Mr Netanyahu can spring surprises. It is not certain that he would look to his Right to form a government. He may instead solicit support from a disparate collection of independent politicians, comparable to his longstanding alliance with Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister and former Labour Prime Minister. Mr Netanyahu first campaigned against the Oslo Accords of 1993 but then, as Prime Minister, signed an agreement with Yassir Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, at Wye River in 1998.

Mr Netanyahu knows, moreover, that most Israeli voters support a negotiated two-state solution while doubting that there is any immediate prospect of its being achieved. The main reason for that scepticism is something that Mr Netanyahu himself anticipated, when he forecast that Israel’s evacuation from Gaza in 2005 would increase a risk of terrorism by Hamas aimed at towns in Southern Israel. Tragically, that prognosis has proved right.

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