Feb. 20 was one of the most heated and dramatic days in the history of Israeli politics. Compared with it, “House of Cards” is about as dark as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

It all began in the morning with the revelation that the Israel Police now suspect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman and confidant Nir Hefetz of trying to ensure that the position of attorney general would be given to someone willing to shut down the investigation into the prime minister’s wife in the “official residence case” in 2015. It ended with the earth-shattering revelation that the former director general of the Ministry of Communications, Shlomo Filber, signed an agreement to serve as a state witness against his boss and patron.

By Feb. 21 at dawn, even the most ardent Likud supporters knew that the Netanyahu era was over. Now it’s only a matter of time. Netanyahu once dreamed of surpassing Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as Israel’s longest serving prime minister. That's not likely to happen now. Netanyahu is no longer fighting to keep his job or his stature; he is fighting for his freedom. It is now a fairly safe bet that he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Ehud Olmert and end up in prison. The odds of that outlandish scenario happening have shifted.

Netanyahu made it through last week as only he knows how. Two resounding police recommendations to indict him for bribery (Case 1000 and Case 2000) slipped off his Teflon vest without disturbing a single hair on his head. His government remained stable, and his partners maintained coalition discipline, without anyone making as much as a squeak. They all believed that Netanyahu’s hourglass still had plenty of sand left, and that it would take at least a year before Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit makes his final decision. Then came what Netanyahu could only describe as “Terrible Tuesday.” This time, even he was left speechless. In a gloomy video that he released that night, Netanyahu looked more despondent than he has in a very long time. There were still signs of shock on his face.