NETANYAHU, BENJAMIN

born October 21, 1949, Tel Aviv, Israel byname Bibi Israeli politician and diplomat who was his country's prime minister from 1996 to 1999. Netanyahu was the son of the historian Benzion Netanyahu. In 1963 the family moved to Philadelphia in the United States, where Benjamin attended high school. He enlisted in the Israeli military in 1967 and became a commando in the elite antiterrorist Sayeret Matcal (Border Reconnaissance) unit. In 1972 he was on the team that rescued a hijacked jet plane at the Tel Aviv airport. In 197275 he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.B.A., 1976), taking time out to fight in the Yom Kippur War in Israel in 1973. After his brother Jonathan died while leading the successful Israeli commando raid on a hijacked airliner at the Entebbe, Uganda, airport in 1976, Benjamin founded the Jonathan Institute, which held seminars on terrorism. Netanyahu served as a deputy to the Israeli ambassador to the United States (198284) and then became Israel's ambassador to the United Nations (198488). Elected to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) as a Likud member in 1988, he served as deputy minister of foreign affairs (198891) and then as a deputy minister in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's coalition cabinet (199192). During the Persian Gulf War (19901991), Netanyahu became internationally known as the Israeli spokesman in television interviews. He easily won election as the leader of the Likud party in 1993, succeeding Yitzhak Shamir in that post. Netanyahu was noted for his opposition to the 1993 Israel-PLO peace accords and the resulting Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By early 1995 the governing Labour Party was favoured to win the upcoming elections, but Rabin's assassination in November weakened Labour's electoral appeal, and a series of suicide bombings undertaken in Israel by Muslim militants early in 1996 was instrumental in turning public opinion in Likud's favour. Netanyahu eked out a victory margin of about one percent over Prime Minister Shimon Peres in the elections of May 29, 1996, the first in which the prime minister was directly elected. Netanyahu became the youngest person ever to serve as Israel's prime minister when he formed a government on June 18. Unrest dominated Netanyahu's prime ministership. Soon after he entered office, relations with Syria deteriorated, and Syrian troop movement in Lebanon raised the possibility of war as border skirmishes increased. His decision in September 1996 to open an ancient tunnel near Al-Aqsa Mosque angered Palestinians and sparked intense fighting. As tensions continued, Netanyahu reversed his earlier opposition to the Oslo peace accords (1993) and in 1997 agreed to withdraw his troops from most of the West Bank town of Hebron. Pressure, however, from the right wing within his government coalition led Netanyahu to announce his intention to establish a new Jewish settlement on land claimed by Palestine. He also significantly lowered the amount of land that would be handed over to Palestine during Israel's next phase of withdrawal from the West Bank. Violent protests, including a series of bombings, ensued, and Netanyahu halted further land transfers until the terrorism ended. In 1998 Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasir 'Arafat participated in peace talks that resulted in the Wye Memorandum, the terms of which included placing as much as 40 percent of the West Bank under Palestinian control. The agreement was opposed by right-wing groups in Israel, and several factions in Netanyahu's government coalition quit. In 1998 the Knesset dissolved the government, and new elections were scheduled for May 1999. Netanyahu's reelection campaign was hindered by a fragmented right wing as well as by voters' growing dislike of his inconsistent peace policies and his often abrasive style. In addition, a series of scandals had plagued his administration, including his appointment in 1997 of Roni Bar-On, a Likud party functionary, as attorney general. Allegations that Bar-On would arrange a plea bargain for a Netanyahu ally who had been charged with fraud and bribery led to a series of confidence votes in the Knesset. With his core political support undermined, Netanyahu was easily defeated by Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party, in the 1999 elections.