Netanyahu's last battle to cling to power

Escorted by bodyguards and aides, Benjamin Netanyahu was speeding through the halls of the Knesset shortly before Israeli centrist leader Yair Lapid announced the formation of the “Government of Change.”. “Prime minister, is this your last week in office?” a journalist asked him.. The veteran politician turned and answered: “Is it a question or a wish?”

Netanyahu's response expressed his deep feeling that the Israeli media has been after him since his first election victory in 1996 but also a brief, liberating pause in the battle for survival.. It is not known if it is the last, but it is the most difficult because for the first time in the last 12 years in Israel another politician manages to form a government. What Lapid has done – unite eight ideologically different parties – is already historic, although Netanyahu is working hard for him to crash at the investiture scheduled in the next ten days.

Even on the left, which has agreed to ally with the right-wing Naftali Bennett, euphoria over Lapid's announcement is mixed with caution over Netanyahu's drive to win defectors..

Especially in the Bennett match, Yamina. Of its seven deputies elected in March, one has already announced that he will vote against the new government while another, Ori Orbach, now admits doubts. Bennett met with him this Thursday at his home and Netanyahu called him and sent messages -without being answered- to undo them but the fact that the new government depends on how Orbach or another deputy wakes up on the day of the inauguration reflects his great fragility.

“This structure, based only on 61 out of 120 deputies, is very complex. In addition, there is a feeling that Netanyahu has not yet had the last word,” says journalist Nadav Eyal.

The Likud leader uses his last cartridges with a campaign in simultaneous channels (social networks, demonstrations in front of their houses, telephone calls, intervention of some rabbis from the nationalist sector, etc.), focused on putting pressure on legislators uncomfortable with the alliance with the left and the Islamist Arab party Raam and remind them of their electoral promises not to do so.

“Bennett sold the Negev to Raam!” Netanyahu tweeted about the agreement between Bennett, Lapid and the leader of this Arab faction Mansour Abbas to legalize Bedouin villages created without state permission in the southern Negev desert. Proof of Netanyahu's might on social media, run by aggressive and talented kids, is that the words “Bennett sold” trended on Twitter in Israel. This is a classic move by Bibi in the electoral wars: He throws darts at the rival for his pact photographed with Abbas but hours before he himself had offered him more generous proposals to obtain his parliamentary support away from the cameras and then deny any contact with the islamist. Paradoxically, Netanyahu's tango with Abbas in recent months is what gave Bennett, former director general of the Settlement Council, the green light to agree with him, making Raamen the first Arab party to form part of a government.

Netanyahu is now trying to abort Lapid's initiative to replace Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin (Likud) who seeks to speed up the inauguration. The prime minister's strategy is to delay the decisive vote as long as possible, as this increases the chances that the fragile political structure will crumble even before it stands.. Not only because it raises the doubts of some legislators, but because in these lands everything can change in a minute. For example, three weeks ago Hamas projectiles ignited a full-scale confrontation, altering the country's entire agenda.

Bennett's number 2 house, Ayelet Shaked, in Tel Aviv was the scene of another demonstration by the nationalist right to abort the coalition with the left and Raam. “Shaked's heart is not with this surreal government but he alleges that Israel is going through a serious crisis and everything possible must be done to avoid elections,” says Shlomi Levy, an activist close to Shaked who sees – or at least saw – as a leader of the right after the Netanyahu era. An era that cannot be buried until the coalition is approved. And even then he will try to come back as soon as possible.