Is it really "bye bye Bibi" this time? Israel's longest-serving prime minister has been written off more times than we can count. While it seemed that Benjamin Netanyahu's demise might be reversed during last month's fighting with Gaza, it's now deadline day for coalition building and the cards are out of his hands.
Netanyahu's former chief of staff Naftali Bennett has turned on the longtime Likud leader. He is close to a deal that would make him the next prime minister in a sprawling alliance led by the centre-right's Yair Lapid and that ranges all the way from Bennett's far-right to the pacifist left. Is being anti-Bibi enough for these strange bedfellows to work together? Is Lapid right to concede the PM's seat to Bennett?
And will conservative Arab Israeli leader Mansour Abbas really play kingmaker in getting the coalition approved by parliament? We ask why, as well as what other surprises await us as Israeli politics enters crunch time.
Produced by Charles Wente, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
