After numerous highs and lows without any real success, Benjamin Netanyahu will most likely have to inform President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday night that he has failed to form a coalition. At some point, even the greatest of political magicians runs out of rabbits to pull out of his hat. Netanyahu's only hope is that the other side will also fail, perhaps opening the door for his initiative to hold direct elections.
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The prime minister knows that hoping for his rivals to fail is not a work plan, and therefore will do everything he can to torpedo a government headed by Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and the left-wing parties. It won't be easy. The other side, it appears, is highly motivated. And the temptation for Bennett to become prime minister, along with everyone else's desire to remove Netanyahu, could ultimately tip the scale in their favor and trump all other considerations.
In a last-ditch effort on Monday to ensure the establishment of a right-wing government, Netanyahu broke out his doomsday weapon: publicly offering the first year of a premiership to Bennett. It didn't work. Bennett didn't rush to grab the offer, and Gideon Sa'ar said he wasn't on board either. Netanyahu hoped his proposition would shift the pressure onto Bennett, who would then be forced to assure the formation of a government. If not Bennett, then he hoped Ayelet Shaked would be swayed. Netanyahu didn't just offer Bennett the premiership for a year; he also proposed merging Likud and Yamina ahead of another possible election. Shaked's dream of joining forces with the Likud is just two Knesset members short – and it seems unlikely she will be able to convince them to defect by Tuesday's midnight deadline.
Bennett reiterated his priorities in his address Monday: first a right-wing government, then a left-wing government, and only then elections. It stands to reason, meanwhile, that the vast majority of right-wing voters prefer elections over the nightmare scenario of Nitzan Horowitz, Merav Michaeli and Yair Lapid as senior cabinet ministers. However, after clarifying his intentions and opening the door considerably ajar for a left-wing government under his stewardship, Netanyahu's chances of enlisting two more MKs or another faction have dwindled to zero, more or less. No one will break their promise if they know another option is just around the corner.
Netanyahu realized he was out of options after Bezalel Smotrich rebuffed Rabbi Zvi Yisrael Tau's decree Sunday that it was acceptable to form a right-wing government with the endorsement of the Islamist Ra'am party. Contrary to Bennett, who directly blamed Smotrich for the failure to form a right-wing government, Netanyahu was still wary of castigating the Religious Zionist party leader despite the gnawing feeling that he singlehandedly torpedoed a government under his helm – possibly spelling his dismissal in the coming weeks.
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