Netanyahu as a political phenomenon: why Israel still lives within his era

Thirty years of one figure at the center of Israeli politics

Benjamin Netanyahu has long ceased to be just a prime minister, a party leader, or a participant in another Israeli political crisis. For millions of Israelis, he has become a separate era — with its fears, victories, divisions, habits, and language.

He can be supported, sharply rejected, considered an outstanding strategist, or a person who has kept the country in his personal political orbit for too long. But one thing is hard to deny: modern Israel cannot be explained without Netanyahu.

This is exactly what Dr. Baruch Leshem, a researcher of political communication and author of a book about Netanyahu as a “school of political marketing,” says on May 30, 2026. According to him, Netanyahu’s secret is not limited to a beautiful speech, television confidence, or successful slogans. Behind this lies a more complex structure — a combination of personal charisma, discipline, the ability to work with the image of strength, and an almost instinctive ability to survive political catastrophes.

In the late 1990s, Leshem saw Netanyahu differently. At that time, it seemed to him that he was facing a politician with exceptional communication skills but without a deep internal foundation. Later, studying his career, he changed his assessment: behind the external technique was real political energy.

The story of the “future prime minister”

One of the key episodes Leshem cites is related to advertiser Aryeh Rothenberg. He met the young Netanyahu even before he became the main political symbol of Israel. After talking with him, Rothenberg returned to the office and told colleagues that he had met the future prime minister of Israel.

This phrase is important not only as a beautiful detail of biography.

It shows that from an early age, Netanyahu gave the impression of a person who not only wants power but looks as if power naturally belongs to him. In politics, this is of great importance. The voter often chooses not a set of program points but a feeling: can this person lead the state in a moment of fear, war, pressure, and uncertainty.

Leshem compares Netanyahu with leaders of the world league of political communication — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Not because their views are similar, but because each of them was able to create a space of leadership around themselves. A person steps up to the microphone — and the audience understands that they are not facing an ordinary politician.

For Netanyahu, this was especially noticeable during his rise. English language, American manner, suits, confidence, gestures, timbre, preparedness — everything worked for one image: a modern, strong, international leader who speaks to Israel and the world in the language of power.

How Netanyahu built the image of “Mr. Security”

Netanyahu’s main political capital did not arise by itself. He consistently built himself as a person who understands terror, Iran, security threats, and the international arena better than others.

Military biography in Sayeret Matkal, the memory of his brother Yoni Netanyahu, who died after the Entebbe operation, international conferences on terrorism, connections in the USA, speeches at the UN — all this formed a single political package. Netanyahu was not the most titled military among Israeli leaders, but he managed to turn the topic of security into a central element of his legitimacy.

That is why the blow on October 7 became not just a management crisis for him.

It hit the core of the image. The man who for decades convinced Israel that such a thing would not happen under him found himself as prime minister at the moment of the largest security failure. After this, even the strongest political machine began to crack.

Iran as the main political storyline

The Iranian theme became one of Netanyahu’s main tools. For years, he spoke about the threat of the Iranian nuclear program, warned the world, pressured international platforms, and built around this the image of a leader who sees danger earlier than others.

Iran indeed remains an enemy of Israel and an ally of forces threatening regional security. For the Israeli audience, this topic is not abstract: it concerns missiles, proxy groups, war, the future of the Middle East, and the personal safety of citizens.

But it is here, according to Leshem, that a new problem arose for Netanyahu. If after strikes on Iran, the military and experts continue to say that the nuclear threat has not been completely eliminated, then Netanyahu’s central thesis about his unique ability to neutralize this threat becomes weaker. Previously, he could explain this as a partial success, as time won, as the destruction of infrastructure. Today, Leshem believes, he has less of the former energy for such a convincing turnaround.

Why he survives where others would have disappeared

Netanyahu’s strongest trait is not only eloquence. His main quality is the ability to return after defeats.

After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, he could consider his career over. After losing to Ehud Barak in 1999, many were sure that Netanyahu was going into the past. After October 7, his political position looked extremely difficult. But each time he did not so much say goodbye to power as he began to calculate the way back.

This is not improvisation.

