Opposition leaders in Israel have called for a new government to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader.
After four parliamentary elections in two years, opposition leader Yair Lapid, a former TV activist, formed an alliance with Naftali Bennett, a former national and religious leader who wants to take over the vast majority of West Bank residents.
On Sunday, Knesset voted 60-59 to approve the new coalition government, ending Netanyahu’s 12-year rule as Prime Minister.
Early years
Currently being accused of corruption, Netanyahu is the most senior Israeli minister to date, and the first-born Israeli politician to become a leader.
A son of Polish “Revisionist Zionist” Netanyahu traces his roots to Spain.
Born in Jaffa in 1949, Netanyahu grew up in Jerusalem and went to high school in the United States.
His mother, Tzila Segal, was an Israeli born in Israel and his father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a Polish Jew.
His father changed his name from Benzion Mileikowsky to Benzion Netanyahu when he settled in Palestine.
Netanyahu’s father was one of the first Revisedist Zionists to believe that Israel should be on both sides of the Jordan River, refusing to cooperate with neighboring Arab states.
In 1967, Benjamin Netanyahu joined the Israeli army and soon became a senior commando and captain of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
Get up strong
In 1982, Netanyahu was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In 1984, he was appointed Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
In 1988, Netanyahu was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
A left-wing party chairman in Likud in 1993, Netanyahu called for the party’s return to power after the 1992 election defeat.
He held various positions in the Israeli foreign ministry until he won elections in 1996. His first appointment as prime minister was in 1999. After that, he won the 2009, 2013 and 2015 elections.
Netanyahu lost Likud’s leadership to Ariel Sharon but regained it after leaving Likud and forming the Kadima party in 2005.
For critics such as Yuval Diskin, a former leader of the Israeli Housing Intelligence Agency, Netanyahu has expressed concern.
Diskin once said: “Playing within Netanyahu, in my opinion, is a mixture of ideas, a deep sense of being the prince of the ‘royal family’ from the elect of Jerusalem, including insecurity and fear of being held accountable.”
To his followers, he was a powerful prophet in Israel, eager to share mystical truths with his people and to be able to fight against them.
‘Nos three’
Netanyahu had three “n” statements: No Palestinian state, no return to the Golan Heights to Syria and no discussion of the future of Jerusalem.
Despite opposition to the peace deal with the Palestinians, Netanyahu signed the Wye River treaties in 1998 with Yasser Arafat, former president of the Palestine National Authority.
Resignation in August 2005 as foreign minister contradicted Sharon’s decision to leave Gaza, another part of the Palestinian territories.
The responsibility of Jerusalem
Netanyahu continued to urge the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
“We will continue to build in Jerusalem and all the places on the map of Israel’s ideology,” Netanyahu said.
Donald Trump’s election as US President in 2016 was welcomed by Netanyahu.
Coming after eight bad years in US-Israel relations with Barack Obama at the White House, a Trump-Netanyahu conference in Washington, DC, in early 2017 was set to mark the “re-establishment” of relations between the two sides.
Later that year, Trump violated U.S. policy for many years and announced that the US recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and began work to relocate its ambassador to the city.
Netanyahu welcomed the verdict, saying it was “an unforgettable day” in Israel.
The delay in Joe Biden’s first phone call from Netanyahu’s inauguration led to speculation that the US President was expressing displeasure with Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump.
But an 11-day Israeli strike in Gaza brought the two leaders together as Biden showed support for Netanyahu and his ideas in a recent bombing in Israel that killed more than 250 Palestinians, including 66 children.
Against Iran
For the first time as Prime Minister, Netanyahu told the US Congress that “time is running out” to deal with Iran.
“The deadline for achieving that goal is very near,” he said.
Netanyahu says Iran has become a “threat” to Israel and has threatened military action against Iran several times.
“As long as I am Prime Minister, Iran will not have an atomic bomb,” he said in 2013. “If there is no other way, Israel is ready to take action. [with force]. ”
Hypocrisy
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in a series of court cases involving gifts from millions of friends and for seeking the opportunity for journalists to come forward.
The allegations have been central to the country’s recent elections. Netanyahu denied the allegations and denied the allegations as the case progressed.
Corona virus epidemic
Netanyahu, who turned Israel into a well-known vaccine in the run-up to the country’s fourth election in two years, said he had won COVID-19 in making Israel a “supportive nation”.
Nearly half of the people have been burned by the fireworks who praised Netanyahu around the world and called on Israel to do more to ensure that Palestinians in their areas are vaccinated.
Opposition groups called for a boycott of the epidemic, highlighting the need for a three-state solution, saying it did not focus on Orthodox extremists who give power to allies.
