Unpopular, undeterred, undefeatable. Master of the political machine. And soon to be Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. As Benjamin Netanyahu begins his fourth term, a look forward at his possible legacy.
We went to bed with Peres and woke up with Bibi, Israelis said of the 1996 elections, in which the young Benjamin Netanyahu eked out an upset victory over Shimon Peres. This time it happened again. We went to bed with what looked like a tie, which was surprising enough, and woke up with Bibi.
To say that this was unexpected is an understatement. “Nobody knows anything,” a friend of mine said in the Tel Aviv pub where we watched the exit polls come in. There seemed to be myriad possibilities, everything from a slim Center-Left coalition to a national unity government. But the next morning, we did know, and more decisively than ever before. The Likud party was six seats ahead of its rival, the Zionist Union, and guaranteed to form the next government.

I live, I freely admit, in the Tel Aviv bubble, where Netanyahu is, to say the least, unpopular, but none of us could be blamed for being shocked. Every poll taken before the vote indicated that Netanyahu was more or less finished, soon to be sent home by an electorate that had grown tired of him and genuinely desired a change in leadership. Instead, we found ourselves facing the fact that Netanyahu had not eked out a victory, but soundly thrashed his opponents, returning to office with a genuine mandate and more political capital than ever before.

Read the article “ANALYSIS: How Will History Remember Netanyahu?” on thetower.org.