Israel’s rival politicians formed a new government to remove the country’s longest-serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

After four parliamentary elections in two years, opposition leader and former TV news anchor Yair Lapid and former settler leader and far-right religious nationalist Naftali Bennett (Naftali Bennett) formed an alliance, which called for the annexation of most of the occupied West Bank.

On Sunday, the Knesset voted 60 to 59 to pass a new coalition government, ending Netanyahu’s 12-year rule as prime minister.

Early years

Netanyahu, who is currently undergoing a corruption trial, is Israel’s far-right prime minister so far and the first Israeli-born politician to become a leader.

Netanyahu is the son of a “revisionist Zionist” from Poland, and some of his roots can be traced back to Spain.

Netanyahu was born in Jaffa in 1949, grew up in Jerusalem, and attended high school in the United States.

His mother Tzila Segal is a Jew born in Israel, and his father Benzion Netanyahu is a secular Jew from Poland.

After he settled in Palestine, his father changed his name from Benzion Mileikowsky to Benzion Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s father was one of the original revisionist Zionists. He believed that Israel should exist on both sides of the Jordan River and refused to compromise with neighboring Arab countries.

In 1967, Benjamin Netanyahu joined the Israeli army and soon became an elite commando, and served as a captain in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Come to power

In 1982, Netanyahu was appointed as the deputy head of the Israeli embassy in Washington. In 1984, he was appointed as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1988, Netanyahu was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister in the cabinet of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Netanyahu was promoted to chairman of the right-wing Likud group in 1993. After losing the 1992 general election, Netanyahu orchestrated the party to regain political power.

He held various positions in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs until winning the 1996 election. His first term as prime minister lasted until 1999. Later, he also won public opinion polls in 2009, 2013 and 2015.

Netanyahu lost the leadership of the Likud group, but regained leadership after Sharon left the Likud group in 2005 to form the Kadima Party.

For critics such as Yuval Diskin, the former head of Israel’s domestic intelligence organization, Netanyahu holds an exaggerated sense of power.

Diskin once said: “In my opinion, Netanyahu plays a role in a mixture of ideologies, a deep feeling that he is a’royal’ prince from the elite of Jerusalem, but also There is a sense of insecurity and a deep fear of taking responsibility.”

For supporters, he is a powerful spokesperson for Israel, willing to tell the uncomfortable truth to the public, and able to fight the enemy.

“Three Nos”

Netanyahu has a “three nos” mantra: there is no Palestinian state, no Golan Heights to return to Syria, and no discussion about the future status of Jerusalem.

Despite opposing most peace agreements with the Palestinians, Netanyahu signed the Wye River Agreement with Yasser Arafat, then chairman of the Palestinian National Authority, in 1998.

He resigned as foreign minister in August 2005 to protest Sharon’s plan to withdraw from Gaza, a part of the Palestinian territories.

Jerusalem status

Netanyahu insisted on continuing to expand illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Netanyahu said: “We will continue to build in Jerusalem and Israel in all places on the map of strategic interests.”

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016 and was welcomed by Netanyahu.

After eight years of turbulent relations between the United States and Israel and Barack Obama in the White House, the Trump-Netanyahu meeting held in Washington, D.C., in early 2017 was intended to mark the “reset” of relations between the two sides.

Later that year, Trump broke the decades-old policy of the United States, announcing that the United States officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would begin the process of relocating its embassy to the city.

Netanyahu welcomed the decision and said it was a “historic day” for Israel.

The delay in Joe Biden’s first call to Netanyahu after taking office has aroused speculation that the President of the United States expressed dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump.

However, the 11-day Israeli attack on Gaza brought the two leaders together because Biden showed strong support for Netanyahu and his policies during Israel’s recent bombing of the besieged enclave. , The event killed more than 250 Palestinians, including at least 66 children.

Anti-Iranian speech

During his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu told the US Congress that “time is running out” to deal with Iran.

“The deadline for achieving this goal is very close,” he said.

Netanyahu has stated that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel and has repeatedly threatened to take unilateral military actions against Iran.

“As long as I am the 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]. “

Corruption scandal

Netanyahu was sued in 2019 for gifts involving millionaire friends and alleged media mogul seeking regulatory incentives in exchange for favorable reports.

In the country’s recent elections, the allegations against him have been a core issue. As the trial continued, Netanyahu denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.

Coronavirus pandemic

Netanyahu turned Israel’s world-leading vaccine launch into a display of his campaign in the fourth national poll in two years, claiming to defeat COVID-19 by making Israel a “vaccination country”.

The speed of vaccination for about half of the population has won Netanyahu international praise, but he also called on Israel to take more measures to ensure that Palestinians in its occupied territories are vaccinated.

The political opposition stated that he had mishandled the pandemic from the beginning, pointed out the need for three nationwide lockdowns, and accused him of turning a blind eye to violators in the ultra-orthodox community that provided the power base for his main coalition partners.