After years of making baseless rumors over Iran’s nuclear activities which led to no results, ultimately Netanyahu took to the stage at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and made his most explicit threat yet to attack Iran.
However, his warning carried no weight, especially at a time of warming ties between Iran and the rest of the world.
One Western diplomat involved in Iranian nuclear diplomacy described Netanyahu as "out of step" with the mood of detente and a former senior U.S. official cautioned that Israel would be unlikely to secure all its demands in any negotiations.
An additional concern for Netanyahu, was that world attention was focused elsewhere, notably on the U.S. government shutdown.
This was particularly noticeable when Netanyahu met U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday as part of his mission to undermine an Iranian diplomatic drive to build relations with the United States and other Western powers and to prevent any swift easing of economic sanctions on Tehran.
Although the U.S. president took pains to agree with his guest, his more pressing concern was the political paralysis gripping Washington.
“Netanyahu message might have become diluted and in terms of getting it heard, I am not sure he succeeded. The timing was not his choice", Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said.
Netanyahu’s aides said he is worried that Western powers, impressed by more clement rhetoric from new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, will "fumble the ball" and let Iran reach a point where the Zionist regime’s interests to be ignored totally.
Later this month, Iran will meet the P5+1 - the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany - in Geneva to resume negotiations aimed at resolving the years-old nuclear dispute.
Resuming such comprehensive nuclear talks mean that Netanyahu will have to calibrate his expectations.
"Negotiating means there will have to be some give on both sides," said Gary Samore, until recently the top nuclear proliferation expert on Obama's national security staff.
"I think it's unlikely that we are in a position to dictate to the Iranians that they have to meet all of our demands."
The Zionist regime has always maintained that only a combination of strong sanctions and military threat would convince Iran to abandon its peaceful nuclear activities.
"Israel will not be in the room if and when a deal is done," said the diplomat, who declined to be named. "I have a feeling that Netanyahu is slightly out of step with other nations at the moment."
NJF/NJF