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.
To his supporters, he is known as “King Bibi”; but to his opponents, he is the king of security failures and corruption.
Disputes over names aside, what is not in question is that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has left his mark on the country’s institutions, politics and social attitudes during a decades-long career that has been defined by Israel’s lurch to the right.
As he seeks re-election in Israel’s October 27 polls, analysts say his most enduring domestic legacy may be the right-wing, militaristic opposition that he has helped create and now faces.
Netanyahu also re-engineered state institutions, including Israel’s security structures, appointing loyalists and political allies to senior positions. He also clashed with security chiefs that he deemed antagonistic. And in the aftermath of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu deflected blame and responsibility on the security establishment, prompting Ronen Bar, who was the Shin Bet chief in 2023, to sue him for defamation.