A New Regime: Israel’s Youngest Premier-elect is Well-known to U.S. Audiences

He has gone from leading commandos in an anti-terror operation to become the youngest prime minister of the Jewish state.

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, 46, will most likely bask in the attention that comes with his new job.

Referred to by some as the “master of the sound bite,” the Likud Party leader, who squeaked by Prime Minister Shimon Peres in last week’s elections by 29,457 votes out of almost 3 million cast, is a familiar face to Americans.

Netanyahu became the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington in 1982. Two years later, he was appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held until 1988, the year he was elected to the Knesset.

From 1988 to 1991, he was Israel’s deputy foreign minister. From 1991 to 1992, he was a deputy minister in the office of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Netanyahu, who speaks English flawlessly, emerged during his years in Washington and at the United Nations as a principal Likud spokesman on “Nightline” and other American television news programs.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he became internationally known as Israel’s spokesman, appearing in a gas mask on CNN.

Netanyahu, who became the Likud Party leader in 1993, shocked Israelis during his campaign for the position by going on television to announce that he had an affair, a scandal that came to be known as “Bibigate.”

Netanyahu, who has been married three times, said he went public because opponents inside Likud were trying to blackmail him with a steamy videotape. He currently is married to Sara, with whom he has two young sons. He also has an 18-year-old daughter from his first marriage.

Last November, he was in the hot seat again, facing accusations that he had fostered the climate of extremism that led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – charges by Labor supporters that he vigorously denied.

Netanyahu, a skilled political operator, improved his chances for the premiership by negotiating a merger between Likud and the Tsomet and Gesher parties, which resulted in the heads of those parties, Rafael Eitan and David Levy, deciding not to enter the prime minister contest.

Netanyahu, who ran an American-styled campaign that included commercials filmed in a room that resembled the White House’s Oval Office, is the son of a Cornell University professor.

Born in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu spent most of his teen years in the United States, attending high school in suburban Philadelphia and studying architecture and business administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Netanyahu served as a soldier and officer in an anti-terror unit in the Israel Defense Force, leading commandos disguised as airport workers onto a commandeered Belgian Sabena airliner in May 1972. He was shot and wounded during that mission.

Netanyahu has written numerous articles in the American and foreign media and is the author and editor of several books, most of which deal with terrorism.

Until now he has often been in the shadow of his older brother.

Considered a hero by the Jewish state, Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu died in action leading the spectacular 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda to free Israelis hijacked on an Air France plane by Arab and West German terrorists.

Interestingly, the Israeli rescue, which has been called a watershed event in the war against terrorism, was overseen in large part by then-Defense Minister Peres.

Netanyahu, during the latest campaign, flayed Peres as wrongly putting his trust in the Palestinians, citing as proof the string of suicide bombings in February and March.

Since 1976, Netanyahu has been the director of the Jonathan Institute, named after his brother, a foundation that studies ways to combat terrorism.