Since the end of Israel's second war in Lebanon in 2006, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never experienced such a clear deficit in Israeli public opinion polls against any rival. This week, on Feb. 21, it happened with the establishment of the Blue and White Party. The new political platform of chiefs of staff — led by three reserve lieutenant generals (Benny Gantz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi) plus one television presenter (Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid) — has taken the public opinion polls by storm and opened a 3-10 mandate lead over Netanyahu.

For the first time since he returned to power in 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself facing a rival of his own weight. A last-minute scaremongering campaign against the Arab enemy and the terrible security dangers like Netanyahu waged in the last week of the 2015 campaign won’t work this time. On the last election day in March 2015, Netanyahu warned voters that the Arabs were ‘’coming in droves’’ to the polls. This time things are different. If the prime minister says “The Arabs are coming,” he won’t find the lightweight Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni (who headed the Zionist Camp in 2015) facing him, but three heavyweight rivals and decorated, experienced generals: the 20th chief of staff, Gantz; the 17th chief of staff, Ya’alon; and the 19th chief of staff, Ashkenazi. And so, the average Israeli voter (who votes at the end of the day for a “sense of security”) could also find it among the camp opposing Netanyahu. The prime minister has lost his greatest asset, which is none other than the weapon of scaremongering — the indefatigable mandate engine that he has developed over the past decade. Barring a dramatic change at the last minute, this new game will end in a photo finish.

For more than a year, the political system in Israel — along with the public and the media — has been talking about the possibility of a big alliance in the center-left camp. The chances for pulling it off have been thought to be slim. Yair Lapid, who built an efficient party and enjoys a base of at least 10 solid mandates, was not willing to hear about the possibility of giving up the top spot and handing over the political mechanism he built to someone else. Moshe Ya’alon (at the head of his own Telem Party) tried to build political power with legwork, but the public wasn’t convinced and he remained irrelevant. Benny Gantz was embraced by the polls but had some doubts. The joker was Gabi Ashkenazi, an especially popular chief of staff who was courted by everyone. Ashkenazi, who somehow survived the Harpaz affair, gave all his suitors the same answer: "I have no intention of joining an existing party. I would be willing to join a large political alliance that could make the difference. For such an alliance, I’d do anything, with no ego and no conditions."

Despite it all, this is exactly what happened. Ashkenazi was the mediator, the benefactor and the psychologist for the two sides, with Gantz on one side and Lapid on the other. Ya’alon had joined Gantz earlier. All that was left to do was to square the circle and find a formula that could link Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Gantz’s Israel Resilience (which already included Ya’alon’s Telem). And indeed, the dramatic Feb. 20 of this week started with a personal meeting between Lapid and Gantz in the morning and ended Thursday morning after a decisive night when agreements were reached and the alliance was sealed. As aforementioned, the new party is called Blue and White, and it presented itself to the Israeli public that very night. A few hours later, it dominated the polls: 35-36 mandates, a significant gap over Netanyahu (26-30 mandates in polls). Something happened in Israel. “We are a ruling party,” Gantz said, and for the first time this statement doesn’t sound ridiculous coming from someone who isn’t Benjamin Netanyahu.