Government > Leaders Stats: compare key data on Israel & Lebanon

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STAT	Israel	Lebanon	HISTORY
Head of state > Term limit for head of state	7 Ranked 7th. 75% more than Lebanon	4 Ranked 137th.
President	Shimon Peres	Michel Suleiman
President > Profile	<p>The Israeli president has a mainly ceremonial role; executive power is vested in the cabinet, headed by the prime minister. </p> <p>On 13 June 2007, the Israeli parliament chose the veteran politician Shimon Peres to succeed Moshe Katsav, who had taken leave of absence from the presidency earlier in the year after being accused of various sexual offences. </p> <p>The president has in the past been seen by Israelis as the nation&#039;s moral compass, and many hoped that Mr Peres would restore dignity to what they saw as a tarnished office. </p> <p>Mr Peres was a leading member of the Labour party for decades, but left in 2005 and later joined the centrist Kadima party. </p> <p>He twice served as prime minister, and in 1994 was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when foreign minister in recognition of his role in bringing about the signing of Israel&#039;s first interim peace accord with the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Oslo the previous year. </p>	<p>The Lebanese parliament finally elected General Michel Suleiman as president in May 2008 after six months of political stalemate that followed the departure of the previous president, Emile Lahoud, in November 2007.</p> <p>The agreement that paved the way for his election ended some of the worst factional violence since Lebanon&#039;s 1975-1990 civil war. </p> <p>As mounting clashes raised fears of a renewed civil war, the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition agreed on General Suleiman - the head of the country&#039;s armed forces - as a compromise candidate. </p> <p>On taking office, the new president hailed the opening of a new phase in Lebanese history, saying that his fellow countrymen had &quot;refused to succumb to self-destruction&quot;. </p> <p>General Suleiman stood unopposed for the presidency, and is widely seen as a unifying figure, whose apparent neutrality has earned him the respect of both sides of the political divide. He is credited with having kept the army on the sidelines in times of political crisis. </p> <p>He is a Maronite Christian, and so his election also met the requirement of Lebanon&#039;s complex power-sharing system that the presidency should be held by a member of that sect. </p>
President > Summary	Israel&#039;s elder statesman, Shimon Peres	A Maronite Christian, Gen Michel Suleiman is widely regarded as a unifying figure
Prime minister	Benjamin Netanyahu	Najib Mikati (resigned)
Prime minister > Profile	<p>Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, became prime minister after an inconclusive early election in February 2009, a decade after holding the office once before. </p> <p>The outgoing administration, led by the centrist Kadima party, failed to reassemble as a new centre-left coalition, and Mr Netanyahu was able to form a government with the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, various Jewish religious parties and the centre-left Labour party. He later united Yisrael Beinteinu with Likud in an attempt to form a broad conservative party.</p> <p>This government managed to steer Israel out of the global economic recession, but faced mounting protests about the rising cost of living.</p> <p>It also failed to make any headway in relations with the Palestinians, Jewish settlers on the West Bank and the Obama administration in the United States. </p> <p>During the election Mr Netanyahu had pledged not to transfer land occupied by Israel to a Palestinian state in return for peace, on the grounds that previous Israeli withdrawals had only met with further Palestinian armed attacks. </p> <p>Several months later he angered settlers by accepting the creation of Palestinian state, but his conditions, including its complete demilitarisation. were unacceptable to Palestinian leaders. </p> <p>The prime minister&#039;s refusal to concede a full suspension of settlement activity - a key Palestinian condition for a return to stalled peace talks - frustrated the United States, and a partial suspension of permits for new settlements in 2009-2010 only served to spark angry protests by settlers. </p> <p>Mr Netanyahu&#039;s repeated warnings over the perceived threat of Iran&#039;s nuclear programme have also complicated relations with the US. </p> <p>A coalition dispute over the budget prompted Mr Netanyahu to call an early election in January 2013, which saw a boost for two new secular parties - Yesh Atid in the centre and the pro-settler Jewish Home - in a campaign fought mainly on economic issues. </p> <p>After months of wrangling the prime minister managed to assemble a coalition with these two parties, plus a small splinter group from Kadima, that excluded the Jewish religious parties and raised the possibility of one of Israel&#039;s periodic attempts at rolling back the influence of ultra-Orthodox groups.</p> <p>During his previous term as prime minister in 1996-99 Mr Netanyahu was initially hostile towards the new Palestinian Authority, but went on to show some flexibility while maintaining a security-first policy. </p> <p>Defeated by Labour leader Ehud Barak in 1999, he later served as finance minister under Likud PM Ariel Sharon, pushing through a series of market-oriented reforms before resigning in 2005 in protest at Mr Sharon&#039;s decision to pull out from Gaza. </p> <p>Mr Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv, and spent part of his childhood in the United States where his father was a professor . During his five years in Israel&#039;s army, he served as captain of an elite commando unit. A fluent English-speaker, Mr Netanyahu has long been a prominent advocate for Israel in the international media. </p>	<p>Najib Mikati took five months to form a cabinet dominated by Hezbollah and its allies in the summer of 2011. </p> <p>The powerful Shia group had toppled the pro-western coalition led by Saad Hariri at the beginning of the year after he refused to end co-operation with the UN tribunal investigating the assassination of his father, Rafik. Hezbollah members have reportedly been implicated in the killing. </p> <p>A Sunni Muslim, Mr Mikati tried to present a non-partisan face to key powerbrokers like Saudi Arabia, but the opposition Future bloc derided him as a figleaf for Hezbollah rule. </p> <p>The 55-year-old telecoms tycoon first entered politics in 1998, and briefly headed an interim government that tried to counterbalance Syrian and Hezbollah influence in 2005. </p> <p>His government faced serious challenges in late 2012 from the Future bloc, which accused him of failing to prevent Syrian interference in Lebanon, in particular the assassination of Intelligence Chief Wissam al-Hassan.</p> <ul> <li> In March 2013 Mr Mikati resigned after his divided cabinet was unable to agree on how elections, due to be held later in the year, should be staged. Pending the formation of a new government, Mr Mikati continues to serve as prime minister in a caretaker capacity.</li> <li> In April 2013 the Sunni Muslim politician Tamam Salam received the backing of parties across the political spectrum to form a new government. Mr Salam is an independent member of the Lebanese parliament and is regarded as a moderate.</li> <li> In May 2013, parliament voted to put off elections until November 2014 because of security concerns.</li> </ul>
Prime minister > Summary	Mr Netanyahu campaigned on a policy of toughness towards Palestinian militancy	Outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati struggled to overcome Lebanon&#039;s sectarian tensions

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