Benjamin Netanyahu Biography, Life, Interesting Facts

Benjamin Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv, Israel to Benzoin Netanyahu and Tzila Segal. His father was a Jewish Historian Professor. He was born on October 21, 1949. Benjamin is one of 3 children. He had a brother named Iddo Netanyahu who is an Israeli playwright. He also had a brother who was the oldest of the three named Yoni.

He attended Henriette Szold Elementary School in Jerusalem. They moved to Philadelphia in the US in 1963. There he attended Cheltenham High School and graduated in 1967.

Career

After graduation, Benjamin Netanyahu left to join the Israeli army. He trained as a combat soldier in the Israeli defense forces. He was shot in the shoulder when he helped rescue a hijacked jet plane at the Tel Aviv airport.

When his Service ended in 1972, he returned to Massachusetts and enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study Architecture. He returned to Israel in 1973 to fight in the Yom Kippur war that lasted only 40 days.

Then Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the US to continue his studies earning an SB Degree in Architecture in 1975. He also received an MS Degree from MIT Sloan School of Management in 1977. At this same time, he studied Political Science at Harvard University.

After completing his education, he got a job as a Management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Massachusetts from 1976 to 1978. He returned to Israel following the death of Yoni, his oldest brother. He was killed when an Air France airliner was hijacked to Uganda. Yoni was trying to free the hostages at the time. This was in 1978. While in Israel he began connecting with Israeli politicians.

Benjamin Netanyahu was selected as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC by Moshe Arens. He held this post from 1982 to 1984. He then served as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations in 1984. This post ended in 1988.

The Likud Party elected him as a member of the Knesset in 1988. During this time he served as deputy minister foreign affairs. Then in the 1996 Israeli legislative election, he was chosen as Likud’s candidate for Prime Minister.

Benjamin Netanyahu defeated incumbent labor candidate Shimon Peres. He took office on June 18, 1996. While in office he liberalized currency regulations, reduced deficits, and expanded government privatization.

In the 1999 election Ehud Barak defeated him after which he retired. In this same year, he became a consultant for BATM. He stayed in this position till 2001.

Returning to politics in 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu served as minister of foreign affairs between November of 2002 to February of 2003. After this, he served as minister of finance until August of 2005.

During this time to restore Israel’s economy, he implemented several economic reforms. Not only did he introduce changes in the banking system but he was in favor of more liberalized markets.

During the 2009 elections, Benjamin Netanyahu was once again elected prime minister. Then again he was chosen for a third time in 2013. He is only the 2nd three-term prime minister in the country’s history. David Ben-Gurion was the first person to do this. He was the founder of Israel. Benjamin was the first Israeli prime minister born in Israel after the birth of the state.

Family Life

Benjamin Netanyahu married Miriam Weizmann in 1972. They had a daughter together named Noa. She divorced him when she found out he had an affair with Fleur Cates in 1978. In 1981 he married Fleur, and she converted to Judaism. But they were divorced in 1984. He married a flight attendant named Sara Ben-Artzi in 1991. They had two sons together named Avner and Yair. They are still together to this day.

Conclusion

Benjamin Netanyahu wrote and edited several books. The subjects of most of these books are on terrorism.