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| - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made improving ties with Arab states a centrepiece of his recent tenure, achieved a breakthrough with a deal to normalise relations with the United Arab Emirates. Once more, the veteran conservative leader dubbed "King Bibi", recently embattled by street protests and legal woes, pulled a surprise out of his hat, with the help of his close ally Donald Trump. The US-brokered deal first announced in a Trump tweet will, once signed, make the UAE only the third country in the Arab world to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel. Israel and the UAE have maintained discreet ties for years and never fought a war, distinguishing the deal from the 1979 peace accord signed with Egypt and its 1994 pact with Jordan. But it still marks a major diplomatic coup for Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving premier, at a time his standing has been weakened by public frustration over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Past Israeli leaders saw peace with the Palestinians as the gateway to ties with the broader Arab and Muslim world. But with the peace process frozen for years now, Netanyahu has argued instead that building relations with Arab countries first will push the Palestinians toward an eventual peace deal with Israel. Netanyahu, in power from 1996 to 1999 and again since 2011, agreed the UAE deal as he faces unprecedented personal and political challenges. The 70-year-old is the first Israeli premier to be indicted in office and is currently standing trial over bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies wrongdoing. After his Likud party and its right-wing allies failed to secure a parliamentary majority in three elections over 18 months, Netanyahu agreed to an unprecedented power-sharing deal with his former election rival Benny Gantz. The deal calls for Gantz, a former army chief and current defence minister, to take over as prime minister in November 2021, meaning Netanyahu may have agreed to his own political expiration date. But many Israeli political analysts believe we will find a way to sink the coalition rather than step aside. Netanyahu, a constant presence in Israeli politics over the past three decades, is known for outlasting his political rivals. The burly son of a historian with a grey comb-over hairstyle and deep voice has entrenched himself at the top so firmly he has been labelled King Bibi, referring to his childhood nickname. The Likud party chief has stayed in power with a mix of divisive populism and the image of a world statesman close to foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin -- but especially Trump. Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv in 1949, less than 18 months after Israel's creation. He and his wife Sara have two sons, and he has a daughter from a previous marriage. He grew up partly in the United States and attended the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and with his fluent, American-accented English would appear on television speaking forcefully in defence of Israel. He performed his Israeli military service with an elite unit and was wounded in combat, but another family member's service may have affected him more deeply. In 1976, his brother Yonatan died in an Israeli commando raid to rescue hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda. Netanyahu has described that operation as "a very dramatic national experience" and "one of great personal consequence". Israeli politics in its early years was dominated by the Labour party, but the first victory by the Likud in 1977, when it was then led by Menachem Begin, helped lay the groundwork for Netanyahu's political future. His career took off when he was posted to the Israeli embassy in Washington and he later served as ambassador to the United Nations. Aged 46, he became Israel's youngest-ever premier in 1996, after he had risen to international attention with his multiple appearances on CNN as Israel's deputy foreign minister following Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. While he has always maintained a devoted following among his right-wing base, many call Netanyahu's politics too divisive. They accuse him of scare tactics and pitting Israelis against each other by castigating those who disagree. His biographer Neill Lochery, author of "The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu", said: "The trouble that the world had in dealing with Netanyahu was not that he was an ideologue." The problem, he wrote, was rather "that he was too pragmatic, and prone to change his mind in order to curry favour with key voting groups in Israel". bur/bs/fz
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