If you followed the painful 2-year election season in Israel, in which 4 elections failed to result in a ruling coalition, you may recall that, by and large, the issue was whether or not Netanyahu would retain the premiership. In the end, he didn’t.

In unfortunate ways, Israeli politics is as messed up as American politics! Despite Netanyahu’s Likud party winning twice as many mandates as any other party, and despite a very large majority of mandates going to conservative parties, most of those conservative party leaders refused to sit in coalition with Netanyahu. Thus, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid managed to cobble together a coalition made up of far right conservatives, left-leaning moderates and even Arab MK’s. It’s the slimmest of margins, so the coalition will likely not hold through an entire term, yet all was for the sake of unseating Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the world’s most talented statesmen.

The former Prime Minister definitely has his faults, and he managed to make lots of enemies domestically. Similar to the “no more Trump” sentiment that swept across left-wing America, a “no more Netanyahu” effort was strong in Israel as well. In the midst of it, some would say trumped up charges (pun totally intended!) were leveled against Netanyahu, and he has battled those charges both while Prime Minister and afterward.

Now groundbreaking news may break at any moment. (Perhaps even before this post goes live!) Word is that Netanyahu is considering a plea deal that would drop some of the charges, but would require him to remain out of office for at least 7 years, effectively ending his political career. (Today, he is still leader of the opposition party in Israel.)

How does it all shake out, and exactly what’s at stake? Joel Rosenberg provides Israeli insight in:

Never a dull moment in Israeli government affairs!