"He’s a magician!” they chanted at the Likud election night event as Benjamin Netanyahu entered the basketball arena in north Tel Aviv at two o’clock in the morning.
Then they sang “Bibi, King of Israel!” as the big screen projected the party’s campaign slogan, which put it best: “Netanyahu is in a different league”.
It was another instalment in a long series of victory speeches Mr Netanyahu has made over the years. He kissed his wife Sara on stage, fireworks were let off, blue and white confetti rained down.
Not far away, at the Blue & White party event less than three hours earlier, party leader Benny Gantz had made a victory speech of his own. He had not waited. Acting on the predictions of exit polls that put his alliance in the lead over Likud, Mr Gantz demanded that ”the biggest party should form the next government.” But that is not how Israeli governments are formed. It is a coalition game and there was no majority for a Gantz coalition, even in the highly favourable exit polls. Blue & White were anxious to capitalise on their margin in the parties vote and create a ‘picture of victory’, but there is no better painter of those than Bibi.
The Likudniks knew that and waited patiently for him to arrive, placated by a short statement on social media in which he said: “The right-wing bloc led by Likud have won”. That was enough. They trusted him to deliver.
Shortly before 2am, with 20 per cent of the vote counted, the television channels adjusted their projections and suddenly Likud was ahead of Blue & White. It was by a single seat only but the adjustments to the other parties put the right-wing coalition clearly in the majority in the new Knesset. And as if by magic, Mr Netanyahu materialised on the stage.
The short speech of thanks contained no headlines on policy or future plans but the newly re-elected prime minister made one thing clear: he planned to form his next coalition with the Likud’s “natural parties” — the right wing and the strictly Orthodox.
What he did not say is that he is relying on his next coalition not merely to allow him to form a government. He needs them as his shield from the impending indictments and criminal charges — his next magic trick.
Can Mr Netanyahu avoid the fate of his predecessor Ehud Olmert? It seems almost impossible but the way he has just won the election also seemed impossible.
He had the better chances going in to the final stretch of the campaign last week, and yet he still chose a high-risk trick for his final act. The polls predicted Likud’s coalition holding on to a confident majority but they had the two main parties in a dead heat. A more cautious political operator would have made do with that. But for Mr Netanyahu the thought of Likud coming second to Blue & White was unbearable, even if that would not have necessarily impeded his remaining in office since Mr Gantz had very few coalition options.
He duly embarked on the “gevalt!” campaign, warning that “the rule of the right is under threat” and exhorting right-wingers to forsake the small parties and vote Likud.
It was a dangerous move with his potential coalition parties all perilously close to the electoral threshold. Likud could end up the largest party while wiping out its prospect of forming a majority government. And for a moment in the exit polls, it seemed that he might have done just that.
But the actual result was perfect for him. The coalition parties held on to a majority, reduced only by two seats from their tally in 2015, and the two right-wing parties which were pushed below the threshold were the ones Mr Netanyahu least relished having to do with business with in his new coalition.
One was the New Right, led by Naftali Bennett, the former aide who cannot hide his (now dashed) ambition to replace Mr Netanyahu as leader of the right-wing and the country. The other was the unruly former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and his bizarre Zehut party, with its jumble of libertarian policies, who would not even commit before the election to joining a coalition with Likud.
It would have been hard to imagine a result more after Mr Netanyahu’s heart. Likud number one, with an increased number of seats, and a coalition sans Bennett and Feiglin.
After achieving such an incredible feat of electoral fine-tuning, who can now rule out the magician also working out a way to evade the criminal charges?
