For a couple of hours after polling stations closed at 10 p.m. on April 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main challenger, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, thought that he had won. Deluded by an inaccurate TV exit poll, he even delivered a victory speech to his supporters.

For almost seven weeks after polling stations closed on Election Day, Netanyahu also thought he’d won, for a more credible reason: The leaders of six political parties, representing 65 of the 120 newly elected Knesset members, recommended to President Reuven Rivlin that he task Netanyahu with building a governing coalition. That recommendation was tantamount to their commitment to partner with Netanyahu in government, and the incumbent not unreasonably believed that he would now be able to cobble together a majority, albeit after deftly reconciling conflicting priorities and demands among his various potential partners.

Read more at Times of Israel