If Netanyahu fails, there is no guarantee that his rivals would reap the fruits of their stubborn resistance
His strategy of divide and conquer — grooming political rivals, then pitting one against the other to weaken them — backfired on him when those rivals won more seats than expected. Flush with success, they refused to play ball with Bibi.
The “anyone but Bibi” forces — the declared, like Yair Lapid, Gideon Saar, and Avigdor Lieberman, and the undeclared, like Naftali Bennett — are the majority. They were holding firm at press time, just 24 hours from the deadline for Netanyahu to either finalize his coalition or return his mandate to President Rivlin.
Both Bibi and the anti-Bibi forces were working around the clock to find the unlikely combination that would cobble together a coalition, or at least keep their hopes alive even if Rivlin handed the mandate to someone new.
If Netanyahu fails, there is no guarantee that his rivals would reap the fruits of their stubborn resistance. This group, who converged to purge Bibi, run the gamut from right to left, Jewish to Muslim, and everyone in between. A bunch of folks with wildly different backgrounds, perspectives, and political goals.
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