Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician,, serving as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. He is chair of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, having served a total of over 17 years (as of 2024). On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved the arrest warrant request against Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel's warfare in the Gaza Strip. This was the first time that the Court had issued an arrest warrant against the political leader of a democratic country. Of course, Netanyahu complained about alleged “anti-Semitism.”

Life

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel lobby)

Born in Tel Aviv to secular Jewish parents, Netanyahu was raised both in Jerusalem, and for a time in Philadelphia in the United States.

Prime Minister

He previously held the same position from June 1996 to July 1999 and is currently the Chairman of the Likud Party. Netanyahu is the first (and, to date, only) Israeli prime minister born after the State of Israel's foundation. Netanyahu was Foreign Minister (2002–2003) and Finance Minister (2003–August 2005) in Ariel Sharon's governments, but he departed over disagreements regarding the Gaza Disengagement Plan. He retook the Likud leadership on 20 December 2005.

In the Israeli legislative election, 2006, Likud did poorly, winning twelve seats. In December 2006, Netanyahu became the official Opposition Leader in the Knesset and Chairman of the Likud Party. In August 2007, he retained the Likud leadership by beating Moshe Feiglin in party elections. Following the 10 February 2009 parliamentary election, in which Likud placed second and right-wing parties won a majority, Netanyahu formed a coalition government.

He is the brother of Israeli Special Forces commander Yonatan Netanyahu, who died during a hostage rescue mission, and Iddo Netanyahu, an Israeli author and playwright.

Activities

According to author Daniel Halper in his book Clinton Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, Netanyahu attempted to trade tapes of Monica Lewinsky to secure the spy Jonathan Pollard's release.In December of 2020, Netanyahu met Pollard on the tarmac at Ben Gurion airport where Pollard immediately fell down and kissed the ground upon arrival.

2014

On 22 August 2014, Chilean congressman Hugo Gutierrez filed a lawsuit against Natenyahu for crimes against humanity. October 2014, he along with the Israeli government, promoted war-rape-advocate and Nakba denialist, Mordechai Kedar, as an expert on Palestinians. In the fall of 2014, he promoted a bill saying Israel is a nation state of the Jewish people.

War crimes and international investigations 2024

in connection with the 13-month war in Gaza, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, in November 2024. The court states both sides have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes from the day Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 onwards. The charges of the court against Netanyahu are severe. The three-judge panel unanimously found that he and Gallant are “co-perpetrators for committing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”. The judges also “found reasonable grounds to believe that they bear criminal responsibility” … “for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”. The charges are also backed by the work of the International Court of Justice, which has found that it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts in Gaza that violate the Genocide Convention. Netanyahu joins the ranks of leaders considered perpetrators of crimes against humanity, such as Charles Taylor of Liberia, Hissène Habré of Chad, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Radovan Karadžić of Serbia, Idi Amin of Uganda, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Joseph Stalin of the former Soviet Union and Mao Zedong of China.

The Chamber ruled on two requests submitted by the Israel on 26 September 2024. In the first request, Israel challenged the Court’s jurisdiction over the Situation in the State of Palestine in general, and over Israeli nationals more specifically, on the basis of article 19(2) of the Statute. In the second request, Israel requested that the Chamber order the Prosecution to provide a new notification of the initiation of an investigation to its authorities under article 18(1) of the Statute. Israel also requested the Chamber to halt any proceedings before the Court in the relevant situation, including the consideration of the applications for warrants of arrest for Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, submitted by the Prosecution on 20 May 2024. [...] The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest. The arrest warrants are classified as ‘secret’, in order to protect witnesses and to safeguard the conduct of the investigations. However, the Chamber decided to release the information below since conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing. Moreover, the Chamber considers it to be in the interest of victims and their families that they are made aware of the warrants’ existence. At the outset, the Chamber considered that the alleged conduct of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant falls within the jurisdiction of the Court. The Chamber recalled that, in a previous composition, it already decided that the Court’s jurisdiction in the situation extended to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, the Chamber declined to use its discretionary proprio motu powers to determine the admissibility of the two cases at this stage. This is without prejudice to any determination as to the jurisdiction and admissibility of the cases at a later stage. With regard to the crimes, the Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu, born on 21 October 1949, Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the relevant conduct, and Mr Gallant, born on 8 November 1958, Minister of Defence of Israel at the time of the alleged conduct, each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.

Family and personal background

Benjamin / Binyamin Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv, to Cela (Tsilah) (née Segal) and Benzion Netanyahu (original name Mileikowsky). His mother was also born in 1912 in Petach Tikvah in what would become Israel. Though all his grandparents were born in Lithuania, his mother's parents immigrated from Minneapolis, in the US. Netanyahu's father (Benzion Netanyahu) is a professor of Jewish history, currently listed as a professor emeritus at Cornell University although the elder Netanyahu has remained active into his 90s in research and writing, a former editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia, and a former senior aide to Zeev Jabotinsky. When he was 14 years old, his family moved to the United States and settled in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, where he graduated from Cheltenham High School. Netanyahu's older brother Yonatan was killed in Uganda during Operation Entebbe in 1976.

His younger brother Iddo is a radiologist and writer. All three brothers served in the Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit, Benjamin Netanyahu from 1967 to 1972. He earned a B.S. degree in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, and an M.S. degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1977, and has studied political science at Harvard and MIT. After graduate school, Netanyahu worked at The Boston Consulting Group in Boston, Massachusetts, and eventually returned to Israel. He has authored several books, including two on fighting terrorism. Netanyahu has a daughter, Noa, from his first marriage to Micki Weizman. His second marriage was to Fleur Cates, who converted to Judaism (only her father was a Jew). He is now married to his third wife, Sarah, with whom he has two sons, Yair and Avner.

After a brief career in business, Netanyahu was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1982. Subsequently, he became Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1984 to 1988. He was elected to the Knesset in 1988 and served in the governments led by Yitzhak Shamir from 1988 to 1992. Shamir retired from politics shortly after Likud's defeat in the 1992 elections. In 1993, for the first time, the party held a primary election to select its leader, and Netanyahu was victorious, defeating Benny Begin, son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and veteran politician David Levy. (Ariel Sharon initially sought the Likud leadership as well, but quickly withdrew when it was evident that he was attracting minimal support.)

Quotes

"Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away."

—Netanyahu, the prime minister of "Israel" to Jonathan Pollard upon exiting Pollard's jail cell., [1]

"I call on all responsible elements within the international community not to hurry to recognize the Palestinian government that Hamas is part of."

—Benjamin Netanyahu, June 1, 2014.[2]

"Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be possessed by the devil. He needs Pope Francis to exorcise it, to become appeased. Why doesn’t anyone condemn or sanction the state of Israel?"

—Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega

See also

• A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
• 2012 Israeli anti-Black immigrants riots