In the image
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with a Reserve Combat Officers’ Course in Gush Etzion in June 2026 [GPO]
To properly understand the recent history of Israeli politics, it is important to also analyze the individual character and leadership style of its current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has held office for a long time. Political decisions are often explained by ideologies, security situations, or institutional factors, but the psychology of political leaders can also influence the types of policies their countries adopt. As such, analyzing Netanyahu’s psychological profile can offer a helpful perspective for understanding the relationship between national security policy, political survival, and individual leadership styles in shaping modern Israeli politics.
Benjamin Netanyahu is widely regarded as one of the most prominent and long-standing figures in modern Israeli political life. He is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. He first took office in 1996, serving a three-year term before being succeeded by Ehud Barak. He returned to power in 2009 and has since held office for 16 of the past 17 years.
Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Jaffa (Tel Aviv) into a family deeply shaped by intellectual and ideological influences. His father, a historian and advocate of strong Zionist nationalism, significantly influenced his understanding of history, identity, and the constant threat facing Israel. Netanyahu later studied in the United States and served in the elite Israeli military unit “Sayeret Matkal,” experiences that further shaped his strategic outlook and strong focus on security.
Throughout a political career at the pinnacle of Israeli politics spanning nearly three decades, these qualities have often worked to his advantage. However, one event had a particularly deep and lasting impact on his staff his political development: the death of his older brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, during Operation“Thunderbolt”in Entebbe (Uganda) on July 4, 1967. “Thunderbolt” is one of the most well-known military hostage-rescue operations ever carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. During that operation, Yonatan, commander of the elite Israeli unit “Sayeret Matkal,” was killed while leading his unit to rescue more than one hundred hostages held by members of Palestinian and German terrorist groups operating together. This incident was both a major tragedy for Benjamin Netanyahu and a turning point that strengthened his worldview.
For Benjamin, this event had profound staff , as Yonatan was more than a brother: he was a role model of intellectual ability, military bravery, and moral integrity. His death, therefore, represented not only a family loss, but a traumatic event that strongly influenced Netanyahu’s perception of political reality and security threats.
The loss of his brother may have further reinforced Netanyahu’s perception of Palestinian actors and regional threats as existential dangers to Israel. Such a traumatic event likely shaped his psychological makeup, giving him a strong emotional motivation to ensure security, decisiveness in leadership and strategic planning, as well as a drive to carry on his brother’s legacy. Analysts suggest that this tragedy contributed to his strong perception of a “constant threat” looming over Israel and shaped his hardline political stance on issues of terrorism and security.
Through his political and public engagement, Netanyahu has often reflected this combination of staff and professional responsibility, which can be interpreted as a kind of accepted mission to carry on what his brother symbolized. A number of factors—including staff , family relationships, and traumatic experiences—have played a significant role in shaping his staff professional identity.
His relationship with his father is another essential element for appreciating how family dynamics contributed to the development of Netanyahu’s character and for understanding his personality. Benzion Netanyahu, a historian and intellectual, was also a very demanding and emotionally distant figure who instilled in his son a deep sense of the high value of discipline, knowledge, and an awareness of the importance of history. This intense relationship with his father not only shaped Netanyahu’s critical perfectionism, strong desire for recognition, ability to set high standards, and capacity to demonstrate emotional vulnerability, but also fostered in him a deep sense of determination and self-confidence through the strictness and pressures of his family’s norms and an immense level of intellectual accountability.
Saul Kimhi, a professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University, has spent years studying the psychological profile of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In his commentary for Al Jazeera, Kimhi notes that his analysis of Netanyahu as early as 1999 revealed a concerning pattern of behavior. Among his conclusions was that Netanyahu exhibited traits of narcissism, a strong conviction that he was always right, paranoia, and a tendency to respond poorly under stress.
Kimhi revisited his analysis of Netanyahu in 2017 and found that little had changed. He argued that, as people age, their behavioral tendencies often become more pronounced. In Netanyahu’s case, his paranoia and narcissism appear to have intensified. According to Kimhi’s research, he places limited trust in others—perhaps only in his immediate family—and prioritizes hisstaff above all else.
Netanyahu’s political career demonstrates how a resilient personality can successfully navigate politics in a highly polarized system such as Israel’s. He combines strategic foresight with his ability to shape perceptions, build loyal political coalitions, and turn crises into political gains to sustain his leadership. The staff he exhibits—such as strong discipline, confidence, and a pragmatic focus on survival—are also accompanied by a defensive, calculated approach in his interactions with his adversaries.
Netanyahu’s first experience leading the country came in 1996 when he ran on a platform titled “Netanyahu—Creating Secure Peace,” which focused on the need for Israel to strengthen its security in response to multiple suicide bombings. His early actions, from 1996 through 1999, included a number of highly publicized and controversial decisions, such as the opening of a historic tunnel near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sparked multiple acts of violence and led to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of Hebron. After a brief hiatus from politics, he returned in 2003 as Minister of Finance, implementing economic reforms that further reaffirmed his political positions. Returning to the leadership of Likud in 2005, and then to the position of prime minister in 2009, he emphasized the dangers posed by Iran and its nuclear program and strongly opposed the 2015 agreement.
