The Man at the Centre of Every Storm: The Complete Story of Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2026

There is no figure in global politics whose calendar is more simultaneously crowded, consequential, and precarious than Benjamin Netanyahu's in May 2026. Within the space of a single week, the Israeli Prime Minister has declared that the Iran war is "not over," revealed a secret visit to the UAE that the UAE then publicly denied, watched his coalition fracture over a military draft law, faced a corruption trial that Israel's president is now personally trying to broker into a plea deal, confronted an opposition coalition that has launched a formal campaign to unseat him, and seen his own government file a bill to dissolve the Knesset and trigger elections. Here is the complete, detailed story of the most consequential week in Netanyahu's extraordinary and turbulent political life in recent memory.

The Iran War: "It's Not Over"

The most globally significant story around Netanyahu this week is his declaration, delivered on CBS News 60 Minutes on May 10, 2026, that the war with Iran is not finished — despite the fragile ceasefire that has been in place since April 8.

In his first major American television interview since the conflict began, Netanyahu told CBS chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett directly: "It's not over." He explained that while Israel and the United States have significantly degraded Iran's capabilities — including its proxy forces across the region, its missile production capacity, and elements of its nuclear infrastructure — the fundamental threat remains alive. "Now, we've degraded a lot of it," he said. "But all that is still there, and there's work to be done."

The centrepiece of Netanyahu's stated unfinished business is Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile and its enrichment facilities. Recent reporting from international monitoring agencies indicated that Iran may possess enough highly enriched uranium to produce multiple nuclear weapons if the material were further refined — a scenario that Israeli leaders have described for years as crossing an existential red line. Netanyahu was unambiguous about what resolution looks like from Israel's perspective: the uranium must be removed from Iran and the enrichment facilities must be dismantled. "I'm not going to give a timetable to it, but I'm going to say that's a terrifically important mission," he told Garrett.

He also revealed, in the interview, details of conversations that took place inside the White House Situation Room before President Trump authorised strikes against Iran — providing a rare glimpse into the joint decision-making process that launched one of the most significant military actions in the Middle East in decades.

The context of this declaration matters enormously. The US-Iran ceasefire has been fragile since it took effect on April 8, and the United States and Iran are currently engaged in difficult negotiations over the terms of any permanent settlement. Netanyahu's insistence that the war is "not over" — made publicly, in American prime-time television — immediately positions Israel as a potential obstacle to any US-Iran agreement that leaves Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact. It is a message aimed simultaneously at Tehran, at Trump, at the international community, and at Israeli domestic audiences who need to see their prime minister projecting strength.

The Secret UAE Visit: A Diplomatic Storm in 24 Hours

On May 13, Netanyahu's office made a stunning announcement on social media — that the Israeli Prime Minister had secretly visited the United Arab Emirates during the US-Israel bombing campaign against Iran, meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in what his office described as a "historic breakthrough." According to Israeli sources, the visit took place on March 26, near the Oman border, and would mark the first confirmed visit by Netanyahu to a Gulf state.

The announcement appeared designed to demonstrate that Netanyahu had been working diplomatic back-channels throughout the war, building bridges with Arab leaders even as bombs were falling. The symbolism — an Israeli prime minister secretly meeting an Arab leader who had normalised relations through the Abraham Accords while both their countries were being targeted by Iranian missiles and drones — was politically potent.

But the UAE moved swiftly and publicly to complicate the narrative. Within hours, the UAE state news agency WAM released an official government statement that flatly denied the framing of the visit. "Its relations with Israel are public and were established within the framework of the well-known and publicly declared Abraham Accords. These relations are not based on secrecy or clandestine arrangements," the statement said, adding that "any claims regarding undisclosed visits or arrangements are baseless unless issued by the relevant official authorities in the UAE."

The UAE's denial does not necessarily mean the meeting did not happen — diplomatic protocol frequently requires countries to calibrate how they confirm or deny leaders' meetings depending on the domestic and regional political pressures they face. The UAE's statement appeared to push back specifically against the framing of the meeting as "secret" — since the UAE has worked to present its Abraham Accords relationship with Israel as open and legitimate, not clandestine. The denial nonetheless created an immediate diplomatic awkwardness for Netanyahu, whose office had made the announcement in the middle of one of the most politically turbulent weeks of his career.

