How Israel’s ‘Houdini’ defied the odds once more

It was 3am on the day his political career could have ended, and Binyamin Netanyahu came out swinging.

He bragged about killing Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his friendship with US president Donald Trump and Israel’s occupation of Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan land. Then he turned his vitriol towards his favourite enemy: the media.

“Do you remember how the propaganda channels engineered a whole [perception] that the Likud would have 18-19 seats?” he said, chanting along to a religious song. “They knew it was a lie the entire time.”

In the end, Likud emerged as the largest party, with 27 seats, followed by Yashar with 21. And while Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has not won enough seats to secure a 61-seat majority, neither have his opponents.

This sets up the prospect of protracted coalition talks during which Netanyahu will remain prime minister while wielding his considerable skills in back room machinations.

And after 19 years in power over six premierships, more than half of Israel and much of the world have been left asking: how is Netanyahu still standing?

“His fundamental talent is that he is a talented storyteller – and the story he told shifted the entire conversation from the past to the future,” said Aviv Bushinsky, who served as Netanyahu’s spokesman and chief of staff in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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In Netanyahu’s telling, the failures surrounding Hamas’s October 7th 2023 attack, which took place under his watch, have been rebranded as part of the “War of Redemption”, a reference to Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere that have followed.

“The others, they are either soft, or not experienced, not equipped – and they don’t have the balls,” said Bushinsky.

Netanyahu’s survival thus far, following one of the most contentious elections in Israeli history, comes against obstacles few others could have overcome.

The list of his failures, recited daily by the opposition, is long: the October 7th attack was the deadliest for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, killing 1,200 people in Israel. The ensuing hostage crisis convulsed the nation, as hundreds of thousands flooded the streets to demand a ceasefire.

The wars since then have interrupted, but not derailed, Netanyahu’s long-running trial for corruption, while Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza – where at least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed – led to deep international isolation.

He himself is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and can rarely travel abroad; Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu denies the charges, as does Israel. He has labelled them anti-Semitic.

Even within Israel, Netanyahu is deeply loathed by segments of the population who view him as corrupt and a threat to their nation’s democracy.

And yet, even as his rivals created a once-in-a-generation slate of opposition leaders – with a grizzled military chief new to politics standing alongside veterans of Israel’s fractious political scene – Netanyahu is still within reach of another term.

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“Relative to the cards he had on the eve of the elections, this is a nice result for him,” said Roni Rimon, who ran Netanyahu’s 2009 campaign.

He has not won the elections, but neither have his opponents. Opposition Jewish parties would need to overcome Netanyahu’s delegitimisation of Israel’s Palestinian minority as traitors to the Jewish state before they can partner with the Arab parties that hold just enough seats to anoint – or block – a future government.

The comeback story is part of Netanyahu’s rich political persona, one that has adapted over his four decades of public life to the challenge at hand – swinging from conciliatory to pugilistic, from triumphant leader to scrappy underdog as the occasion demands it.

“He is whoever he needs to be, whenever he needs to be, at any time of the day,” said a person who has accompanied him on the campaign trail. “And he is so convincing, he convinces himself.”

His story taps into his personal life – as a young soldier, he was shot in one mission, nearly froze on another and lost his brother during a hostage rescue. He has turned those events into a narrative of bravery and sacrifice.

As a young politician, he was blamed by the wife of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin – and others – for inciting a political climate that led to the assassination of Rabin, who was implementing the Oslo Accords at the time. Netanyahu did not flinch – then, as now, never acknowledging guilt or taking responsibility – and defeated Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres, to win his first premiership.

That victory, in 1996, was the first glimpse of his expertise in messaging, reducing complex challenges to catchy slogans. The slogan “Peres will divide Jerusalem” helped him eke out a narrow win while the US was pushing Israel to make concessions to Palestinian demands for statehood.

In a more recent election, in 2019, the slogan “Bibi or Tibi” helped him demonise Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian politician from northern Israel, while presenting himself – using his own nickname – as the safe choice. And in this election, his slogan was even simpler: “Yamin o Falestin” – the right or Palestine.

“The secret of the delivery of his message is to simplify it as much as possible,” said Bushinsky.

He has towered over Israeli politics since 2009, when he won his second premiership, enduring only a brief period out of power during a tumultuous period of repeat deadlocked elections.

Netanyahu’s political longevity, despite the din of nearly constant crises, has earned him several nicknames. Israeli papers sometimes describe him as a magician, while others have called him Houdini, after the famous Jewish escape artist.

Harry Houdini died when he mistakenly let down his guard, punched in the gut by a friendly challenger. “But you will never catch Netanyahu off guard,” said Bushinsky. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026