Israeli Prime Ministers
Benjamin Netanyahu
Became the leader of Likud in 1993. Won the 1996 elections, becoming Israel's youngest ever Prime Minister, serving his first term from June 1996 to July 1999.In December 2006, he became the official Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset and Chairman of Likud. Following the 2009 parliamentary election, in which Likud placed second and right-wing parties won a majority, He formed a coalition government. After the victory in the 2013 elections, he became the second person to be elected to the position of Prime Minister for a third term, after Israel's founder David Ben-Gurion. In March 2015, he was elected to his fourth term as prime minister. He has been elected Prime Minister of Israel four times, matching David Ben-Gurion's record. He is the only prime minister in Israel's history to have been elected three times in a row. He is currently the second longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel's history after David Ben-Gurion, and if his current government lasts a full term, upon its completion he will become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of Israel.
Golda Meir
Elected Prime Minister of Israel on March 17, 1969, after serving as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister. The world's fourth and Israel's first and only woman to hold such an office, she has been described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics. Her government oversaw the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Munich olympics, as well as the resulting Operation Wrath of God to hunt down the suspected perpetrators. Later, in 1974, she led Israel's victory in the Yom Kippur War.
Yitzhak Rabin
He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974, after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, he signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. He was Israel's minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada. In 1992, he was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, he won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, who opposed the terms of the Oslo Accords. He was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. He has become a symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Menachem Begin
His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance. His most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, his government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion, he grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on him mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.
David Ben-Gurion
Israel's "Founding Father" First signer of Israeli Declaration of Independence. Led Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. As Prime Minister, he helped build the state institutions, presiding over various national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. A centerpiece of his foreign policy was improving relationships with the West Germans. He worked very well with Konrad Adenauer's government in Bonn, and West Germany provided large sums (in the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany) in compensation for Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. In 1954 he resigned as both Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, although he remained a member of the Knesset. However, he returned as Minister of Defense in 1955 after the Lavon Affair resulted in the resignation of Pinhas Lavon. Later in the year he became Prime Minister again, following the 1955 elections. Under his leadership, Israel responded aggressively to Arab guerrilla attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along with British and French forces after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal during what became known as the Suez Crisis.
Levi Eshkol
Was first appointed as Prime Minister following the resignation of David Ben-Gurion. He then led the party in the elections to the Sixth Knesset (1965) and won, remaining in office for six consecutive years. Shortly after taking office, he made several significant changes, among them the annulment of military rule over Israeli Arabs and a successful journey to the United States, being the first Israeli leader to be formally invited to the White House. His relations with American President Lyndon B. Johnson greatly affected Israel-United States relations and later on the Six Day War. In addition to leading Israel during the Six-Day War, he was Prime Minister during the USS LIberty incident, in which Israeli fighters fired on a US research vessel.
