Bibi and the Iron Lady

T

here’s something about Bibi Netanyahu that invites historical comparisons. To his fans he’s Churchill, bravely warning a heedless world about the dangers of Iran. His detractors compare him to Stalin, with Israel Hayom, the pro-Netanyahu newspaper, serving in place of Pravda. As Bibi’s reign stretches on, his longevity has been compared to Ben-Gurion’s.

But after a day spent at the Herzliya Conference, Israel’s premier policy confab, it occurred to me that the best comparison might actually be to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Iron Lady.

Israeli politics wasn’t uppermost on my mind as I drove up Route 6 to IDC Herzliya’s gleaming campus. Ahead of me stretched a blissful day of networking and think-tankery. But with the Knesset empty, the Herzliya Conference is also a good place to find Israeli politicians in critical mass. They’re drawn by the heady mixture of Mossad directors, gold-braided Greek admirals, and presidential teleprompters — and the overwhelming compulsion to give a good stump speech.

So in addition to enlightenment on Russian expansionism, Chinese trade, and other worthy subjects, my sojourn in Herzliya provided a daylong answer to the conference’s unofficial subtext: What’s going to be with Bibi?