“As they say where I come from, give me a little credit,” Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said to his predecessor and rival, David Ben-Gurion, at the 1965 convention of the ruling Mapai, precursor to the Labor Party. Eshkol had sought said credit to lead the state. That was more than 50 years ago, before credit cards were introduced in Israel.

Not so long ago, Israel's current, well-heeled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had asked a civil servant for credit — that is, to put plane tickets for his sons on the civil servant's credit card. The police will invariably examine Netanyahu’s version of events, according to which when he served as finance minister more than 10 years ago, he was not in possession of a credit card, and therefore, according to a report by the state comptroller, asked a Finance Ministry official, Yechiel Leiter, to pay for the tickets.

Either way, Netanyahu’s personal and political credit is scraping the bottom of the barrel these days. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find politicians or rank-and-file Israelis who trust that the state is in good hands. A survey conducted by the Rafi Smith polling agency for Israel public radio, Kol Israel, indicates that if elections were held today for the 120-seat Knesset, a new (virtual) party headed by former Netanyahu Cabinet ministers Moshe Ya'alon and Gideon Saar, and including Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, would get 25 seats, four more than what Likud (currently with 30 seats) would get. The centrist opposition Yesh Atid would get 13 seats, two more than it now has, and the opposition Zionist Camp would plunge from 24 seats to 11.

Netanyahu has survived a long list of political crises and extricated himself from quite a number of police investigations. Nonetheless, it appears that this time, the ground beneath his feet is starting to shake. In his panicked haste to plant his feet on firmer ground, Netanyahu hit Israelis’ most sensitive spot — security. Even Netanyahu’s most faithful mouthpieces, including Ministers Tzachi Hanegbi and Yuval Steinitz, are not claiming that Avigdor Liberman was appointed defense minister because his skills to deal with the complexities of the job are better than those of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, who was pushed aside in late May. They have also not responded to the accusation by their Likud colleague and Knesset member Benny Begin that Netanyahu “acted irresponsibly toward the defense apparatus and Israel’s citizens.”