oslo with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Israel armed it’s Arab neighbors and gave over control of much land and security to the Palestinian Authority. According to the mass of the media in Israel and many politicians, it would usher in a time of unprecedented peace with Israel’s neighbors. The detractors of the Oslo Peace Agreement warned that arming Arabs would unquestionably lead to massive bloodshed.
What transpired soon afterwards was one of the worst periods of terror that the State of Israel ever had to deal with. Buses were blown up incessantly in Israel’s major cities, and attacks seemed to occur nearly every day. The weapons that Israel gave to it’s Arab neighbors were mainly used to attack and kill Israelis and not to police the Arabs.
During this rough period, a young Benjamin Netanyahu in his 40’s, stayed focused on building up support for his plan of peace through strength. He never stopped using the word peace, but he always attached the word strength to it, and warned that peace without strength would lead to bloodshed. Unfortunately, his dire predictions proved true. Hundreds of Israelis were killed in the weeks leading up to the 1996 election. Yitzhak Rabin had been killed by a right-wing radical around six months earlier and the entire right wing of Israel was branded as a radical movement that was dangerous. It seemed like it would be a cakewalk for Shimon Peres to finally win an election outright against the young upstart.
But Netanyahu pulled off the upset win and stunned the Israeli media. For the next 3.5 years, the Israeli media lambasted Netanyahu incessantly. Netanyahu was not popular with his political base on the right, and became very unpopular with the left. He lost his first run for reelection in the year 2000 and took a break from politics.
But he came back, and came back big as the #2 man in Israel’s Likud party under an aging Ariel Sharon. He was appointed by Sharon to the job of Israel’s Foreign Minister. Once again, he became unpopular to many due to the sweeping economic changes he enacted. But within a few years, he was elected Prime Minister again and led Israel to a point of economic prosperity that shocked many around the world. His drastic moves to cut taxes turned into one of the key aspects that freed Israel’s economy and enabled the Start-Up Nation to truly thrive.
Again and again, he was reelected Prime Minister for more than a decade. This frustrated Israel’s discredited left to no end. Actually, Netanyahu has never truly lost an election since 2007. But due to Israel’s complex coalition-building setup for establishing power, Netanyahu lost the seat of Prime Minister for a few years.
Now he has returned, in his early 70’s, and he seems poised to stay in power for many years with what looks like one of the most stable coalitions that he has ever put together. He has truly returned with a bang.
