Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival became an almost impossible mission this past week. It is worth remembering that Netanyahu is the Tom Cruise of Israeli politics, specializing in cracking the uncrackable. Nonetheless, he has never faced this kind of challenge. His failure to form a government after his Likud party’s sweeping victory in the April 9 elections and his ensuing decision to call new elections is a precedent that could send him sliding down a slippery slope.

For Netanyahu to form a right-wing government following the newly set Sept. 17 elections, the second in less than six months, his Likud party will have to win enough votes to equal 40 Knesset seats, five seats more than it garnered in April. At the same time, the deadline is looming for his pre-indictment hearing by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, and there are no indications the clock will stop ticking. Mandelblit is highly unlikely to agree to yet another delay of the Oct. 2 hearing — originally planned for July 10 — designed to allow Netanyahu to defend himself against the attorney general’s declared intention to indict him on charges of corruption. This means that two weeks after the fall elections, Netanyahu will face his crucial hearing, to be followed by Mandelblit's final decision. This all looks like the beginning of the end for him.

The one bright spot for Netanyahu is his success in making 74 Knesset members just elected in April commit mass political suicide on live television May 29 when they voted, at his bidding, to dissolve the Knesset a month after being sworn in. They agreed to give up what might have been their life’s dream, which they may not be able to fulfill again in September, only to enable Netanyahu to flee from justice. In other words, while Netanyahu has not lost his magic touch, the fear he inspires in all the politicians on the Israeli right remains paralyzing. Seasoned, popular politicians such as Knesset members Yisrael Katz, Gilad Erdan, Gideon Saar and Speaker Yuli Edelstein all understand the absurd situation into which Netanyahu has cast the Likud, yet are unable to bring themselves to oppose him. 

Netanyahu’s survival plan has three stages, each particularly hard. He has to lead the Likud to a 40-seat election victory. He then has to form a 61-seat majority coalition government, without Yisrael Beitenu head Avigdor Liberman, his former political ally-turned enemy No. 1 since he doomed the prospects of Netanyahu’s attempts to form his fifth government this week. Finally, he must put together a government at record speed and convince his new, fragile coalition to immediately adopt two highly controversial laws that would protect him from criminal prosecution. One law would guarantee him immunity; the other would curb the powers of the Supreme Court to intervene in Knesset legislation. Bookies would give Netanyahu’s success of pulling off these feats a thousand-to-one odds. On the other hand, after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Netanyahu’s odds of winning the elections were even worse — yet he did.