Leshem describes Netanyahu as an extremely organized politician. He checks texts, prepares for speeches, analyzes data, studies audience moods, and looks at every step through the prism of political survival. In this sense, he is not an adventurer but a systematic player who knows how to wait, retreat, change formulations, and return to the attack.

NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency in this context is important to consider not only as a news platform but as a space where the Israeli audience in Russian can analyze such processes without simplifications: not “for” or “against” one figure, but through understanding how a political image becomes part of the country’s life.

Finkelstein, emotions, and “enemy” as a technology

One of the key influences on Netanyahu was the American political strategist Arthur Finkelstein. It is with him that Netanyahu’s transition to a tough emotional policy is associated, where not only ideas are important but also the image of the opponent.

The campaign must have a “bad hero” — the one against whom they mobilize their own. In Israeli politics, this image has long been “the left,” “elites,” “media,” “judicial system,” “deep state,” and later any political opponents, even if they themselves came from the right camp.

Thus, the very structure of Israeli politics changed.

Previously, the confrontation was more often described as a dispute between right and left, security and peace, economy and social policy. Under Netanyahu, another divide gained more significance: the camp that sees him as the only possible leader and the camp that considers his departure a condition for the restoration of the state.

This is no longer an ordinary party struggle. This is a personal architecture of power.

Judicial reform and October 7 as two blows to the old model

According to Leshem, two events especially weakened Netanyahu in recent years.

The first is judicial reform. It did not become the same emotional symbol for his electorate as security, Iran, or the fight against the left. Moreover, within his own support, there are liberal elements that did not accept the attempt to radically change the balance between power, courts, and legal institutions.

The second is October 7. This day hit the image of “Mr. Security” harder than any electoral defeat. When the country experiences trauma of such magnitude, old slogans begin to sound different. The formula of “complete victory” mobilizes part of society but simultaneously raises questions: where are its boundaries, who pays the price, what is considered a result, and why does the war last so long.

Netanyahu remains a powerful communicator. But, according to Leshem, his physical and emotional delivery has changed. The texts remain strong, the technique remains professional, but the former sense of natural strength has weakened. Sometimes, as the researcher says, it looks not like Netanyahu of previous years, but like an actor reproducing the familiar image of Netanyahu.

Likud after Netanyahu: the main question of the future

Another problem is succession.

Over many years, Netanyahu not only held Likud but also effectively rebuilt it around himself. His strength as a leader became both the strength and weakness of the party. As long as he won, it worked. But if the figure around which the entire system is built leaves or sharply weakens, the question arises: who can evoke the same sense of power, confidence, and inevitability in the right-wing voter?

Leshem believes that such a figure is not visible in Likud now.

This means that the day after Netanyahu may become not just a change of leader for the party but a crisis of identity. There is an electoral base, there are ideological habits, there is an alliance with ultra-Orthodox parties, there is an apparatus. But there is no obvious person who could tell society: now I am the natural center of this system.

That is why Netanyahu continues to remain the main question of Israel even when it seems not to be about him. The draft law, war, judicial system, relations with the army, protests, economy, religion, and state — almost all these topics pass through his personal political fate.

What will remain in history

Netanyahu’s legacy cannot fit into a simple formula. He is not only the longest-serving leader in Israel’s history. He is a politician who changed the language of power, the structure of camps, the role of media, the style of campaigns, and the very perception of leadership.

His supporters see him as a person who defended Israel for decades, held the right-wing camp, spoke to the world harshly and confidently, did not yield to pressure, and was not afraid of elites.

His opponents see him as a leader who tied the state too closely to his own fate, deepened the divide, attacked institutions, turned personal legal problems into political mobilization, and made constant crisis a method of governance.

History is unlikely to be neutral towards him. But it is also impossible to erase him.

Netanyahu has become not just a politician who was in power for a long time. He has become a coordinate system within which Israel argues with itself: about security, democracy, law, religion, national memory, war, power, and the price of personal leadership.

And the main question now is not only whether Netanyahu can survive politically again.

The question is broader: can Israel emerge from an era in which one person was simultaneously a leader, a symbol, an irritant, a protector for his supporters, and the main fear for his opponents for too long.