At the start of this year Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was facing a crisis. Just a few months before, Hamas had breached Israel's border with Gaza, killing some 1200 people in Israel on October 7th.

As the year ends, Netanyahu is spending some of it in a courtroom to fight corruption charges that have dogged him since 2019. The Israeli Prime Minister has called the charges absurd.

You might think that would be detrimental to his political career, but instead Netanyahu looks stronger than he has since the war began.

This — despite that trial, an international arrest warrant and a grinding war.

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