PM Netanyahu's tricks backfire, brings strange bedfellows together to form next government in Israel

As fighting continued to intensify, the possibility of Opposition leader Yair Lapid, 57, tasked with putting a coalition government together by President Reuven Rivlin, succeeding in his efforts waned.

Who could think barely two weeks ago when Israel struggled with its worst communal tensions internally, and not just the barrage of rockets fired from Gaza, that a historic combination of divergent ideologies - drawn from the Left, the Right and the Centre along with an Arab party - could come together to form a national unity government that would oust Benjamin Netanyahu. When fierce fighting raged, everybody thought it had lent Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister and shrewd politician Netanyahu's efforts to hold on to power a new lease of life with disparate political formations taking a break from negotiations. As fighting continued to intensify, the possibility of Opposition leader Yair Lapid, 57, tasked with putting a coalition government together by President Reuven Rivlin, succeeding in his efforts waned. However, in a strange way, the person standing to benefit the most from these talks going disarray emerged as the single most cementing force.