To his supporters he is known as “King Bibi”; but to his adversaries, he is the king of security failures and corruption.
Naming controversies aside, what is beyond doubt is that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, left his mark on the country’s institutions, politics and social attitudes during a decades-long career that was defined by Israel’s rightward shift.
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As he seeks re-election in Israel’s Oct. 27 election, analysts say his most lasting domestic legacy may be the militarist right-wing opposition he helped create and now faces.
Born in 1949, Netanyahu entered Israel’s central political scene in the early 1990s by stoking anger over possible peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.
Israeli political leaders accused him of leading the incitement that motivated the 1995 assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was leading negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, by an ultranationalist Israeli. Netanyahu had held rallies in which participants depicted Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform and held signs of him in the crosshairs of a gun, while others shouted “traitor.”
The Likud leader denies responsibility, but former security officials said he warned Netanyahu before the assassination and asked him to tone down his rhetoric, but he ultimately refused, according to Israeli media.
In 1996, Netanyahu’s populist tactics succeeded at the polls, making him Israel’s youngest prime minister. Netanyahu’s transactional leadership style has given prominence to far-right and religious parties that now constitute an indispensable part of his right-wing alliance.
Under his leadership, religious courts expanded their powers, particularly in civil and commercial disputes. Public institutions are adapting to religious agendas and allocating record levels of funding to ultra-Orthodox schools and institutions.
Netanyahu enshrined his political ideology into law, including on state identity and the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. In 2018, the Knesset passed the so-called Nation-State Basic Law, which stipulates – among other things – that Israel is the exclusive state of the Jewish people and also makes the expansion of illegal settlements a national priority.
Human rights organizations in Israel petitioned the High Court to prevent the legislation from taking effect, but the petition was rejected. International experts and rights groups cite this law, among others, as proof that Israel committed the crime of apartheid in its treatment of Palestinians.
Netanyahu has also overhauled state institutions, including Israel’s security structures, by appointing loyalists and political allies to high positions. He also clashed with security chiefs he considered antagonistic. And in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu placed blame and responsibility on the security establishment, prompting Ronen Bar, who was head of the Shin Bet in 2023, to sue him for defamation.
A major shift in Israeli institutions, initiated by Netanyahu during his 19 intermittent years in power, has affected the justice system, which is probing lingering corruption charges that could land him a prison sentence if convicted. Netanyahu, who faces three separate corruption cases filed in 2019, denies any wrongdoing.
Under his leadership, the Knesset passed legislation changing the composition of the judicial selection committee to ensure greater political influence for the governing coalition.
Netanyahu called it “judicial reform” to end what he often calls a “judicial dictatorship” that rules over elected officials.
Opponents called it a “coup” that sparked widespread protests: an attempt to curb the independence of the High Court and give politicians influence over the courts and ministerial legal advisers.
In line with his efforts to overturn independent oversight, Netanyahu has repeatedly tried, but unsuccessfully, to fire the attorney general.
But he managed to fire the army’s general counsel for leaking a video of Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee. The soldiers were also released and exonerated.
At the same time, Netanyahu is grappling with corruption cases dating back to 2019, which could land him a prison sentence if convicted.
The prime minister, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza, says his work is not done. He promises his supporters that he will complete the overhaul of judicial review and pursue other highly controversial policies.
Netanyahu’s supporters and allies view him as a leader who kept his promises and who achieved what others could not. His opponents pledge to undo the damage caused by Netanyahu in recent decades, pointing to corruption, social divisions and growing international isolation as consequences of his rule.
But undoing these formative changes, many of which have now become law, may be easier said than done.
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