The Great Survivor: How Benjamin Netanyahu clung on to power in Israel again

It was an election challenge that would unnerve even the most hardened political operative: Benjamin Netanyahu was asking Israelis to give him a fifth term as prime minister.

But both he and his wife were facing criminal corruption charges. A majority of Israeli voters were telling pollsters they were tired of Mr Netanyahu after 10 years in office. And his opponent was a decorated former general, exactly the kind of man Israelis have historically chosen as their leader.   

Yet a week before the election, the character playing Mr Netanyahu on Israel’s leading satire show, A Wonderful Country, delivered a monologue that would prove prescient.

“I gave them a head start," the Netanyahu character…