On the afternoon of Jan. 7, not a single Likud minister had any idea what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intended to announce that evening. Like other Israelis, they saw reports about Netanyahu’s plans to deliver what the Likud press office described as “a dramatic announcement." Senior Likud officials — the top echelons of the ruling party — were driven crazy, along with the rest of the country, as rumors spiraled for hours amid heightened tension. It all ended in a magnificent anti-climax: A stern-faced Netanyahu informing the citizenry that requests he had made to confront his accusers — former associates who have turned witnesses for the state — were denied. “What do they have to be afraid? What are they hiding?” Netanyahu asked.

The event turned out to be yet another stage in Netanyahu's frontal attack against legal authorities since he found out that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit intended to announce, before the April 9 elections, a decision on whether to indict the prime minister on charges of bribery, pending a hearing. After all, Netanyahu called snap elections for April to avoid such a scenario, only to find himself in a spin.

Until that happens, if it happens, Netanyahu intends to continue hammering away at the public, especially his electoral base, with a simple, user-friendly message: Those seeking to bring down the right-wing regime that he heads are persecuting him because they cannot bring him down at the ballot box.

The campaign he is waging is aggressive, unrestrained and unprecedented in its intensity. This is a one-man war in which the top figures of the Likud are mere extras. Some of them were struck dumb by the “severed hand” clip Netanyahu posted Jan. 5, in which he compared himself to an innocent man on trial who has had his hand chopped off on the judge’s orders, only to be found innocent when the truth emerged. “Can someone give him back his hand? Can someone give you back the elections?” Netanyahu asked his Facebook viewers.