Undermining the Palestinian State
Benjamin Netanyahu advocates a security doctrine based on the perception of a constant existential threat, on the adoption of preventive measures, and on decisive responses to attacks, including military operations and diplomatic initiatives aimed at preserving Israel’s strategic advantage. Despite publicly expressing openness to a two-state solution, Netanyahu has been widely criticized for consistently undermining the process. This includes his insistence that any prospective Palestinian state should not possess full military or security control over its own territory.
During his tenure, the expansion of illegal settlements accelerated significantly, while political repression of Palestinians became increasingly widespread. Netanyahu has also sought to sidestep the Palestinian issue by pursuing regional normalization agreements with Arab states through the Abraham Accords. These agreements consist of a series of joint declarations and bilateral accords aimed at normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab countries, brokered by the U.S. government under the Trump administration in 2020. While these accords represented a significant diplomatic breakthrough in the region, they were met with strong criticism from Palestinian leaders and communities, many of whom viewed them as a strategic betrayal, arguing that regional normalization was being actively pursued before a just resolution of the core Israeli–Palestinian conflict had been reached.
Staying in power at any cost
On several occasions, Netanyahu’s political career appeared to be nearing its end. In 2015, facing significant electoral pressure, he employed fear-based rhetoric, warning that “Arab voters are heading to the polls in large numbers,” a strategy that contributed to his reelection.
After losing the premiership for one year, he returned to power in 2022, this time by forming what has been described as the most far-right government in Israel’s history.
Among the key members of his cabinet is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in his youth of incitement to racism, property damage, and affiliation with a designated terrorist organization. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads the hardline Religious Zionist Party, which rejects Palestinian statehood, denies the existence of a Palestinian people, and has condemned LGBTQ activists. Interior and Health Minister Aryeh Deri, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, has previously served a prison sentence for bribery.
By forming such a cabinet, critics have accused Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political survival over the broader interests of the state. The Israeli newspaper *Haaretz* has published comments describing some members of his government in highly critical terms, including as “neo-Nazis” and “neo-fascists.” Nevertheless, such criticisms appear to have little bearing on Netanyahu’s political calculations. According to Kimhi and other analysts who have studied him, his primary objective remains the preservation of power, regardless of the cost.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s career, however, has also been marked by controversy. Since 2019, he has faced charges of fraud, breach of trust, and corruption, while some observers and international critics today accuse him of bearing responsibility for the conflict with the Palestinians, including military actions that have resulted in significant civilian casualties. Such events further shape his reputation among the public and the international community, while at the same time confirming a personality that has been evident since his adolescence and continues to the present day in a highly challenging political environment.
The greatest domestic obstacle facing Netanyahu's government—the 2023 judicial reform initiative—directly reflects his identified psychological traits of paranoia and an absolute prioritization of his staff . The proposed changes, which seek to grant the executive branch overriding influence over judicial appointments and limit the Supreme Court’s authority, align closely with his defensive, calculated style of operation and a structural distrust of state institutions outside his immediate control. Critics argue that this aggressive push to weaken judicial independence highlights his narcissistic conviction that he is always right, viewing institutional checks and balances as staff to his political longevity.
Even when faced with unprecedented mass protests by labor unions, academics, and military leaders warning of state destabilization, Netanyahu’s response highlighted his tendency to perform poorly under stress, digging in on a polarizing stance before being forced into pragmatic retreats. The subsequent suspension and postponement of various reform measures demonstrate how his hyper-focused drive for political self-preservation can create deep domestic gridlock, illustrating a direct link between his defensive psychological profile and the destabilization of Israel’s internal political balance.
A Personality Sketched
In conclusion, Israel’s current political trajectory cannot be separated from Benjamin Netanyahu’s unique psychological profile, in which staff , an entrenched security doctrine, and an absolute instinct for political survival converge. As Professor Saul Kimhi and other analysts suggest, his deep-seated paranoia, narcissism, and lifelong perception of existential threats—shaped by his family heritage and the tragic loss of his brother—directly dictate his strategic decisions. Whether systematically undermining a Palestinian state, pursuing the polarizing 2023 judicial reforms, or maintaining a hardline stance amid the massive domestic and international fallout from the post-October 7 landscape, his actions consistently reflect a leadership style that prioritizes his staff future above all else.
Ultimately, Netanyahu’s ongoing legal battles, the International Criminal Court arrest warrants, and the tactical postponement of his corruption hearings highlight a defensive calculus in which geopolitical conflict and staff are inextricably linked. By viewing external regional adversaries and internal institutional checks through the same lens of existential threat, his personality does not merely influence his choices; it serves as the primary engine driving Israel’s domestic gridlock and protracted wartime strategy. His political survival at any cost has evolved from a staff necessity staff into the defining feature of modern Israeli statecraft.