There’s a smell of elections in the air. The recent deep crisis among the ruling coalition parties over the Public Broadcasting Corporation, the criminal investigations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US pressure on the Netanyahu government to curb construction in the settlements and the newly announced return of Likud star (and former minister) Gideon Saar to politics, all give off that whiff. On March 24, Politico was already anointing Yair Lapid, chairman of the centrist Yesh Atid party, as Israel’s next prime minister. According to a Channel 10 poll, if elections were held now, Yesh Atid would rake in more votes than the Likud party led by Netanyahu (29 Knesset seats compared to 27).

If Lapid wins over Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman with the six Knesset seats that Liberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beitenu party was given in the poll, as well as the half-dozen expected seats of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu party, and mobilizes the support of the center-left Zionist Camp, left-wing Meretz party and the Arab Joint List, he would be able to head off Netanyahu on his way to a fifth term as prime minister. But it’s one thing to move a new tenant into the Jerusalem prime minister’s official residence and quite another to bring about a significant transformation of the diplomatic and social reality in Israel — a goal that appears all but unachievable.

Let’s assume that Lapid’s right-wing demeanor is a mask designed to draw in right-wing voters. Let’s also assume that on the day after his election victory he adopts guidelines that include negotiations with the Palestinians on a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and a division of Jerusalem into an Israeli and a Palestinian capital. Still, what does Lapid have to offer the 12 Knesset members of the anti-Zionist Arab Joint List — the ones he once labeled derisively as “those Zoabis” (a reference to highly controversial Arab Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, for which he subsequently apologized)? What is the common denominator between him and the seven leftist Knesset members that the poll gives Meretz, those who have recently been demonstrating alongside the joint Arab-Jewish Hadash party (one of the Joint List partners)?

The most likely scenario is that after Lapid exploits the left-wing parties in order to prevent Netanyahu from getting the 61 Knesset seats he needs to stay in power (the minimum majority of 120 Knesset seats), he would dump them and invite the Likud into his government. He will then go on to rehabilitate his once cordial relationship with his “bro,” Naftali Bennett (the two men formed an alliance during the 2013 election campaign), and draw the chairman of the right-wing HaBayit HaYehudi party into his government too. All that would happen is that Israel would be exchanging a veteran, experienced narcissist (Netanyahu) with a new and inexperienced narcissist (Lapid). This would rule out once and for all any hope of agreement with the Palestinians, of improved relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and of restoring Israel’s relationship with Europe.