Left Weighs Down Bibi’s Prospects      

1. Those who spoke with opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu in the days before the Knesset’s dissolution last week saw a man swinging between two poles, in an almost manic-depressive state. One moment he seemed confident, sure of victory at the polls; next thing, he was frantic, willing to form a government in the current Knesset at any cost.

Netanyahu was in an agony of indecision, like a gambler weighing whether to go all in. Elections are his last chance to reach a 61-seat majority without having to rely on Bennett and Shaked, Saar and Gantz, who sat in the Bennett government and won’t allow him to reform the justice system. Bibi pointed to recent decisions by the US Supreme Court as proof that the left’s control of the Israeli justice system can be broken.

But while the temptation is real, so is the risk. If he loses, he’ll struggle to regroup.

“We’re all in for Netanyahu,” UTJ chairman Moshe Gafni told me this week. “But if he doesn’t get a majority, we’ll think again.”

In previous rounds, the Ashkenazi chareidi party followed Netanyahu with blind loyalty. This time, UTJ is going into elections with eyes wide open.