Netanyahu’s first wife and other past lovers

In July, the Israeli prime minister’s fifth wife, Sara, delivers a birth. Hours later, the father of the baby is revealed to be an Israel Air Force officer known as Guernsey, who immigrated to Israel in 1956. She is only the second Jewish woman in the history of Israel to bear a child outside of marriage, the first being Mendel Simanowitz, who fathered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest daughter, Natalie. She announced that she is divorced in March 2016 and had been living in a guest house, his official residence in Jerusalem’s colonial quarter, while she and her current husband, American investment banker Moshe Safer, stayed with him in Washington. Following their split, Netanyahu married Sarah Dimitrijevich, the daughter of wealthy Russian immigrants, in October last year.

1921 Benjamin Netanyahu is born in pre-state Tel Aviv, but his father is already working in the Bank of Israel. In his early teens, he is arrested by British troops for selling war bonds and is imprisoned in Borneo. On release, he joins the army, but is discharged for lack of form.

1936 Mr Netanyahu studies English literature at the Hebrew University, and begins working as a newspaper journalist.

1940 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offers the young Mr Netanyahu a job with the Israel Defense Forces. He takes the job, but eventually defies orders to defect and travels to India, intending to join the Indian police, a decision which draws a rebuke from Ben-Gurion.

1946 His first novel, The Erotic Soldier, is published.

1967 Mr Netanyahu is interned by Britain’s Palestine Emergency Force, an organisation which worked alongside the British Army during the Mandate to rid Palestine of Jewish and non-Jewish residents. In 1966, a month after he is released, Mr Netanyahu resigns from the IDF and goes on to become an economist.

1977 Mr Netanyahu begins working for the Israeli Economic Corporation, a company owned by a member of Ben-Gurion’s cabinet.

1979 Mr Netanyahu wins the parliamentary elections and is elected as Knesset speaker.

1984 He is appointed to one of the most senior posts in Israel’s finances, as director general of the National Insurance Institute.

1986 Mr Netanyahu and his wife are granted Israeli citizenship.

1987 Mr Netanyahu serves as deputy director general of the finance ministry, and in 1988 is appointed minister of economy and planning.

1990 After the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Mr Netanyahu succeeds Shimon Peres as Israel’s foreign minister. He then becomes the ambassador to the US, where he manages the failed dialogue between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Bill Clinton.

1994 Mr Netanyahu is appointed director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office and serves until 1996.

1998 Mr Netanyahu enters politics when he is elected as chair of the Beit-Zion party, which later becomes known as United Torah Judaism. He then becomes treasurer of the National Insurance Institute, and from 1999, is elected as speaker of the Knesset. In May 2001, Mr Netanyahu is elected the country’s 22nd prime minister.

2001 Mr Netanyahu becomes chairman of the World Jewish Congress following the death of its founder, Israel Meir Lau.

2012 Mr Netanyahu re-enters politics when he is elected to head Likud’s new election campaign commission.

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