Benjamin Netanyahu: The World’s Most Successful Terrorist
The most succesful terrorists always wear a suit.
Terrorism is defined, in its most basic form, as the use of violence or the threat of violence against civilians to achieve political goals. It is often associated with stateless groups, shadowy cells, and covert operatives. But when applied consistently, that definition does not stop at non-state actors. By that standard, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is not only a terrorist, he may be the most successful one alive.
His career spans decades of foreign aggression, political fearmongering, and systematic attacks on civilian populations, culminating in the current genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already issued a warrant for his arrest, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a weapon, murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. But the legal charges only capture part of the picture. Netanyahu’s foreign policy from Iran to Iraq, Syria to Lebanon, and most visibly in Gaza, has consistently relied on the same principle: maintain power through fear, violence, and the deliberate targeting of civilian safety.
Netanyahu’s strategy fits squarely within the parameters set out by the United Nations’ working definitions of terrorism. State terrorism, though politically controversial to label, is defined in numerous academic and legal contexts as the use of armed force by a government against civilian targets to create fear and influence political outcomes.
Historical precedents, from Augusto Pinochet’s Chile to the apartheid regime in South Africa, show that state leaders can and do use the machinery of government to conduct campaigns that meet this definition. Netanyahu has perfected this model. His calculated combination of military campaigns, prolonged sieges, targeted killings, and relentless propaganda has allowed him to stay in power longer than any other Israeli leader.
Early Career and the Cultivation of Fear
Born in 1949 in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu spent much of his youth in both Israel and the United States. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a historian and staunch revisionist Zionist whose political views heavily influenced his son. Netanyahu’s teenage years in Philadelphia introduced him to American culture and political rhetoric, sharpening his fluency in English and giving him an understanding of Western media strategy. After serving in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, where he participated in high-risk missions, Netanyahu attended MIT and briefly studied at Harvard, building the credentials that would later bolster his political career.
His older brother, Yonatan, died during the 1976 Entebbe raid, a loss Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked to frame himself as a lifelong soldier against terrorism. In the 1980s, as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, he proved adept at using the global stage to instill fear of regional threats, particularly Iran and Palestinian militant groups. This was not mere diplomacy—it was the early formation of a political brand rooted in existential dread, casting himself as the singular figure capable of defending Israel from annihilation.
The Iran Obsession
From the 1990s onward, Netanyahu’s rhetoric on Iran became relentless. He warned repeatedly that Tehran was “five years from a nuclear bomb,” a claim he has recycled almost annually regardless of changing intelligence assessments. His 2012 speech at the UN, featuring a cartoonish bomb diagram, became emblematic of his media-savvy fearmongering.
Behind the rhetoric was a sustained covert campaign. Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Mossad is believed to have carried out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, sabotage operations at Natanz and Fordow, and cyberattacks such as the Stuxnet virus (in collaboration with the U.S.).
Netanyahu Finally Started the War He Spent Decades Begging For
The bombs are falling. The skyline of Tel Aviv glows with the fires of impact, while across the region, Iranian missiles and Israeli jets chase a century-old shadow of conflict. In Tehran, images flicker of mushrooming smoke and crowds chanting revenge. The war that so many feared, the one that hovered over every speech, every election, every late-night…
In 2025, Operation Rising Lion struck some of Iran’s main nuclear and military sites. While Netanyahu framed it as necessary to prevent a “second Holocaust,” critics saw it as an unconstitutional act of war aimed at distracting from corruption charges and the mounting death toll in Gaza. Iranian civilians were among the dead, collateral damage in a calculated bid for political survival.
Iraq and the Expansion of the Battlefield
Netanyahu often points to Israel’s 1981 Osirak reactor strike as a model for preemptive action, even though it occurred before his premiership. Under his leadership, this doctrine expanded. In 2019, Israeli jets bombed targets in Iraq linked to Iranian-backed militias, killing dozens, including civilians.
Baghdad condemned the strikes as a violation of sovereignty, but Netanyahu boasted of Israel’s reach. Analysts note that these attacks had limited strategic value against Iran’s influence but served a domestic purpose: demonstrating Netanyahu’s willingness to strike anywhere, anytime.
Furthermore, Natanyahu went to the USA in 2002 to encourage the USA to attack Iraq, promising that it would bring extraordinary benefits to the region. After 2 disasterous wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, those benefits have yet to materialise. This act of terrorism-by-proxy is one that Bibi has found a useful tool, as he is able to use the US military as if it were his own.
