The first cry heard in the Likud event hall after the exit polls were announced Monday night was "There is a God!" The sigh of relief could be heard as far away as Jerusalem.
Even Likud activists are having a hard time explaining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's huge victory as anything other than divine intervention.
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It's unlikely that any film writer or director could have dreamed up Netanyahu's impossible story: an election victory, then abandoned by a partner from the Right (Avigdor Lieberman), then a failure to build a coalition, then another election, a loss, a "technical" bloc, and then another election in which he needed to secure an impossible majority.
What's amazing about Netanyahu's situation is that the political battle was the easy part, compared to his legal fight and his struggle with the media.
It's not just the harsh decisions to indict him and put him on trial – it's hours and hours of leaks that made it to the top of the news broadcasts; a tsunami of embarrassing tapes of his closest family members; and a crowd of pundits who were declaring with a furrowed brow that "the Netanyahu era is over."
As if that wasn't enough, Netanyahu was also facing tough competition. Three former IDF chiefs of staff and Yair Lapid joined forces and also made impressive headway, managing to win about 35 seats in the space of a year.
But it turns out that isn't enough when you're up against Netanyahu.
This was a bad, tainted election campaign in which the discourse was taken to the furthest points of polarization and venom. This is why it was interesting to see Lieberman's face. The person who went to an extreme in slandering and hatred of a minority in Israel, comparing its rabbinical leaders to a virus, spreading anti-Semitic cartoons, and inciting against the haredim, got a smack on Monday that carried the message that hatred is not a recipe for success.
The next few days belong to Netanyahu. There will be praise and celebration, and mostly the realization that despite everything, this is his time.
