Nadene Goldfoot
Benjamin is serving as Prime Minister of Israel for the 3rd time of 6 terms between 1996 to 2023-today. He's the best speaker Israel has ever had, speaking English better than most Americans, being Israel's best defender. Lest we forget and the public not know about:
When he was 8 years old, his family had to move to New York for a few years in 1957. His father had been editing an encyclopedia and would spend time in the libraries for historical research. He picked up English quickly at that age. Between 1956 and 1958, and again from 1963 to 1967, his family lived in the United States in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, while father Benzion Netanyahu taught at Dropsie College. Benjamin attended and graduated from Cheltenham High School and was active in the debate club, chess club, and soccer.
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 assault raids during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, rising to become 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, in which he was shot in the shoulder. He was discharged from active service in 1972 but remained in the Sayeret Matkal reserves. He'll manage to get a higher education.
Following his discharge, he left to study in the United States but returned in October 1973 to serve in the Yom Kippur War. He took part in special forces raids along the Suez Canal against Egyptian forces before leading a commando attack deep inside Syrian territory, the details of which remain classified today.
Previously he was PM 2 times; now serving a 3rd time from:
1996 to 1999; 3 years 1st term: A spate of suicide bombings reinforced the Likud position for security. Hamas claimed responsibility for most of the bombings. As prime minister, Netanyahu raised many questions about many central premises of the Oslo Accords. One of his main points was disagreement with the Oslo premise that the negotiations should proceed in stages, meaning that concessions should be made to Palestinians before any resolution was reached on major issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, and the amending of the Palestinian National Charter. Oslo supporters had claimed that the multi-stage approach would build goodwill among Palestinians and would propel them to seek reconciliation when these major issues were raised in later stages. Netanyahu said that these concessions only gave encouragement to extremist elements, without receiving any tangible gestures in return. He called for tangible gestures of Palestinian goodwill in return for Israeli concessions. Despite his stated differences with the Oslo Accords, Prime Minister Netanyahu continued their implementation, but his Premiership saw a marked slow-down in the peace process.
2009 to 2021, 20 years; 2nd term: In 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced support for the establishment of a Palestinian state – a solution not endorsed by prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom she had earlier pledged the United States' cooperation. Upon the arrival of President Obama administration's special envoy, George Mitchell, Netanyahu said that any furtherance of negotiations with the Palestinians would be conditioned on the Palestinians recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. A July 2009 survey by Ha'aretz found that most Israelis supported the Netanyahu government, giving him a personal approval rating of about 49 percent. Netanyahu has lifted checkpoints in the West Bank in order to allow freedom of movement and a flow of imports; a step that resulted in an economic boost in the West Bank. In 2009, Netanyahu welcomed the Arab Peace initiative (also known as the "Saudi Peace Initiative") and lauded a call by Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to normalize relations with Israel.
The 2013 election returned Netanyahu's Likud Beiteinu coalition with 11 fewer seats than the combined Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu parties had going into the vote. Nevertheless, as leader of what remained the largest faction in the Knesset, Israeli president Shimon Peres charged Netanyahu with the task of forming the Thirty-third government of Israel. The new coalition included the Yesh Atid, The Jewish Home and Hatnuah parties and excludes the ultra-Orthodox parties at the insistence of Yesh Atid and the Jewish Home.
During Netanyahu's 3rd term, he continued his policy of economic liberalization. In December 2013, the Knesset approved the Business Concentration Law, which intended to open Israel's highly concentrated economy to competition to lower consumer prices, reduce income inequality, and increase economic growth. Netanyahu had formed the Concentration Committee in 2010, and the bill, which was pushed forward by his government, implemented its recommendations.
In the 2015 election, and his 4th term Netanyahu returned with his party Likud leading the elections with 30 mandates, making it the single highest number of seats for the Knesset. President Rivlin granted Netanyahu an extension until 6 May 2015 to build a coalition when one had not been finalized in the first four weeks of negotiations. He formed a coalition government within two hours of the midnight 6 May deadline. His Likud party formed the coalition with Jewish Home, United Torah Judaism, Kulanu, and Shas. On 28 May 2015, Netanyahu announced that he would be running for an unprecedented fifth term as prime minister in the next general election and that he supports Likud's current process of picking MK candidates.
