Benjamin Netanyahu
Party: Likud
Age: 49

Israeli politician, leader of the Likud since 1993, Israel's first elected and Prime Minister, and Israel's first prime minister to be born after the establishment of the state. Netanyahu was born in 1949 to a Revisionist family in Tel Aviv. As a child and youth he lived with his family in the U.S. in the years 1956-58 and again in 1963-67. He returning to Israel in order to serve in the IDF in the years 1967-72, and reached the rank of captain in the elite unit, "Sayeret Matkal". After concluding his military service Netanyahu returned to the U.S. and received a first degree in Architecture and a second degree in Business Administration at M.I.T, and started working for the "Boston Consultant Group". At the same time he engaged in propaganda activities in the U.S. on behalf of the State of Israel. After his brother Jonathan (Yonni) was killed, in July 1976, in the course of the Entebbe Operation, of which he was one of the commanders, Netanyahu returned to Israel and started to advocate international cooperation in fighting terrorism. In 1980 he set up and headed the Jonathan Institute for the Study of Terrorism, and started working as marketing manager in a Jerusalem based furniture company "Rim".

In 1982-84 Netanyahu served in the Israeli Embassy in Washington under then Ambassador Moshe Arens, and in 1984-88 as Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. In this capacity he Inter alia insisted on the opening of files on Nazi war criminals held in the U.N. archives, and frequently appeared on the American media to explain Israeli positions.

In 1988 Netanyahu. was elected to the 12th Knesset on the Likud list, and served as Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs under Moshe Arens in 1988-90. Following the fall of the National Unity Government in March 1990, and David Levy's appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs, he was appointed Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and in this capacity participated in the Madrid Conference, where he was Israel's main spokesman. Netanyahu was one of the few staunch supporters in the Likud of instituting the system of direct elections for the Prime Minister in Israel and after the Labor victory in the elections to the 13th Knesset in 1992, supported the institution of primaries for the election of the Likud chairman and candidate for the premiership. In the Likud primaries for the leadership, which were held on March 25, 1993, Netanyahu was elected by a majority of 52.1%. In this period he expressed hawkish views, and spoke in favor of massive privatization of government owned companies and state lands. Towards the elections to the 14th Knesset he managed, with the help of Ariel Sharon, to convince Rafael Eitan and David Levy not to run for Prime Minister, in return for reserving seven seats for Tsomet and seven for Gesher in a single list with the Likud. This move ensured that in the elections for Prime Minister in May 1996 there would be only two candidates - himself and Shimon Peres.

Following an American style elections campaign, in which he emphasized his undertaking to continue the peace process under the slogan "Peace with Security", Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister with 50.49% of the votes. Within two weeks of being elected he set up a Government with all the religious parties, Yisrael Be'aliya and the Third Way. Despite his reservations about the recognition of the PLO and the Oslo process, Netanyahu met with Yasir Arafat for the first time in September 1996 and his government signed the Hebron Agreement in January 1997 and the Wye Plantation Agreement in October 1998.

The resignation of several Ministers from the Government, and differences of opinion within the coalition regarding its policy on several central issues, as well as difficulties in getting the budget for 1999 through, made the proper functioning of the Government very difficult. Despite the fact that Natanyahu objected at first to early elections, he finally voted for the law for the dissolution of the Knesset.

-- All information courtesy of the Israeli Knesset