Netanyahu’s short-term political advantage may well turn into a pyrrhic victory highly detrimental to Israel’s long-term interests: a few years ago Netanyahu’s current security advisor Yaakov Amidror argued in a conference at Tel Aviv University that he was against attacking Iran, because such an attack would not prevent Iran from going nuclear in the long run. In fact, he claimed, it would pretty much force Iran’s future leadership to build the bomb, and, at some point, to redress the humiliation of having been attacked by Israel.

If Amidror’s argument is correct, Netanyahu may go into history not as another Churchill, but as another George W. Bush.