Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds several political and diplomatic records. He is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister (nearly 18 years, in total); he has spoken to more joint sessions of Congress (four) than any other world leader; and he has visited President Donald Trump in the White House more times (three) this year than anyone else.
Yet it is his success in the ongoing war that will seal his place in history.
Had he simply been remembered for all of the records above, historians might have said that Netanyahu possessed political and diplomatic skills, but lacked achievements.
But now, with Iran defeated and Hezbollah decimated, and with an impending deal that could see at least half of the remaining Israeli hostages released, Netanyahu will be remembered as a victorious wartime leader and statesman.
There may be more to come: an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia; peace with Syria, Israel’s most stubborn enemy; and new trade routes across the Middle East, through Israel.
And it all happened because Netanyahu decided (as this column predicted he would) that he would lead Israel beyond a war of reaction, and strike the very source of the conflict — the Iranian regime. He did so with the assent of the United States, but he did not ask America for permission to do it. He took responsibility for the future of his country and his people, took a risk, and achieved what few people thought was possible.
Critics on the left had long said that “Bibi,” who rose to prominence in Israel in the 1990s by criticizing the Oslo Peace Accords, lacked the courage to make peace. That criticism fell away with the Abraham Accords — but those were Trump’s achievement.
Critics on the right had a different refrain: that Netanyahu lacked the courage to take the risks necessary in war. He preferred to manage the threat of Hamas in Gaza, rather than to confront it directly; he could have attacked Iran’s nuclear program earlier, but chose to delay; he could have launched a second front against Hezbollah in the days after October 7, yet he decided instead to focus on Gaza, letting the north be attacked.
True, Netanyahu had taken risks before. He had resigned from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government over the Gaza “disengagement” policy in 2005. As finance minister, he had confronted Israel’s oligarchic elites and socialist traditions to launch free-market reforms. And, of course, he had been involved in daring missions as a member of Israel’s special forces, including a hostage rescue in which he was shot in the arm.
But he had avoided the decision to go to war. His former defense minister, the volatile Avigdor Liberman, accused Netanyahu of ignoring his warnings that Hamas could mount a terror attack by invading Israel. Liberman claimed that Netanyahu was too concerned about his own political interests to take necessary military risks. While Liberman clearly had his own ambitions, too, his criticisms stung — and they stuck.
October 7 seemed to confirm those criticisms. And when Netanyahu — facing trial on corruption charges, however dubious — refused to resign, his opponents on both the left and the right claimed that he was putting personal and political motives above the country’s needs. Some faulted him for pushing judicial reforms that divided the country and may have convinced Iran and its proxies that Israel would collapse if attacked.
But Netanyahu led Israel through its darkest days. He navigated a thorny relationship with President Joe Biden and eliminated Hamas’s leadership.
He achieved a lightning victory over Hezbollah that exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations. He launched a surprise attack on Iran and its nuclear program that removed the greatest threat to Israel’s existence. He fixed ties with Trump. He may also have thwarted his prosecutors.
When Trump greeted Netanyahu at the White House, it was a reunion of one statesman with another, on a par with FDR and Churchill — though Churchill, unlike Netanyahu, never actually succeeded in convincing the American president to join him in war before Pearl Harbor.
Netanyahu has done more than answer his critics: he has won a legacy as one of the greatest leaders in the history of the Jewish people, and the world.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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