After yet another election win, what’s next for Benjamin Netanyahu?

Benjamin Netanyahu has done it again, discreditably but indubitably. If Tuesday’s Israeli election was a referendum on his character as well as his competence, Netanyahu’s campaign tactics explained why. When his erstwhile allies to his right challenged him as the New Right, he manufactured an even newer set of allies from even further right, and invited Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) into his next coalition. When the Blue and White centrists challenged him on his left flank, he derided Blue and White’s leader, ex-general Benny Gantz, as a mentally unfit leftist, and promised to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

In the small hours of Wednesday morning, with 96 per cent of the vote counted, Netanyahu and the Likud looked set to grow their share of the vote from 30 to 35 seats. Though Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party also stood to win 35 seats, the coalition arithmetic favours Netanyahu.