Israel’s longest serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is back. His return confirms once again an iron clad rule of Israeli politics: never write Bibi off. A few years ago, his opponents briefly thought they had vanquished him for good.
Netanyahu lost an election in 2021 and two great American supporters, the late media tycoon Sheldon Adelson and former president Donald Trump, were gone. Netanyahu was under investigation for corruption in a wide-ranging criminal probe which he sought unsuccessfully to undermine. It seemed as if Bibi could soon exchange the prime minister’s residence for jail, and the TV make-up and dark suits he always wears for prison uniform. But that is not what happened.
Netanyahu clung on to the pulpit within Likud, the party he leads, with his famous pugnacity and tenaciousness. He saw conspiracies against him everywhere. He made new friends in the far-right of his country; those friends have come in handy.
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