The decision to hold early elections in Israel is intended to turn the event into a national referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his last, desperate battle to replace the criminal trial that evidently awaits him with a trial by public opinion.

The Likud plan is to focus the campaign on the investigations, convince the electorate that Netanyahu is being framed and win a stunning electoral victory that should protect Netanyahu from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit while the latter is deciding the fate of the prime minister.

Much like the 2015 elections, Netanyahu himself will run the campaign, sharing his strategies only with family members and a handful of associates (most of his other favorites are either under suspicion or have turned state’s witness against him). He will focus the campaign on one message: his own innocence.

Not everyone in the Likud is happy that the ruling party is being used to shield the prime minister. Many Likud seniors are not convinced that coming down against the police and state prosecutors, the country’s gatekeepers and regulators, is the best strategy. They would rather focus on the government’s achievements in the spheres of security, economics and foreign policy. The problem is that besides weak criticism from Gideon Sa’ar, the former minister reviled by Netanyahu’s associates, all the rest in the Likud are following the party line. Twenty-nine Likud lawmakers and several other politicians are keeping unprecedentedly low profiles and avoiding confrontation with the Netanyahu family.