Over the past four years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has earned an undeserved reputation as a bellicose and aggressive politician. Both in Europe and in the United States he is considered a bequest of the neoconservative ideology prevailing in the early Bush years. For the more radical left and pacifists, Netanyahu is the bête noire threatening stability and peace in the Middle East. Netanyahu, in other words, is of the hawkish family, those willing to resort to armed action before exhausting diplomatic channels. However, looking back over his four years in office, one is forced to come to quite different conclusions.

Take the latest armed confrontation in Gaza, which has been one of the shortest conflicts in Israel's history since the Six-Day War in 1967. Contrary to popular belief, Netanyahu and his conservative Likud party resisted launching a full-scale offensive at all times. In fact, they endured more than 800 rockets launched from Gaza before deciding to launch a large-scale military action. If in the last Gaza war - 2009 - carried out during the government of Ehud Olmert and his centrist Kadima party, Palestinian casualties reached 1400, in the recent military operation ordered by Netanyahu only 146 were killed. It should also be recalled that Olmert had previously carried out a military operation in 2006 against Hezbollah in Lebanon which cost the lives of 165 Israelis and 1300 Lebanese. On this front, Netanyahu has by all means avoided resorting to force in response to Hezbollah's sporadic provocations in the form of rockets and attacks.

With respect to nuclear proliferation, Netanyahu may have employee harsh rhetoric and made countless threats, but his words have never been followed by action. Here Netanyahu has stuck to the script set by Obama: give diplomacy and economic sanctions time. This contrasts again with his predecessor at position, Ehud Olmert. During the moderate Kadima government, Israel maintained a bolder attitude and did not hesitate to order an air strike against nuclear facilities in Syria.

In other fields, Netanyahu has followed the line imposed by Washington and Obama: maintaining a passive attitude towards the civil war in Syria, not responding to the provocations of terrorist attacks coming from the Egyptian Sinai, as well as keeping a strict silence in the face of the rearmament - promoted by Obama himself - of rival Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries that will seriously challenge Israeli military supremacy in the region.

Netanyahu has shown himself to be a leader reluctant to resource use force while seeking to avoid any conflict with his allies. Many in Washington and Brussels regret that at a time when hopes for a consensual solution to the Iranian nuclear dispute are rising again, Netanyahu is beating the drums of war. They argue that a more rational and less confrontational leader would not torpedo the Geneva negotiations. But, in light of the facts, what they should perhaps be grateful for is that Netanyahu remains at the helm of government in Israel. His threats have not translated into any concrete military action against Iran and do not appear likely to do so in the near future. All indications are that the Israeli prime minister has simply confined himself to playing his role as bad cop to perfection. Netanyahu threatens and Obama reaches out. Without the aggressiveness and firmness of the former it is doubtful that the Iranian authorities would be considering shaking hands with the latter. The danger is that Netanyahu's words will ultimately prove incapable of disguising the reality: that there is no credible military response to Iran's nuclear program and that his government is incapable of making good on its threats. That the Israeli leader is nothing more than a dove that talks like a hawk.

Netanyahu may have abused his warmongering rhetoric for too long. After years of warning Iran and airing military plans for the destruction of its nuclear program, the Israeli Prime Minister risks losing credibility with both his constituents and Israel's enemies. And this could be the reason that pushes Netanyahu to move from words to deeds. That is why perhaps no one wants tangible results in the negotiations between the United States and Iran sooner rather than later.