Benjamin Netanyahu returns to the Prime Minister's Office differently.
He is not only the head of the largest party in Israel, but also the undisputed leader of a huge right-wing ultra-orthodox bloc for which more than two million citizens voted.
Netanyahu's victory has an epic dimension: he returned from the political and legal May of the Dead as the eternal phoenix, and brought about the collapse of the multitude of conceptions that accompanied him since he lost power in June 2021 to the government of change.
Despite the popular assessments, he was not deposed by the senior members of his party, he did not lose the broad public support nor the strategic alliance he made with the ultra-Orthodox.
Netanyahu was defeated then, but managed to keep his camp united around him because he recognized the formula for his comeback.
He knew that the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox public would find it difficult to put up with a coalition in which an Arab party was a member, alongside the left-wing parties.
Netanyahu understood the power of the bold political act of Lapid, Bennett and Lieberman, whose connections were rough and left large groups in society out of the game, who felt marginalized.
Returns from the Isle of the Political Legal Dead.
Benjamin Netanyahu, photo: Liron Moldovan
Energy of outsiders
Netanyahu estimated with a great degree of certainty that if he succeeds in capturing the marginalized camp around him - he will be the one who will also return it to the Prime Minister's office.
As it was in the 1996 elections, when he laid the foundations of the "Alliance of the Disadvantaged", so it was also this time.
After Rabin's murder, Netanyahu became an assignee.
Even then, a large public on the right felt haunted, and he understood in his senses that this partnership of fate had the potential to become an overwhelming political energy, a glue that would bind the camp around him.
Only eight months after the murder, against all odds, he was elected Prime Minister for the first time.
The Netanyahu trial and the Bennett-Lapid government were Netanyahu's fuel for the 2022 elections. He planned his comeback in the days before Naftali Bennett was sworn in as Prime Minister.
As in the weeks after the national trauma of Rabin's murder, he realized that he had to charge his camp with political energy, which the change government provided him in abundance.
The results of the last elections - the rise of Itamar Ben Gabir, the strengthening of the ultra-orthodox parties and the maintenance of the Likud's power - are a reaction to the government of change.
The connection between non-Zionist political forces that were required to overthrow the leader of the right were like material in the hand of the creator.
As usual, Netanyahu played the cards left in his hands: he did not shy away from a political partnership with Ben Gabir, who starred in the first act as one of the heroes of the incitement before Rabin's murder.
The more Ben Gvir rose, the more Netanyahu enjoyed the benefits of increasing the pool of voters in his supporter group.
The achievement of Itamar Ben Gvir - reaction to the government of change, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The campaign he ran this time was different from all his predecessors.
The division into the Bibi group and the only non-Bibi group focused it on a limited and defined target audience.
He appealed to about 160,000 Likud voters who did not come to the polls in the fourth election.
In advance, he gave up the effort to transfer voters from the other camp to him, just as he gave up his well-known clashes on the eve of elections with the presenters on the commercial channels, and preferred media outlets identified with him.
When it was necessary in recent days to encourage the ultra-Orthodox community to come out and vote, he himself went to Bnei Brak and held an awakening rally there.
He called the audience to choose their parties, as was his spiritual leader.
In the connection hidden from view, Netanyahu succeeded in the years of the trial to tighten the ultra-orthodox public around him with a sense of shared fate and persecution.
He managed to leap over his political leaders and become the hero of a young generation, 60 percent of whom are under 20 years old.
Most of them, by the way, are holding smart phones and are exposed to information about his trial.
His standing up to the powerful systems in the country during his investigations strengthened the sympathy of this public towards him.
The fact that he did not bow his head in front of the judicial system, which is seen as hostile to the ultra-Orthodox, deepened a new-old alliance of outsiders between him and them.
Like an alchemist or an architect, who dismantled and reassembled Israeli society for his needs, Netanyahu in his political and legal predicament was able to pour new content into the "Alliance of the Disadvantaged" of 1996, but he did more than that.
More than a million citizens voted for Likud led by Netanyahu in each of the five election systems 2019-2022.
This is a large and diverse mass of voters with clear right-wing tendencies, but they are not made of one piece from a class, sectarian or geographical point of view.
There is the hard and old nucleus of Khal voters in the peripheral cities and neighborhoods, members of the Mizrahi ethnic group who made a political alliance with the Likud during Menachem Begin's time and have since continued to maintain loyalty to the party.
But Netanyahu also enjoys a broad base of support among the economically established strata in the large central and southern cities.
In all the in-depth studies, they justify their vote by his good performance as prime minister.
Heritage time
In a cautious assessment, Netanyahu's sixth government is expected to be different from all its predecessors.
It will be established in a flash - Netanyahu will not waste time on long negotiations.
Will he follow the whims of Ben Gabir and Smotrich?
The restrained speech he gave on the night of the victory signals that Netanyahu's face is to calm the spirits in society.
Will Netanyahu follow the whims of Smorich and Ben Gvir?, Photo: Gideon Markowitz, Oren Ben Hakon
At the age of 73, he will strive to leave behind a legacy of a leader of stature.
He will have the power to carry out parliamentary and governmental moves such as reforming the judicial system, but it can be estimated that he will be restrained and measured.
In security and economic conduct and in foreign policy, Netanyahu will seek to lead the moves himself.
He will strengthen his political power through direct contact with the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox public.
This will be his means of controlling Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Goldknopf and also the senior Likud.
As someone who sees his place in Jewish and Israeli history in terms of greatness, he puts himself in the same line as Herzl, Ben-Gurion and Churchill.
As the son of a historian and as someone who was a partner in formulating the ways of commemorating his brother Yoni, he shapes his story for future generations in every speech and statement - in the Knesset plenum, in the American Congress and on the social network.
It is hard to imagine that Netanyahu will abandon his legacy to extremists.
Mazel Moalem is the author of the biography "Zofan Netanyahu"
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