The Coalition Earthquake: The Haredi Draft Law Rebellion

While Netanyahu was managing the Iran war narrative, his government was simultaneously fracturing from within over a domestic issue that has plagued Israeli politics for decades — the question of whether ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish men should be required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

Under a coalition agreement signed when Netanyahu's government was formed, Haredi political parties were promised legislation that would enshrine a formal exemption from mandatory military service for yeshiva students. For the Haredi community, military service is seen as incompatible with the religious study that is central to their way of life. For much of the rest of Israeli society — especially at a moment when IDF combat troops have been bearing an extraordinary operational burden across multiple fronts — the exemption is increasingly seen as a fundamental injustice.

Netanyahu reportedly informed ultra-Orthodox party leaders that he does not intend to advance the military draft exemption bill before the upcoming elections — a decision driven by the political calculation that the bill would be toxic with non-Haredi voters at a time when national sacrifice is a defining public emotion. The response was immediate and dramatic. Rabbi Dov Lando — the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah faction of the United Torah Judaism party — announced that his faction had "lost trust" in Netanyahu and was calling for early elections, stating explicitly: "We are no longer committed to Netanyahu."

Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri piled on, demanding that elections be held as soon as September. The ultra-Orthodox parties — which had been among Netanyahu's most reliable coalition partners for three years — were now publicly signalling their willingness to bring down the government. Analysts described the situation as both dramatic and paradoxical: despite the furious statements, the Haredi factions have few realistic political alternatives. An alliance with the centre-left opposition is essentially impossible without them losing their own voter base, which remains deeply conservative and fiercely loyal to Netanyahu personally even as their party leaders publicly break from him.

The Knesset Dissolution Battle: Everyone Wants Elections, Nobody Agrees on When

The coalition crisis triggered an extraordinary legislative scramble that has now engulfed the Knesset itself. After Degel HaTorah's announcement that it was calling for early elections, the opposition moved immediately to capitalise — filing dissolution bills designed to bring the election date forward from its scheduled October 27 deadline.

Netanyahu's coalition, not to be outmanoeuvred, filed its own dissolution bill co-sponsored by all coalition parties — including, remarkably, the same United Torah Judaism and Shas parties that had just publicly broken with the Prime Minister. The coalition bill states that elections would be held no less than three months from dissolution and no more than five months, meaning a vote in roughly October to mid-November, giving the coalition maximum time to organise.

The timing battle is therefore real and consequential. The opposition wants elections as early as possible, believing that the coalition's internal divisions and Netanyahu's legal vulnerabilities make an early vote their best chance. Netanyahu's coalition wants to control the process and the timetable, preventing the opposition from dictating conditions. The ultra-Orthodox parties want September — early enough to capitalise on what their leadership believes is a window of electoral strength, before the broader public mood about their draft exemption stance hardens further.

What is clear is that Israeli elections are coming — and coming soon.

The Corruption Trial: A President Seeks a Plea Deal

Parallel to every other crisis, Netanyahu's long-running corruption trial continued this week — and Israeli President Isaac Herzog made the most significant intervention yet in the case, publicly calling on Netanyahu's legal team to enter talks toward a plea bargain.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust across three cases — Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000. He has consistently and emphatically denied all charges, describing the trial as a politically motivated witch hunt. He began testifying in December 2024, and the case is currently in the cross-examination stage after testimony resumed following a pause during the Iran war.

In November 2025, Netanyahu formally requested a pardon from President Herzog — without admitting guilt, and while the trial was still ongoing — a legally and procedurally unusual posture that raised immediate questions about whether such a pardon could be granted before conviction. US President Trump also sent a personal letter to Herzog requesting clemency for Netanyahu — an unprecedented intervention by a sitting American president in the domestic legal affairs of an allied nation.

This week, Israel's Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara — who has been at the centre of the prolonged confrontation between Netanyahu's government and the judiciary — agreed to enter plea bargain discussions without preconditions. Herzog, seizing the moment, publicly called on Netanyahu's legal team to engage. "I believe 'understandings and agreements' are the only way to settle the issue," the president said.

Netanyahu's legal team's response was silence — as of Wednesday evening, no official response had been issued. Meanwhile, coalition lawmakers have simultaneously been advancing a separate bill to repeal the criminal charge of fraud and breach of trust from Israeli law entirely — the charge that Netanyahu faces in all three of his cases. Critics have described this as an unconstitutional attempt to legislate the Prime Minister's way out of criminal accountability.

