Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a memorial ceremony for the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem as Israel marks the 22nd anniversary of Rabin's killing by an ultra-nationalist Jewish assassin, November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu is the dominant Israeli politician of his generation. On the domestic and international stage, no rival comes close to the veteran Likud Party leader known widely as "Bibi".

Israeli police on Feb. 13 recommended that the 68-year-old,four-term prime minister be indicted for bribery in two cases. On Friday, he was questioned in connection with a third investigation.

It is by no means certain that Netanyahu will be indicted. The police can only make recommendations. It is now up to Israel's attorney-general, Avichai Mandelblit, to decide whether to press charges. That decision could take months.

But the very fact that the leader of Israel's ruling right-wing coalition is being scrutinized by prosecutors will likely affect the political calculations of his supporters, rivals and opponents within his own coalition, and across the political spectrum.

Here is a guide to Netanyahu's career, some possible candidates to succeed him, and what effect any change in leadership might have on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and across a Middle East in which Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional power brokers are all watching closely.

DOES NETANYAHU HAVE TO RESIGN?

Netanyahu is under no strict legal obligation to quit following the police recommendations. Indeed, he has given every indication that he intends to remain in office while pursuing a legal battle.

There has been little public pressure from coalition partners for him to step down, although that could change as fellow politicians and the Israeli public study details of the cases.

There was speculation before the police recommendations were made public that Netanyahu might call early elections, seeking a public mandate that would make a prosecutor think twice before moving against him.

However, Netanyahu said in a televised address that he was "certain" the next elections would be held on schedule. They are not due until November 2019. Recent polls show on the one hand that about half of Israelis believe the police over Netanyahu and think he should step down. On the other hand, surveys also show strong support among Netanyahu's core base, putting Likud ahead of all the other parties.

HOW DID NETANYAHU BECOME SUCH A DOMINANT FIGURE?

Netanyahu has been in power on and off since 1996. The son of a hawkish Israeli historian, he was born in Tel Aviv in 1949and moved to the United States in the 1960s when his father got an academic job there.

He is the middle of three brothers, all of whom served in elite Israeli commando units. The eldest, Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, became a national hero after he was killed in 1976leading an assault team that stormed Entebbe Airport in Ugandato rescue Israelis and other airline passengers taken hostage by radical Palestinian and West German hijackers.

Netanyahu says his brother's death "changed my life and directed it to its present course".

Telegenic, and speaking fluent American-accented English, he first gained domestic and international attention as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations during the first Palestinianintifada (uprising) that broke out in 1987.

He used this as a springboard to secure the leadership of the right-wing Likud party, running on a platform of opposition to the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords that were spearheaded by U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israel's then-prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

But Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and Netanyahu was elected prime minister the following year, the youngest-ever Israeli to hold the position and the first to be born in Israel.

Despite having opposed Oslo, Netanyahu worked with Arafat on deploying Palestinian forces into the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, and even shook Arafat's hand in public.

But his first term as prime minister was widely seen as a failure. Critics assailed what was seen as a divisive style of leadership, and after losing the election in 1999 he spent a period in the second rank of Israeli politics, overshadowed even within his own party by former general Ariel Sharon.

Returning to prominence after Sharon left Likud and then suffered an incapacitating stroke in 2005, Netanyahu was elected for his second term in 2009 – 10 years after his first ended. The last election was in 2015, and Netanyahu will become Israel’s longest-serving leader if he serves the full four years until elections are next due in November 2019.

Story continues