JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The following article, published in The Sunday Telegraph by Charles Moore, the official biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is a candid appreciation of the extraordinary role played by Prime Minister Netanyahu in shaping Israel’s destiny in the last 30 years. Despite the sharp anti-Israel backlash in Britain over the Gaza war, Moore does not hesitate to hail Netanyahu as the “Most remarkable leader Israel has ever produced”.

Such is the media and cultural atmosphere in Britain about the Middle East that one obvious thing remains all but unsayable. As the Ayatollah lies dead and the Islamic Republic of Iran totters, it seems a good moment to say it.

It is that Benjamin Netanyahu is perhaps the most remarkable leader the state of Israel has ever produced. He may not be very nice: he is undeniably ruthless. He is accused of corruption; his wife even more so. He may be the sort of man whose cabinet you will not want to join if you seek a political career of your own.

But he is undeniably up to the job, the most demanding one in the democratic world. The electoral system, the fractious nature of Israeli politics (even within Netanyahu’s own Likud, let alone his much wider coalitions) and the hold of what, in Britain, we call “the Blob” on Israeli media, judiciary, universities and even, to some extent, the intelligence agencies, require continuous infighting. Yet he has surfed these hostile waves repeatedly.

“Bibi” was born a year after Israel itself and, controversial though he is, embodies it. Critics rephrase that as a criticism: he inclines to think, like Louis XIV, that “L’État, c’est moi.”

Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996 and has held the office almost continuously since 2009. He has now been in charge long enough to see his efforts crowned.

His successes in this long story include his time as finance minister when he led Israel’s transformation from socialist state to “start-up nation”. This not only made Israelis much more prosperous. It also made Israel internationally indispensable. Its tech innovation and medical innovation have power in world markets.

This entrepreneurialism combines with and benefits from Israel’s expertise in security. A country fighting every single day for its survival has a huge amount to teach others. A great many countries need Israel’s help. Nowadays, for example, Israel has a real presence in Africa and in India. Indeed, the only continent where it encounters more difficulties today than in the past is in declining Europe. Britain’s debt to Israeli intelligence is great, but unacknowledged.

In the Arab world, rhetoric and reality clash. Millions of Muslims are taught to hate Israel, but in the Abraham Accords, Netanyahu and Donald Trump managed to achieve an agreement between nations of different faiths as never before. The accords united countries as disparate as the UAE and Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan. On Monday, even the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen pointed out that Iran’s weekend attacks on several Arab countries created unified anger against Tehran, not Washington.

If you had to take one issue on which Netanyahu has always led, it would be the threat of Iran. The first time I met him, which I think was in the 20th century, he was already expounding it with his arresting clarity.

In 2015, at the height of Barack Obama’s prestige, Netanyahu showed true moral courage in explaining to both Houses of Congress why what later that year would become the JCPOA – the diplomatic process with Iran which was the pride and joy of Obama and the Western world (including Britain) – would not work. He was trying to block “the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons”; he knew the deal would not achieve this.

Netanyahu’s nadir came on Oct 7, 2023, when Hamas slaughtered more than 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250. The famous tough guy stood accused of lack of vigilance. We still do not know enough accurately to apportion the blame for Israeli security failings that day. But what is clear is that, after the attacks, Netanyahu feared he might fail in his overriding, lifelong duty to protect his people from a second Shoah. So protect them he did, with all his energy and cunning.

Under the ambiguous and hesitant Biden administration, that proved difficult. But once Donald Trump was back in the White House, Bibi could make progress.

This was not because of personal rapport between the two men: they have often clashed. It was because Trump was more determined than Biden and because Netanyahu understands America. In a strange way, he benefited from the power of the Left in Israel, because his father, a most distinguished historian of the Spanish Inquisition, but a Likud supporter, was denied advancement in Israeli universities. The young Bibi was therefore educated chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. He learnt how best to talk to Americans.

From the moment he appeared on CNN as an Israeli spokesman in the successful First Gulf War of 1991, his mastery of English-speaking global communication was evident.

After Israel’s initially not very effective retaliation to the October 7 attacks, victory after victory was won. Trump could see the sense in tucking in behind this. First came the decapitation of the Hamas leadership; then the astonishing exploding pagers that disabled the Hezbollah high command; then the attacks on nuclear installations and personnel within Iran itself.

And now, as soon as the assault began, US/Israeli intelligence and technological accuracy have killed the tyrant. The radioactive theocrats are threatened as never before, with Israel as the sharp tip of the American spear and Netanyahu as the man who knew what to do when he needed to do it.

The most powerful promoter of international terrorism over the last half-century is on its knees. The most powerful nation on earth is now working harmoniously with a Mediterranean democracy of only 10 million citizens to defeat a 47-year reign of tyranny, globalised racist and Islamist propaganda, international subversion (including in British universities) and assassination.

In a photograph released after the attacks, Netanyahu was shown sitting in his office with a copy of Tim Bouverie’s recent book, Allies at War, by his side. Its subtitle is “The Politics of Defeating Hitler”. Thanks chiefly to Netanyahu, who fancies the Churchill role, America’s truly special relationship is now with Israel. Meanwhile, back in Britain, our Government sounds like a prissy, second-rank lawyer gabbling ill-digested passages from an out-of-date rule book.

The US/Israel attack could still go wrong, chiefly because the US is under-prepared to support revolt within Iran. And yes, in an extremely open democracy such as Israel, nothing is the achievement of a single leader. Credit should be widely shared. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s story is epic.