When Benjamin Netanyahu burst into Israeli politics in the 1990s, he was like no politician his country had ever seen. As Bibi relinquishes power, nearly a quarter-century after first becoming prime minister, @halbfinger looks back on a polarizing figure. nyti.ms/3wrFKvq
Netanyahu, Israeli's longest-serving leader, inspired such admiration among supporters that they likened him to King David. His political agility got him out of so much — including indictment — that even his detractors thought of him as a magician. nyti.ms/3xnBgGb 
Netanyahu was deeply divisive: Governing from the right; branding adversaries as traitors, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic; obsessed with power. Allegations that he bribed media executives for favorable news coverage led to criminal charges that haunted his final years in office.
Even as Netanyahu surpassed the tenure of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding leader, in 2019, he drove Israelis to exhaustion with four elections in two years in which the main issue was him. The electorate split down the middle each time. nyti.ms/3xnBgGb
In some ways, Netanyahu leaves Israel stronger than when he found it, with a globally envied tech industry and fearsome military. He struck watershed accords with four Arab countries that had long shunned Israel in solidarity with Palestinians. nyti.ms/3xnBgGb
In doing so, Netanyahu argued that he had been right all along: Israel could perpetuate an occupation — a violent and repressive one — without paying a price in international legitimacy. nyti.ms/3xnBgGb
In the U.S., Netanyahu was once so popular that a 2015 poll found Republicans admired him as much as Reagan and more than the pope. But by the time Trump was elected and gave the Israeli right nearly everything they could ask for, Bibi was mired in a fight for political survival.
He leaves power this week tainted by allegations of criminality, his circle of trust constricted by banishments, betrayals and arrests until it included few besides his wife and son.
Read @halbfinger’s full story on Benjamin Netanyahu’s exit: nyti.ms/3xnBgGb
Read @halbfinger’s full story on Benjamin Netanyahu’s exit: nyti.ms/3xnBgGb
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