Almost single-handedly among world leaders, Netanyahu dragged the international community to a position of moral clarity on Iran. And now he faced his biggest challenge yet: keeping it there. Biggest because the West is tired: tired of moral clarity and the demands it places on us, tired of taking on terrorism, and tired of the burden of global leadership. The kind of leadership Netanyahu offers the West (from Bangalore to Boston to Beersheba) is not wanted. The burdens he asks us to take upon our shoulders seem too great to us, the seriousness with which he asks us to consider ourselves and our adversaries is just too demanding.

He is a standing reproach to the Venusian democracies. To some commentators Bibi’s recent UN speech was a provocation. But read it. His sin was really to tell one oh-so-inconvenient truth after another to a world trying desperately hard to delude itself.

• “Today our hope for the future is challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks our destruction.”
• “When it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
• “Rouhani condemned the, quote, ‘violent scourge of terrorism.’ Yet, in the last three years alone, Iran has ordered, planned or perpetrated terrorist attacks in 25 cities in five continents.”
• “The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds. That’s the central lesson of the 20th century. And we cannot forget it. The world may have forgotten this lesson. The Jewish people have not.”

I do not hear any other world leader explaining “the central lesson of the 20th century” nor warning that “the world” is forgetting it.

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