Thread by @AnshelPfeffer

12 days to #IsraElex4 and it looks like too many things have to go right for the opposition for Netanyahu to lose. Incredibly though his popularity is at a nadir, he’s still played a blinder in setting up his campaign while the opposition (with the exception of Lapid) is flailing

Netanyahu’s campaign has failed in some respects. Success in vaccination hasn’t translated to Likud votes, but his genius as a campaigner is never to focus just on his own party. He’s played his opponents brilliantly, ensuring they remain too divided to mount a joint front.

Netanyahu’s campaign began on March 4 last year, 2 days after the last election, when he realized he had failed once again to gain a majority for an immunity coalition. That’s when he began fighting #IsraElex4 which he always intended would come sooner rather than later

He easily prevented Gantz forming a coalition by inciting against the Arab MKs, relying on the racism of enough opposition MKs. Then he preyed on Gantz’s vanity and patriotism, using the pandemic as an excuse to get him to join sign a coalition deal with an inbuilt loophole.

Netanyahu knew that the temptation of Gantz would not only buy him time, it would also destroy B&W, the biggest threat to his rule in 12 years. Doing the same to Labor and its vain leader Peretz was even easier. Destroying the Labor-Meretz alliance in the process as well.

By the time the deal with Gantz broke down, as Netanyahu intended, the center-left which in the previous election had run in 2 compact lists, was riven in rancor and suspicion over collaboration with Netanyahu in to 4 separate parties, 2 of which could fall under the threshold.

Netanyahu was blindsided by the departure of Sa’ar and other Likudniks to form New Hope, a real threat on the right, but has since masterfully played Sa’ar and Bennett againsr other, by branding them as “tools of the left”, forcing them to shift rightwards and fight each other.

A Sa’ar-Bennett alliance could have been fatal to Netanyahu (they will rue not having joined forces) but he succeeded in manipulating them in to opposing corners, forcing Bennett to concede he will join a Netanyahu coalition after all. Threat neutralized. Next stop the Joint List

Netanyahu’s courtship of Mansour Abbas had one aim, breaking up the Joint List (which was already fracturing) and as a result depressing Arab-Israeli turnout and perhaps even picking up some votes for Likud in the sector. Less Arab votes+Ra’am under threshold=more Likud seats.

To complete the ground-work Netanyahu cajoled Smotrich in to link up with the Kahanists and homophobes to ensure no Jewish supremacist votes he can add to his coalition are lost. Result: The Bibi bloc is compact and efficient. The opposition is paranoid, fragmented and wasteful.

Poll after poll show 60+% of Israelis want Netanyahu gone and Likud’s campaign failing to gain traction but by splitting the opposition he’s still odds-on to gain a majority or a stalemate which will allow him to remain prime minister until a 5th election he’s prepared to fight.

For Netanyahu to lose center-left votes have to somehow cosmically distribute themselves so B&W, Meretz and Labor all cross the threshold and then the leaders of at least 6, probably 7 parties, across the entire political spectrum find a way to form a coalition together. Chances?

There’s one other scenario in which Netanyahu loses, even if Meretz and B&W drop below the threshold: if the Lapid-Lieberman-Sa’ar trio, can convince Bennett not to join Netanyahu. But it means Bennett has to abandon his forlorn hope of one day being embraced by his father-figure

The only opposition leader not to have been sucked in by Netanyahu’s ground-campaign is Lapid who’s stuck to his own low-key campaign, designed to maintain a steady upward trajectory without pushing other center-left parties beneath the threshold and to create opposition harmony.

Lapid is also the only would-be PM to clearly prioritize replacing Netanyahu above his personal ambition. It’s a clever strategy devised by @MarkMellman but devilishly difficult to execute. If it Bibi loses, Mellman will join Arthur Finkelstein in the pantheon of Israeli politics

Final cautionary note: Polling is more difficult than ever in an election with 13-14 viable parties in the mix, a third of them around the threshold and in an unprecedented covid election with turnout unpredictable. More than usual, polling upset likely to upend all predictions.