In August 2015, Netanyahu's government approved a two-year budget that would see agricultural reforms and lowering of import duties to reduce food prices, deregulation of the approval process in construction to lower housing costs and speed up infrastructure building, and reforms in the financial sector to boost competition and lower fees for financial services. In the end, the government was forced to compromise by removing some key agricultural reforms.
In March 2016, Netanyahu's coalition faced a potential crisis as ultra-Orthodox members threatened to withdraw over the government's proposed steps to create non-Orthodox prayer space at the Western Wall. They have stated they will leave the coalition if the government offers any further official state recognition of Conservative and Reform Judaism.
On 23 December 2016, the United States, under the Obama Administration, abstained from United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, effectively allowing it to pass. On 28 December, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry strongly criticized Israel and its settlement policies in a speech. Netanyahu strongly criticized both the UN Resolution and Kerry's speech in response. On 6 January 2017, the Israeli government withdrew its annual dues from the organization, which totaled $6 million in United States dollars.
On 17 May 2020, 5th term; Netanyahu was sworn in for a fifth term as prime minister in a coalition with Benny Gantz. Against a background of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and Netanyahu's criminal trial, extensive demonstrations broke out against him in front of the prime minister's residence. Following this, Netanyahu ordered to disperse the demonstrations using COVID-19 special regulations, limiting them to 20 people and at a distance of 1,000 meters from their homes. However, the exact opposite was achieved; the demonstrations were enlarged and dispersed to over 1,000 centers. By March 2021, Israel became the country with the highest vaccinated population per capita in the world against COVID-19.
After tensions escalated in Jerusalem in May 2021, Hamas fired rockets on Israel from Gaza, which prompted Netanyahu to initiate Operation Guardian of the Walls, lasting eleven days. After the operation, Israeli politician and leader of the Yamina alliance Naftali Bennett announced that he had agreed to a deal with Leader of the Opposition Yair Lapid to form a rotation government that would oust Netanyahu from his position as prime minister.
On 13 June 2021, Bennett and Lapid formed a coalition government, and Netanyahu was ousted as prime minister, ending his 12-year tenure.
2022 to Present 1 year and 6th term; After the 2022 election, Netanyahu was sworn in as Prime Minister again as the leader of a hardline coalition. He officially started his sixth term on 29 December 2022.The first months of Netanyahu's sixth term were centered around reforms in the judicial branch, which drew widespread criticism. Critics highlighted the negative effects it would have on the separation of powers, the office of the Attorney General, the economy, public health, women and minorities, workers' rights, scientific research, the overall strength of Israel's democracy and its foreign relations. After weeks of public protests on Israel's streets, joined by a growing number of military reservists, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spoke against the reform on 25 March, calling for a halt of the legislative process "for the sake of Israel's security". He was removed from his post by Netanyahu the following day, sparking further mass protests across Israel and ultimately leading to Netanyahu agreeing to delay the legislation for a month, until the next Knesset session after Passover.
Israel refused to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. In June 2023, Netanyahu said that Israel is concerned "with the possibility that systems that we would give to Ukraine would fall into Iranian hands and could be reverse engineered, and we would find ourselves facing Israeli systems used against Israel."
As a leader of a small country, his life has been completely different from that of Biden or Obama or any president or king of a country. The creation of Israel has been on different terms than that of other countries, and so are the people. We're from an ancient people with an ancient religion that we're trying hard to maintain after almost 4,000 years by the precepts given to us by Moses. Even our own people seem to forget that many times. Israel is supposed to be our reservation, our place of preservation, and instead it's become the shooting gallery of our neighbor's target. Everyone's telling Netanyahu what to do and they don't live in Israel. They don't know what it's like to have your population that you're guarding shot at ever since 1947, while still in the womb to be born in 48.
My criticism is that Netanyahu should have explained to the public why his government has been created by the religious community and how it would benefit them or affect them. He needs to explain why he wanted to improve the Supreme Court and its problems as it is today. By all the demonstrations of marching, etc, it shows they have been completely in the dark and still are. Benjamin, think of all the newcomers in Israel. They haven't had your experiences, background, history, service. You have to teach, also to being them up to date. You've been there for Israel all these years. You've been brought in when Israel was facing possible destruction, and you brought success. Don't stop now.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu#Leader_of_the_Opposition_(2021%E2%80%932022)
book: BIBI My Story by Benjamin Netanyahu
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