Is This Netanyahu’s Last Hurrah?

After what looks like an almost cer­tain fail­ure to secure a major­i­ty in Israel’s elec­tion on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did­n’t need any­one to tell him about the mur­mur­ings with­in Likud that his own par­ty should start think­ing about a change in lead­er­ship. He sus­pects they are there, and have been for a while. 

As he arrived at the par­ty’s cam­paign head­quar­ters at Expo Tel Aviv in the ear­ly hours of Wednesday morn­ing, greet­ing senior Likudniks with forced, tight-lipped smiles, the heavy make­up he wore could not mask the tired­ness on his face from days of relent­less cam­paign­ing and long hours of non­stop online Likud TV broad­casts, in which he harangued right-wingers to go out and vote.

Netanyahu’s speech at a Likud ral­ly, deliv­ered more than five hours after vot­ing end­ed and exit poll results spelled doom, was a care­ful­ly mea­sured attempt to reassert his lead­er­ship, while acknowl­edg­ing, with­out say­ing it in so many words, that things have changed. Perhaps irrev­o­ca­bly.
Continue read­ing here; https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-in-defeat-netanyahu-looks-to-iran-and-trump-for-salvation‑1.7858253