Benjamin Netanyahu and Ali Khamenei — the men behind the Middle East's latest conflict

Australia Broadcast Center

10 hours ago

Hundreds of air strikes have rained down across Israel and Iran this week, leaving dozens dead and residents unsure what's to come.
Behind it all, two men are at the opposing helms of a situation that is rapidly devolving into outright war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hail from vastly different political upbringings.
This latest round of attacks is far from the first time these nations have come to blows.
It remains unclear whether it will be the last.
For Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran's nuclear capabilities have been a lingering threat on Israel's horizon for decades.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1949, his family moved to Pennsylvania in the United States in 1963.
He attended university in Massachusetts, graduating with a master's degree in business management and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture.
By the 1980s he had entered the world of politics, becoming Israel's deputy chief of mission in Washington and then Israel's UN ambassador.
He went on to climb the ranks of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, becoming chair of the right-wing Likud party in 1993.
Eran Kaplan, a professor in Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, told the ABC Mr Netanyahu had "inherited" his mindset.
"It's his father's ideology," he said.
"He inherited a very definitive worldview from his father.
"That has a kind of historical vision of what it means to be Jewish, and the destiny of the Jewish people.
"And what he sees as his role within this history [is] releasing the Jews from the vicious historical cycle they've been caught in for two millennia."
He was elected prime minister for the first time in 1996 — winning by a margin of just one per cent.
By this time, he had been warning of the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran for several years.
His father, according to former advisor Eyal Arad, passed on a "Messianic" vision of the Netanyahu family.
"The outlook coming from his father is that there will always be a hostile world that would not care for the security and welfare of the Jewish nation," Mr Arad said.
He has gone on to be elected PM five times, most recently in 2022.
The campaign against Iran's nuclear capabilities has recently been characterised by analysts as his "moment of truth" and the "mission of his lifetime".
Earlier this week, he likened Iran's nuclear program as akin to the "the Nazi regime".
"Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime," he said.
Professor Kaplan said Mr Netanyahu's latest campaign against Iran came near the end of his political life.
"His political prospects are not all that positive. Looking forward, his coalition is falling apart.
"Most polls predict that he will not be able to win the next election, and in many ways, I think he sees ending Iran's nuclear program as the end of his political career and leadership.
"It seems like this is the last chance or opportunity he has to carry it out."
As 40-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu was finishing his role as Israel's UN ambassador, a 50-year-old Ali Khamenei had just taken over as the second Supreme Leader of Iran.
The role made him both the country's spiritual leader and its most powerful political authority.
It is a position he has held ever since.
Mr Khamenei grew up as the son of a religious scholar, joining the religious revolutionary movement in the 1960s.
According to a state-run website dedicated to publishing the leader's writings, he spent several decades fighting to overthrow the then-shah's regime.
He maintained a close relationship with Ruhollah Khomeini, the main leader of the Iranian Revolution.
Khomeini would become the first supreme leader of Iran when the revolution succeeded in 1979, with Mr Khamenei serving on the Iranian Revolutionary Council.
In 1981, a bomb attack on a Tehran mosque left Mr Khamenei paralysed in his right arm.
Just a few months later, Iran's president was assassinated — an attack that saw Ali Khamenei elected to the largely ceremonial role for almost a decade.
By 1989, Khomeini had been undergoing cancer treatment for years.
His health failing, he endorsed Mr Khamenei as his political successor.
When he died on June 3, 1989, it took just 24 hours for Mr Khamenei to be elected as the nation's new supreme leader — despite opposition by several spiritual leaders.
Since then, he has maintained a guarded and hostile relationship with western nations, particularly the US.
When Donald Trump pulled out of Iran's nuclear deal in 2018, Mr Khamenei labelled it a "mistake".
Author Karim Sadjadpour, who penned a book analysing Khamenei's writings, dubbed him "the last of the first-generation revolutionaries".
"His basic worldview has always been that whenever the West, particularly the US or the Israelis, are trying to pressure you, you should never … compromise as a result of pressure," Mr Sadjadpour said in a 2016 interview.
Mr Khamenei has been repeatedly outspoken against Israel's government and its attacks on Iran during the past several days.
Israel's "Operation Rising Lion" against Iranian nuclear sites, he said, was a "big mistake, a grave error".
"The Iranian nation won't permit the blood of its valued martyrs to go unavenged, nor will it ignore the violation of its airspace," he said.
"We must give a strong response. God willing, we will respond with strength, and we will show them no mercy.
"They shouldn't imagine that they've attacked us and that everything is over now."
As tensions continue to escalate, another man has found himself involved in the conflict — Donald Trump.
Mr Trump's decision to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 in part paved the way for the latest round of violence.
Mr Trump was scathing in his remarks at the time.
"The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into," he said.
A White House statement claimed the deal enabled "malign" behaviour by Iran, alleging it allowed Iran to continue to develop nuclear capabilities.
Two years later, Mr Trump ordered the drone strike assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport.
The attack prompted Iran to announce it would no longer limit its uranium enrichment.
While Iranian officials remained suspicious of US involvement, Mr Netanyahu has characterised Mr Trump as Israel's "greatest friend" in the White House.
The US president has appeared to struggle to walk a fine line between both nations over the past few days.
He has both attempted to distance his country from Israel's attack and to warn Iran against retaliation.
Shortly after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, the White House issued a statement via Secretary of State Marco Rubio, stressing the US was "not involved".
"Israel took unilateral action against Iran," Mr Rubio said.
But Mr Trump would go on to praise the strikes, calling them "excellent".
Talks between Iran and the US have now been abandoned.
"[There] has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter … come to an end," Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He added Iran had been told the US made "the best and most lethal military equipment" in the world.
"And [they were told] that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come. And they know how to use it."