How Benjamin Netanyahu reshaped Israel’s institutions
As Israel heads to the polls on October 27, its polarising and longest-serving prime minister is seeking re-election.
Key points
- Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has reshaped the country's institutions, politics and social attitudes over decades.
- He fuelled anger at peace deals in the 1990s and denies responsibility for incitement before Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination.
- Under his leadership, the Knesset changed the Judicial Selection Committee's composition to give the governing coalition more influence.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has left a lasting mark on the country's institutions, politics and social attitudes during a decades-long career defined by Israel's shift to the right, Al Jazeera reports. Born in 1949, he entered national politics in the early 1990s by fuelling anger at possible peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria, and became Israel's youngest prime minister in 1996.
He is seeking re-election in Israel's October 27 polls, and analysts say his most enduring domestic legacy may be the right-wing, militaristic opposition he helped create and now faces. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Gaza, which he denies.
Early career and Rabin assassination
Israeli political leaders have accused Netanyahu of leading incitement that motivated the 1995 assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an ultranationalist Israeli. Netanyahu had led rallies where participants depicted Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform and held signs of him in the crosshairs of a gun, while others shouted "traitor".
He denies any responsibility, but former security officials said they warned him before the assassination and asked him to dial down his rhetoric, only for him to refuse, according to Israeli media reports.
judicial reform
— Benjamin Netanyahu
Religious and judicial changes
Under Netanyahu, religious courts have expanded powers, including over civil and business disputes, and state institutions allocate record funding to ultra-Orthodox schools. In 2018, the Knesset passed the Nation-State Basic Law, which states that Israel is the exclusive state of the Jewish people and makes advancing illegal settlements a national priority. A High Court petition against it was rejected.
The Knesset also changed the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee to ensure greater political influence for the governing coalition. Netanyahu called it "judicial reform" to stop what he often calls a "judicial dictatorship" ruling over elected officials, while opponents called it a "coup" that sparked wide-scale protests. He is up against three separate corruption cases filed in 2019 and denies any wrongdoing.
