GOVERNMENT

Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime minister of Israel

2018 has been a torrid year for Israel's prime minister, whose international stature has grown as Israel pursues unprecedented diplomatic outreach across the globe, but whose reputation at home has suffered from a slew of corruption scandals. Even so, successive polls show that Benjamin Netanyahu retains the support of a majority of Israeli voters. Some of the political highlights of Netanyahu's year have included his official visit to India in January, the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem in May, and the passage in August of a controversial Nation-State Bill that underlines Israel's status as a Jewish, democratic state. In keeping with recent years, Netanyahu's main security challenge remains the Iranian regime, which has been pouring troops and building weapons factories in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, as well as backing Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Yet his overall vision remains rosy. "We’re coloring the world blue," Netanyahu enthused at the AIPAC annual conference in March 2018. "Pretty soon the countries that don't have relations with us, they’re going to be isolated." (Photo: Menahem Kahana / Pool via Reuters.)