So Bibi is history - well he should really be in prison [View all]

[malaise]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/out-of-tricks-netanyahu-again-denied-a-government-because-of-his-own-voters/

Out of tricks, Netanyahu again denied a government — because of his own voters
This week saw the PM fail for the fourth time in a row to win an election outright. But unlike previous failures, it was his Likud supporters who denied him the victory

At 10 minutes before midnight on Tuesday night, Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Reuven Rivlin yet again that he had failed to form a government.

It’s hard to exaggerate how painful the failure is for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and what it means for his legacy.

Over the past two years, beginning with the failure after the April 2019 race, Netanyahu has turned to increasingly desperate and unorthodox measures to attain the victory that keeps eluding him.

Throughout the first three races, his campaign turned increasingly negative. Hidden cameras were deployed at Arab voting stations, apparently intended (according to the political campaign firm that distributed them) to intimidate Arab Israelis and suppress turnout. The centerpiece of Netanyahu’s campaign was the claim that his rival Benny Gantz was mentally ill, that his phone had been compromised by Iranian intelligence, and that he was vulnerable to extortion over purported evidence on that phone of his infidelity to his wife.