RECKONING COULD BE COMING
Netanyahu to run again amid wars, criticisms, domestic controversies
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin netanyahu
A person holds a placard with a picture of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as protesters gather Feb. 17 near the united nations office in Geneva, Switzerland, during nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran.
ISRAEL
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hopes of clinging to power in an election this autumn have long been shaky, but the interim U.S. deal with Iran added yet another complication.
U.S. President Donald Trump opted to end the wars in Iran and Lebanon before Israel's goals were accomplished, and Netanyahu's boast in March that "we are changing the face of the Middle East" looks increasingly empty.
Facing corruption allegations, domestic political controversies and criticism over security failings in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, he now will face voters' judgment of his handling of the wars and Israel's relationship with the United States, its most important ally.
Netanyahu, 76, confirmed this month he intends to stand again in an election that must be called by October.
Opinion polls put his rightwing coalition on course to lose but, in a parliamentary system he dominated for long stretches since the 1990s, few Israelis would entirely discount him weaving together a new government.
No lasting victories
Israel's longest-serving prime minister is already the most consequential leader in recent Israeli history and the object of criticism.
Netanyahu's Likud party portrays him as the security hawk who staved off demands for a Palestinian state while urging attacks on Israel's enemy, Iran, and its regional proxies.
"There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River," Netanyahu said last year, adding "for years I have prevented the creation of that terror state, against tremendous pressure."
His hawkish image was dented by security failings before the Hamas attack, for which he did not take responsibility, and by wars that brought military successes but no lasting victories. Tens of thousands of people were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza and Lebanon, and Israel's military death toll is at its highest in decades.
Domestic critics say Netanyahu focused security away from the Gaza border and disregarded Hamas militants as a real threat.
Though Israelis mostly backed the war in Gaza, many turned against Netanyahu's handling of it. Some prominent generals and families of hostages were among critics who said he lacked a clear strategic plan.
The killings of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were celebrated in Israel. But Hamas still controls much of Gaza, revolutionary theocrats still rule Iran and Hezbollah survived in Lebanon.
"Netanyahu lost the war.Netanyahu did not deliver — at the moment of truth he collapsed," opposition leader Yair Lapid said after Trump imposed a new Israel-Hezbollah truce as part of his deal with Iran.
Netanyahu decries such criticism as part of a campaign to diminish Israel's accomplishments.
Denying war crimes
The devastation in Gaza drew accusations abroad of genocide that Israel rejects and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Netanyahu on war crimes charges, which he called absurd.
While he courted Western support for Israel, he also antagonized U.S. presidents — including Trump, the U.S. president to whom he was closest — and other world leaders.
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and attacks on Palestinians there meanwhile fueled international calls to revive the peace process.
Anger went both ways — many Israelis think Western criticism of their Gaza campaign after the Hamas attack was unfair, while rival politicians accuse Netanyahu of caving to U.S. pressure.
In the U.S., his close ties to the Republican Party and attacks on Democrats helped upset decades of bipartisan support; backing for Israel fell among voters of both parties.
Longest-serving PM
Born to a prominent historian, Netanyahu went to school in the U.S. before joining the same elite commando unit as his elder brother, Yoni, who was killed leading the rescue of hijacked air passengers in Uganda in 1976.
He became Israel's youngest prime minister in 1996, forging a coalition of settlers, security hawks, the ultra-Orthodox and pro-business voters, and saw off many opponents, building coalitions and abandoning former allies.
Dogged by a corruption trial, Netanyahu won an unprecedented sixth term in 2022, bringing into government nationalist parties with an openly expansionist agenda. Their efforts to curb the Supreme Court prompted the biggest protests in Israel's history in 2023.
Netanyahu sought a legacy through the Abraham Accords, 2020 agreements meant to normalize or expand ties with four Arab countries. He hoped to achieve peace with the Arab world without having to accept Palestinian self-determination.
However, the 2023 Hamas attack and Gaza war made that impossible.
