He’s desperate now because he’s losing ground fast in the latest opinion polls. He’s desperate because after all these many years in power, obsessed by his place in history and his own wishlist comparisons with Winston Churchill, Netanyahu still has no legacy beside the number of all these many years in power.

He‘s desperate because he‘s fast losing the support of the bulk of North American Jews, and, perhaps more crucially to him, he may even be losing the backing of Sheldon Adelson.

Most of all, though, he’s desperate because as prime minister, he knows that he may not have much time left.