The Opposition Campaign: "Rebuild"

Against this backdrop of war, coalition fracture, and legal crisis, an Israeli opposition coalition launched a formal campaign on May 13 to unseat Netanyahu, promising voters a programme of national rebuilding. The Washington Post, covering the launch, described it as a significant moment in a country where Netanyahu has dominated politics "for the better part of 30 years." The campaign is centred on the themes of democratic accountability, military burden-sharing, and economic recovery after the Iran war — and it arrives at a moment when Netanyahu's approval ratings, while still substantial among his core base, face pressure from the multiple crises simultaneously closing in on him.

The opposition coalition brings together centre and left-wing parties — including Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid and others — with a shared platform of ending Netanyahu's era and beginning what they describe as Israel's national reconstruction. Whether they can translate that aspiration into a parliamentary majority remains the central question of Israeli politics heading into the coming months.

Who Is Benjamin Netanyahu? A Portrait

For those who need the biographical context, Benjamin Netanyahu was born on October 21, 1949, in Tel Aviv. He served as Israel's 9th Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999, returned to the office in 2009, and has served continuously — making him Israel's longest-serving prime minister in history. He is the leader of the right-wing Likud party. A graduate of MIT and Harvard, Netanyahu served in the IDF's elite Sayeret Matkal unit and was wounded in action. He has spent his entire political career centred on one overriding conviction: that Iran represents the defining existential threat to Israel's existence, and that the world consistently underestimates that threat. On that conviction, the events of 2026 have given him more vindication than perhaps any year in his political life — even as the domestic crises surrounding him have never been more severe.

The Bottom Line: A Man at the Apex and the Edge

Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2026 embodies one of the oldest paradoxes in political history — the leader whose greatest external vindication comes at the moment of his greatest internal vulnerability. He launched a war against Iran that has fundamentally reshaped the Middle East, built diplomatic relationships with Arab states that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and positioned Israel as the most militarily active and assertive it has been in a generation. At the same time, he faces a corruption trial with a plea deal now on the table, a coalition that is fracturing over a draft law he cannot deliver, elections approaching faster than he can control, and an opposition that smells blood. Israel is heading toward one of the most consequential elections in its modern history. And at the centre of it all, as he has been for three decades, stands Netanyahu — simultaneously indispensable, irreplaceable, and inescapable.

Sources:

1. CBS News / 60 Minutes (Iran War "Not Over" Interview) — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netanyahu-israel-iran-war-not-over-60-minutes/
2. Al Jazeera (UAE Denies Secret Netanyahu Visit) — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/13/netanyahu-visited-uae-in-secret-during-us-israel-war-on-iran-office-says
3. Times of Israel (UAE Secret Visit Revelation) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/benjamin-netanyahu/
4. Times of Israel (May 13 Live Blog — Coalition Knesset Dissolution Bill) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-may-13-2026/
5. Haaretz (Haredi Coalition Collapse After Draft Law Frozen) — https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-05-12/ty-article/.premium/haredi-parties-threaten-coalition-after-netanyahu-shelves-draft-exemption-bill/0000019e-1bd3-d907-ad9e-1fff59d20000
6. Times of Israel (Ultra-Orthodox Break With Netanyahu Analysis) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-parties-break-with-netanyahu-but-know-they-have-nowhere-else-to-go/
7. Jerusalem Post (Herzog Urges Plea Deal Negotiations) — https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-896077
8. Times of Israel (Coalition Bill to Repeal Fraud Charge) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/coalition-advances-bill-to-repeal-criminal-charge-that-netanyahu-faces-in-his-trial/
9. Washington Post (Opposition Coalition Launches Bid to Unseat Netanyahu) — https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/05/13/israeli-opposition-coalition-launches-bid-unseat-benjamin-netanyahu/
10. 60 Minutes Tonight (Netanyahu 60 Minutes Interview Preview) — https://60minutestonight.com/60-minutes-may-10-2026-benjamin-netanyahu-speaks-on-iran-conflict-in-major-interview/
11. Times of Israel (Netanyahu Testimony in Trial Update) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-testimony-in-corruption-trial-to-end-early-once-again/