Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is busy these days with negotiations to form the next government. Israeli law offers the person tasked with forming the government 28 days to negotiate, and he can ask from the president for another two weeks to complete his task. Netanyahu just asked President Reuven Rivlin for these extra 14 days.

The 28-day period is ending May 15, and no coalition agreement has been signed yet. So when the extra time that Netanyahu requested in order to form his government finally runs out, it will be his old coalition partners who will give up a significant portion of their demands and ask to join his government. Almost none of them could find a better government for themselves, but they will still try to pressure Netanyahu to give them the best Cabinet portfolios and agree to their other demands, knowing that Netanyahu tends to fold under pressure. They realize that he is especially pressured this time around, facing an indictment.

Netanyahu himself is not very excited about the new government he is about to form. He would rather take advantage of an amendment to the law, which he introduced in 2009, just a few months after he was reelected prime minister. Until then, it required one-third of a Knesset faction’s members to be allowed to leave their faction without receiving the party’s approval and without infringing on their rights as Knesset members. Netanyahu’s amendment allowed for a group of seven Knesset members to leave their party, even if they do not constitute one-third of all its members. At the time, he argued that this was one of a series of new laws intended to improve “governability” in Israel. Actually, he was trying to lead a group of at least seven Knesset members under Shaul Mofaz from the now-defunct Kadima party to leave their party and join his coalition. Though Mofaz did not leave Kadima, the amendment remained in place. Now, it could help Netanyahu if at least seven members of opposition party Blue and White quit their faction and join his coalition.

While Netanyahu’s representatives are involved in intense discussions with representatives of the ultra-Orthodox, right-wing and far-right parties, the prime minister has also been sending signals to various Knesset members from Blue and White. The first name released in this context was ultra-Orthodox Knesset member Omer Yankelevich (No. 23 on the Blue and White Knesset list). On the other hand, it will not be easy for the Likud to convince anyone from Blue and White to leave their current political home and commit to a vote that would allow Netanyahu to avoid a trial and punishment. In contrast, Netanyahu’s “natural partners” have long given him their promise on this issue. The United Right party even went so far as to list a change to the Knesset Member Immunity Law as one of its own conditions for joining the coalition.