How Benjamin Netanyahu reshaped Israel’s institutions

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has left a deep mark on the country’s institutions, politics and social attitudes during a career associated with Israel’s shift to the right. Ahead of the October 27, 2026 election, analysts say his lasting legacy may be the right-wing, militaristic opposition he helped create and now faces. In the 1990s, he stoked anger over possible peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria; political leaders accused him of helping incite the climate before Yitzhak Rabin’s 1995 assassination, a charge Netanyahu denies. Under his leadership, religious courts gained expanded powers, while ultra-Orthodox schools and institutions received record funding.