Benjamin Netanyahu, 71, is one of the most influential Israeli politicians of his generation.
After thirty years in power, he was dismissed on June 13 after a vote of confidence in Parliament on the new "coalition for change".
But the man assures that he is not done with power.
Determined to remain in the ranks of the opposition, he promises to return soon to the head of power.
A look back at an eventful political career.
Born October 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv, son of Zionist historian Bension Netanyahu, pro-"Greater Israel", Benjamin Netanyahu grew up mainly in Jerusalem.
His family immigrated twice in the 1950s and 1960s to the suburbs of Philadelphia, United States.
תודה לכם!
❤️🇮🇱 https://t.co/q2Paem9Wvk
- Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) June 13, 2021
In 1967, he returned to Israel to do his military service in an elite commando group.
He left the army in 1973, after the Yom Kippur War.
Graduated from the prestigious business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston in 1975, he returned to Israel after the death the following year of his older brother, Yoni, during an Israeli assault to free the hostages of a theft Tel -Aviv / Paris in Uganda.
A fervent defender of Israeli positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict, he quickly became known nationally and internationally as a lawyer.
In 1982, he became a diplomat at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, United States.
He was appointed Ambassador to the United Nations two years later.
But he really entered politics in 1988 with his election as a member of the Knesset.
A rising star of Likud, he climbed successively through the ranks, becoming in turn Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1988–1990), then special adviser during negotiations relating to the Madrid Peace Conference.
Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Lebanon and Syria of unrest in the Middle East in statements to the United Nations Security Council here on September 22, 1986. © Bob Person, AFP
Critical of the Oslo accords, from 1993 he began a meteoric rise within Likud.
In the 1996 elections, he defeated Simon Peres, the outgoing head of government.
Benjamin Netanyahu thus becomes at 46 years the youngest Prime Minister in the history of Israel.
He remained in power for three years until July 1999.
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and his wife Sara wave to the crowd as they arrive at the Likud election celebration in Jerusalem on June 2, 1996. © Menahem Kahana, AFP
In 2002 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs when Labor left the government.
Then from 2003 to 2005, he occupied the finance portfolio in Ariel Sharon's second government.
He resigned in August of the same year, denouncing the Israeli disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip which would be implemented the following month.
At the end of 2005, he took the head of Likud while Ariel Sharon decided to create his centrist party, Kadima.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon attending a Likud meeting in Tel Aviv on May 12, 2002 © Sven Nackstrand, AFP
In 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu became Prime Minister again, succeeding Ehud Olmert, accused of corruption. Then began 12 years in power. In 2014, he launched Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza, to end rocket fire and destroy tunnels dug from the Palestinian enclave. The operation is extremely deadly: 2,251 dead on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, and 74 dead on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers. Meanwhile, Israeli colonization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is accelerating.
Press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on July 11, 2014, in which Netanyahu said he would not comply with global pleas to stop the military operation "protective edge" against the rocket attacks of the gang of Gaza.
© Gali Tibbon, AFP
In 2019, he was prosecuted for corruption, fraud and breach of trust in three different cases, charges he firmly denies.
This is the first time that a sitting prime minister has been indicted in Israel.
His trial opens in 2020 and continues in 2021. He risks imprisonment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2nd-L), wearing a protective mask, is pictured inside a courtroom at the Jerusalem District Court on May 24, 2020, during the first day of his trial for corruption.
© Ronen Zvulun, AFP
In 2020, the Israeli Prime Minister launches the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco - under the sponsorship of the United States.
El primer ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, y el presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, hablan tras la firma de los Acuerdos de Abraham, in the Casa Blanca, in Washington, EE.
UU., September 15th, 2020 © Reuters / Tom Brenner
At the end of a political crisis which pushed Benjamin Netanyahu to hold four legislative elections in two years, he was finally ousted from power.
On June 13, Parliament votes to trust the government of the new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett for two years, before being replaced by Yaïr Lapid.
About 2,000 Israelis demonstrated on June 12 in Jerusalem to celebrate the "fall" of "King Bibi".
But the political animal does not for all that renounce politics.
On June 14, he assured that he will remain in the ranks of the opposition ... before taking the reins of power.
Benjamin Netanyahu was in power in Israel for twelve years.
© Menahem KAHANA AFP / File
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