An increasingly desperate Benjamin Netanyahu, after Sunday evening’s joint presentation by Israeli officials rejecting his “Arabs stole the election” narrative, clung fiercely to his race card yesterday. He explained that Eisenkot’s bloc, formed explicitly to drive him from office, should join him in a “broad national government,” led, of course, by him.

Why? A “clear majority of the Jewish public” had chosen Likud as the largest party and himself to lead the next government. “We aspire to form a broad government with our partners and with any party that wants to do so and does not support terrorism.” Of course, the definition of “supporting terrorism” includes working with the two Arab parties that attained an historic 19 seats in the Knesset—not, according to Netanyahu, because Israel’s Palestinian voters turned out in record numbers to drive out of public life the man who led the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children, but because they were paid to vote against him.

With 61 seats needed in the 120-seat Knesset to retain his Prime Minister position, Netanyahu’s bloc fell from 68 to 53 seats. None of the other 67 seats want anything to do with him, so he is left with trying to break apart his opposition by isolating the 19 seats of the Arab parties. Having played his race card and, apparently, come up short, Netanyahu is desperate for a full-scale war with Iran.

Likud minister Miki Zohar took the tack yesterday of trying to split the anti-Netanyahu bloc. He posted on X that Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot and Together party leaders Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid were trying to form a government with the Arab parties “at all costs,” but Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman and “a few sane people in Yashar” were to be praised for preventing such a coalition. “They are the ones who oppose a broad government and are dragging Israel to another round of elections.” Unfortunately for Zohar, today Lieberman met with the Eisenkot bloc and agreed to prevent another round of elections by driving Netanyahu out of office and putting Eisenkot in.