Background and career
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician and diplomat who has served as prime minister of Israel since 2022. Having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Born in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu was raised in West Jerusalem and the United States. He returned to Israel in 1967 to join the Israel Defense Forces and served in the Sayeret Matkal special forces. In 1972, he returned to the US, and after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Netanyahu worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He moved back to Israel in 1978 and founded The Jonathan Institute. Between 1984 and 1988, Netanyahu was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Netanyahu rose to prominence after his election as chair of Likud in 1993, becoming leader of the opposition. In the 1996 general election, Netanyahu became the first Israeli prime minister elected directly by popular vote. Netanyahu was defeated in the 1999 election and entered the private sector. He served as minister of foreign affairs and finance, initiating economic reforms, before resigning over the Gaza disengagement plan. Netanyahu returned to lead Likud in 2005, leading the opposition between 2006 and 2009. After the 2009 legislative election, Netanyahu formed a coalition and became prime minister again. Netanyahu made his closeness to Donald Trump central to his appeal from 2016. During Trump's first presidency, the US recognized Jerusalem as capital of Israel, Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu was criticized for expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, deemed illegal under international law. In 2019, Netanyahu was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud, and relinquished all ministerial posts except prime minister. The 2018–2022 Israeli political crisis resulted in a rotation agreement between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. This collapsed in 2020, leading to a 2021 election. In June 2021, Netanyahu was removed as prime minister, before returning after the 2022 election. Netanyahu's governments have been criticized for perceived democratic backsliding and an alleged shift toward authoritarianism. His coalition's 2023 judicial reform proposals sparked mass protests, while the October 7 Hamas-led attacks and the ensuing Gaza war led to nationwide protests over the security lapses and the failure to secure the Israeli hostages' return. His later tenure was marked by escalating regional conflicts and a personal security threat. In 2024, Israel exchanged strikes with Iran, while Netanyahu ordered invasions of Lebanon and Syria and survived an assassination attempt in October. In 2025, he presided over Israeli strikes on Iran that began the Twelve-Day War, and in 2026 he launched the Iran war alongside the United States with the stated goal of regime change, followed by renewed fighting with Hezbollah that led to a second invasion of Lebanon. Netanyahu's government has been orchestrating the Gaza genocide, culminating in the South Africa v. Israel case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant in November 2024 for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the ICC investigation in Palestine. Netanyahu's leadership has resulted in a substantial decline in global opinion of Israel.
Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv. His mother, Tzila Segal, was born in Petah Tikva in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem—her family had migrated from Minneapolis in 1911, having relocated there from Lithuania in the 1870s—and studied law at Gray's Inn, London. His father, Warsaw-born Benzion Netanyahu (né Mileikowsky), was a historian specializing in the Jewish Golden Age of Spain. His paternal grandfather, Nathan Mileikowsky, was a rabbi and Zionist writer. When Netanyahu's father immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, he adopted the Hebrew surname "Netanyahu", meaning "God has given". His family is predominantly Ashkenazi, but he has said that a DNA test revealed some Sephardic ancestry. He claims descent from the Vilna Gaon. Netanyahu was the second of three children. He was initially raised in Jerusalem, where he attended Henrietta Szold Elementary School. His evaluation by his 6th-grade teacher Ruth Rubenstein says that Netanyahu was courteous, polite, and helpful; "responsible and punctual"; and friendly, disciplined, cheerful, brave, active, and obedient. Between 1956 and 1958, and from 1963 to 1967, his family lived in the United States in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, while Benzion Netanyahu taught at Dropsie College. Benjamin graduated from Cheltenham High School and was active in the debate club, chess club, and soccer. He and his brother Yonatan grew dissatisfied with what they saw as the superficial way of life in the area, including the prevalent youth counterculture movement and the liberal sensibilities of the Reform synagogue, Temple Judea of Philadelphia, that the family attended. After graduating from high school in 1967, Netanyahu returned to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He trained as a combat soldier and served for five years in a special forces unit of the IDF, Sayeret Matkal. He took part in numerous cross-border raids during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, including the March 1968 Battle of Karameh, when the IDF attacked Jordan to capture PLO leader Yasser Arafat but were repulsed with heavy casualties. He became a team-leader in the unit. He was wounded in combat on multiple occasions. He was involved in many other missions, including the 1968 Israeli raid on Lebanon and the rescue of the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 in May 1972, during which he was shot in the shoulder. He was discharged from active service in 1972 but remained in the Sayeret Matkal reserves. Following his discharge, he left to study in the United States but returned in October 1973 to serve in the Yom Kippur War.
Netanyahu returned to the United States in late 1972 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After returning to Israel to fight in the Yom Kippur War, he returned to the United States and, under the name Ben Nitay, completed a Bachelor of Science in architecture in February 1975. In 1976 he earned a master's degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Concurrently, he was studying toward a doctorate in political science. His studies were broken off by the death of his brother, Yonatan, who led the Entebbe raid.
At MIT, Netanyahu studied a double-load while taking courses at Harvard University, completing his bachelor's degree in architecture in two and a half years, despite taking a break to fight in the Yom Kippur War. MIT professor Leon B. Groisser recalled: "He did superbly. He was very bright. Organized. Strong. Powerful. He knew what he wanted to do and how to get it done." At that time he changed his name to Benjamin "Ben" Nitai (Nitai, a reference to both Mount Nitai and the eponymous Jewish sage Nittai of Arbela, a pen name his father often used). Years later, in an interview with the media, Netanyahu clarified that he decided to do so to make it easier for Americans to pronounce his name. This fact has been used by his political rivals to accuse him indirectly of a lack of Israeli national identity and loyalty.
Netanyahu worked as an economic consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Boston, Massachusetts, working at the company between 1976 and 1978. At the Boston Consulting Group, he was a colleague of Mitt Romney, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. Romney described Netanyahu at the time as "a strong personality with a distinct point of view". Netanyahu said that their "easy communication" was a result of "B.C.G.'s intellectually rigorous boot camp". In 1977, Netanyahu told a dinner party attended by British journalist and historian Max Hastings (who was interviewing the family for a book on Yonatan) that in a future war Israel would have the chance to "get all the Arabs out" of the West Bank and Jerusalem. In 1978, Netanyahu appeared on Boston local television, under the name Ben Nitay, where he argued: "The real core of the conflict is the unfortunate Arab refusal to accept the State of Israel ... For 20 years the Arabs had both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and if self-determination, as they now say, is the core of the conflict, they could have easily established a Palestinian state."
In 1978, Netanyahu returned to Israel. Between 1978 and 1980, he ran the Jonathan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, a non-governmental organization devoted to the study of terrorism. From 1980 to 1982, he was director of marketing for Rim Industries in Jerusalem. Moshe Arens appointed him as his Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while Arens was ambassador to the United States, a position he held from 1982 until 1984. During the 1982 Lebanon War, he was called up for reserve duty in Sayeret Matkal and requested to be released from service, preferring to remain in the US and serve as a spokesperson for Israel in the wake of harsh international criticism of the war. He presented Israel's case to the media during the war and established a highly efficient public relations system in the Israeli embassy. Between 1984 and 1988, Netanyahu served as the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Netanyahu was influenced by Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, with whom he formed a relationship during the 1980s. He referred to Schneerson as "the most influential man of our time". Also during the 1980s, Netanyahu became friends with Fred Trump, the father of future U.S. president Donald Trump.
