Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a ritual. Whenever he gets the results of a new poll, he jots down the number of seats by party and then divvies them up into two blocs: left and right. It used to be easy. The Likud would be listed in the right-wing bloc, along with other smaller right-wing parties, the ultra-Orthodox and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu. On a good day, that bloc would be worth around 70 seats, ensuring that Netanyahu retains power. Then Liberman reshuffled the deck.

In what has become the big drama of the current election, Liberman pulled out of the two main blocs and is playing on both sides instead. All that seems to matter to him is that the ultra-Orthodox are kept out of the equation. The polls show that without him, Netanyahu will not be able to form a right-wing government with the ultra-Orthodox. Compounding the uncertainty is his failure to achieve a merger to the right of the Likud, as became apparent Aug. 1, when the final party lists were submitted.

It is no secret that Netanyahu wanted to maximize the number of votes for the right-wing bloc. It didn’t happen. He was hoping to have the United Right alongside Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked’s New Right running in parallel to the Likud. As it happened, the United Right merged with the New Right, leaving out the radical Jewish Power faction (which ran on one ticket with the United Right in April). On July 21, Netanyahu's former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked became head of the United Right list.

Netanyahu tried to pressure Shaked to join forces with the Jewish Power list, now headed by attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, best known for being a follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane and his racist ideology. No one knows how many voters Jewish Power might attract (in the elections for the 19th Knesset, it received only 66,000), but the polls indicate that it will not pass the voter threshold of about 140,000. Netanyahu’s failure to reinsert Jewish Power into the United Right means precious votes on the right will be wasted.