“If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . � These lines from Rudyard Kipling’s “If� echoed through my mind on June 8 as I sat down with an intense but cool- and calm-seeming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an off-the-record conversation in his Jerusalem office. Israel’s latest strikes against Iran had not been launched, and the conventional wisdom held that Bibi, as friends and foes alike call the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, had his back to the wall.
Reports that the Israeli prime minister was on the outs with President Trump were all over the news. Mr. Trump hadn’t visited Israel on his recent trip to the region, Mr. Netanyahu’s critics pointed out, and the Gulf countries were making deals with the Americans while Mr. Netanyahu’s Israel watched from the sidelines.