Benjamin Netanyahu has said for three decades that the central threat to Israel’s existence is Iran’s nuclear program. At least twice over that period, he came within inches of carrying out an attack on it.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was facing “difficult days, but great days” ahead. He also repeatedly invoked the Holocaust — the annihilation of European Jewry — as a reason not to treat a nuclear Iran lightly. “Together, with God’s help, we will ensure Israel’s eternity,” he said.

Iran once ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the boy who cried wolf for his constant public warnings about Tehran's nuclear programme, and his repeated threats to shut it down, one way or another.