Lebanon, Syria, and the Regional Network of Violence
Lebanon and Syria have been perennial targets under Netanyahu. In 2006, during his time out of office, he championed the Second Lebanon War, later using its fallout to justify future strikes.
As prime minister, he ordered repeated bombings of Hezbollah convoys, Damascus airport, and Syrian civilian infrastructure under the pretext of preventing arms transfers from Iran. These operations often coincided with political crises in Israel, fitting a broader pattern in which foreign aggression is used to shore up domestic legitimacy.
Gaza: From Siege to Genocide
Since 2007, Netanyahu has overseen a blockade of Gaza that the UN and numerous human rights organizations describe as collective punishment. The blockade has ended Gaza’s economy, decimated healthcare, and left what remains of its two million residents dependent on limited humanitarian aid.
The situation escalated to full-scale genocide between 2023 and 2025. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, with tens of thousands of children among the dead. Hospitals, schools, and refugee camps have been bombed. Starvation has been systematically inflicted by blocking aid convoys and targeting agricultural infrastructure.
The terrorist has gone on to use food as a weapon of war in Gaza. First, humanitarian aid was blocked, with food mainly reaching Palestinians through the UNRWA organisation. That came to an end, as Bibi succesfully dismantled what was left of the organisation in Gaza, replacing them with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation(GHF).
With the GHF, a new period arrived in the use of food as a weapon of war. The group, run by American mercenaries, would round the citizens of Gaza up like cattle and force them into enclosed areas where Israeli troops would fire at them indiscriminately.
Testimonies from survivors describe families surviving on animal feed, entire neighborhoods leveled overnight, and bodies left in the rubble for days. ICC prosecutors cite deliberate deprivation of food and water as evidence of war crimes. Netanyahu’s own words, referring to Gaza as an “enemy enclave” to be destroyed, leave little doubt about intent.
Note: The death toll in Gaza is an undercount. Counting practices enforced by Israel prevent those without valid ID from being added to the death toll. Some estimates put the real death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
The Political Utility of Terror
War has been Netanyahu’s political insurance policy. Each major escalation, be it against Gaza, Syria, or Iran, has coincided with corruption investigations, coalition collapses, or drops in his approval ratings. His far-right coalition partners demand military aggression as the price for their loyalty, and Netanyahu delivers. Polling data consistently shows a rally-around-the-flag effect after military strikes, allowing him to consolidate power even as international condemnation grows.
The International Response and Failure
The United States remains Israel’s most steadfast protector, vetoing UN Security Council resolutions calling for ceasefires and continuing arms shipments during active bombardments. European responses have been tepid, with most governments stopping short of sanctions.
In contrast, countries in the Global South, most notably South Africa and Pakistan, have labeled Netanyahu a terrorist outright. Yet, Netanyahu still attends global summits, shakes hands with presidents, and is treated as a legitimate head of state. This normalization is perhaps his greatest achievement as a practitioner of state terrorism.
Comparisons to other leaders accused of state terrorism, Pinochet, Milošević, Putin, show that Netanyahu’s methods are neither unique nor unprecedented. What sets him apart is the longevity of his tenure and the breadth of his operations. While others have been deposed or tried in international courts, Netanyahu has maintained power, thanks to Israel’s strategic role in Western security policy.
The Most Successful Terrorist
Benjamin Netanyahu’s record is not one of mere political hardball or military overreach. It is a sustained campaign of violence against civilian populations, both within and beyond Israel’s borders, designed to achieve political ends.
Ethnic Cleansing, the Search for Greater Israel
The phrase “Greater Israel” evokes different reactions depending on who hears it. To many on the Israeli far-right, it’s a vision of biblical redemption—a modern state reasserting ancient borders, one settlement at a time. To Palestinians, it’s the slow erasure of their homeland
From Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus to Gaza City, his policies have killed thousands and terrorized millions. By the UN’s own working definitions, Netanyahu is a terrorist. That he wears a suit, addresses the Knesset, and shakes hands with presidents does not change the nature of his actions. In fact, it makes them more dangerous, because they show the world that terrorism, when carried out by a state, can be rewarded with legitimacy.
History will remember Netanyahu not as a flawed leader or a controversial figure, but as the architect of one of the most sustained campaigns of state terrorism in modern times. And it will remember the nations that enabled him just as clearly.