The television debate before the 1996 elections was the first time that Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu went head-to-head with each other. Netanyahu was victorious in that round, and two days later also won the elections and took the prime minister’s job away from Peres, on his way to his first term of office. Since then the relationship between the two has been complex. Over the last four years the relationship has been characterized by many hopes, mainly on the part of Peres, only for those hopes to be dashed. Nevertheless, it seems that last week, the relationship hit a new low.
After almost four years of stagnation in diplomatic negotiations, accompanied by severe deterioration in Israel’s foreign relations with the United States and Europe — Peres allowed himself to publicly express his frustration and disappointment at Netanyahu.
