Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has spent more than three decades positioning himself as the architect of Israel’s aggressive regional posture, leaving behind a legacy defined by repeated wars, interventions, and accusations of grave human rights abuses. Since his rise in the 1990s, Netanyahu has consistently framed Israel’s security in zero-sum terms, using overwhelming force against enemies real or perceived across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and beyond, while leveraging perpetual conflict as a tool to maintain his grip on power despite repeated corruption scandals.

Netanyahu’s tenure has been marked by devastating wars on Gaza. In the wake of the Hamas-led attack on October 7, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and saw more than 240 hostages taken, Netanyahu launched a relentless campaign of bombings and siege tactics on Gaza. This operation cut off water, food, and fuel for over two million people, prompting accusations of collective punishment from humanitarian groups. By June 2025, Palestinian health authorities reported over 56,000 killed, including tens of thousands of children, and more than 130,000 injured. UN agencies, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the International Criminal Court described Israel’s use of starvation and systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure as war crimes, with the ICC issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister in May 2024 for crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.

But Gaza is only the latest chapter in Netanyahu’s pattern of warfare. Early in his first term (1996–1999), Netanyahu endorsed Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, where Israeli shelling killed over 100 civilians sheltering at a UN base in Qana. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, he repeatedly vowed to destroy Hezbollah, telling Israeli voters and the international community that Israel would “return Lebanon to the stone age” if rockets were fired into Israel. After Hezbollah’s rise as a formidable force following the 2006 Lebanon war, Netanyahu’s threats and occasional airstrikes on Lebanon became a permanent feature of his military policy. His statements warning of “obliterating” Lebanon’s infrastructure if Hezbollah acts have stoked fears of a full-scale war that could engulf the region.

In Syria, Netanyahu has ordered hundreds of airstrikes since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, targeting Iranian forces and Hezbollah arms convoys. In 2018, he boasted publicly, “We have struck thousands of targets to stop Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and will continue to hit them anywhere in Syria and beyond,” setting a precedent for near-constant Israeli raids that have killed hundreds of fighters and civilians alike. These attacks have often destabilized ceasefires and complicated humanitarian efforts, with Syrian civilians paying a heavy price. In 2015, Netanyahu told voters that only he could “prevent Syria from becoming a base for Iranian terror that will burn the entire Middle East,” using the specter of endless conflict to rally support.

Netanyahu’s war calculus also extended to Iraq. In 2019, according to U.S. intelligence leaks, Israel launched covert airstrikes on Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces depots, killing fighters and destroying infrastructure. Netanyahu publicly hinted at Israel’s involvement, declaring Israel would “strike Iranian assets wherever they are, including Iraq,” remarks that rattled Baghdad and raised the specter of a broader regional war.

In Yemen, Netanyahu accused the Iran-backed Houthis of plotting attacks on Israel from afar and threatened strikes on Yemeni soil. Meanwhile, he pressured Gulf Arab states into closer security pacts by painting Iran’s regional activities — in Bahrain, the UAE, and the wider Gulf — as existential threats requiring a de facto Israeli-Arab alliance under his leadership.

This bellicose approach found one of its starkest expressions in June 2025, when Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a massive attack on more than 100 Iranian military and nuclear facilities. The assault killed at least 224 people, many civilians, and injured more than 1,000. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Israeli cities that killed dozens, marking the most dangerous direct conflict ever between the two countries. Netanyahu framed the attack as vital to freeing Israeli hostages in Gaza and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the escalation prompted international condemnation and fears of a regional war spiraling out of control.

Throughout these wars, Netanyahu has used bombastic speeches and dramatic visuals — like his infamous 2012 UN presentation where he drew a red line on a cartoon bomb to warn of Iran’s nuclear program — to keep Israel’s population and allies focused on external threats. Critics argue these tactics are designed to distract from his domestic political and legal crises.

Netanyahu’s political survival has indeed depended heavily on these cycles of war. Since 2019, he has been on trial for three major corruption cases — Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000 — involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. In Case 1000, prosecutors accuse him of accepting luxury gifts worth nearly 700,000 shekels from billionaires such as Arnon Milchan and James Packer in return for political favors. In Case 2000, he allegedly negotiated a deal with the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper for favorable coverage in exchange for undermining a rival outlet. In Case 4000, Netanyahu is accused of approving regulatory benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars for telecom giant Bezeq’s owner, Shaul Elovitch, who then skewed Walla News coverage to favor him. Netanyahu has repeatedly delayed these trials, citing national security crises like Gaza and Iran, while denouncing the charges as part of a leftist conspiracy to topple him.

His domestic policies have only fueled polarization further. From 2022 to 2024, Netanyahu pushed sweeping judicial reforms that critics said would undermine Israeli democracy by stripping the Supreme Court of its power to check the government. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in some of the largest protests in the nation’s history. Under pressure, Netanyahu paused parts of the overhaul, but has vowed to revive it, framing the judiciary as an obstacle to the will of the people.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has pursued settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank at an unprecedented pace, approving thousands of new housing units and further entrenching Israeli control in defiance of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. This expansion has intensified daily violence between settlers and Palestinians, stoking tensions that could explode into wider conflict at any moment.

Even as Israel reels from war with Iran, Netanyahu has continued to signal readiness for more aggression. His government has warned Hezbollah and Syria that Israel would not hesitate to strike again if it detected Iranian weapons transfers. His repeated threats that Israel will “do whatever it takes” to destroy Iranian capabilities, including in Syria and Lebanon, have deepened regional instability and left millions across the Middle East living in fear of the next Israeli operation.

Netanyahu’s defenders insist his tough policies have kept Israel safe, pointing to the normalization deals with some Arab states as proof of his strategic vision. But critics, including former Israeli military and intelligence officials, warn that his wars have radicalized new generations of militants across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and that his approach leaves Israel more isolated internationally while cementing cycles of hatred and violence that undermine its long-term security.

Despite repeated international condemnations and polls showing a majority of Israelis want him to step down, Netanyahu has kept power through alliances with ultra-nationalist and religious parties, along with a strategy of portraying himself as Israel’s irreplaceable defender. Yet with Gaza on the brink of famine, Iran vowing revenge, and a corruption trial still looming over his future, Netanyahu’s relentless focus on war as a means of political survival has pushed Israel and the Middle East to a level of instability not seen in decades. Without decisive action by both Israeli society and the international community, many fear Netanyahu’s legacy will be a region locked in endless war.