Fighting for his political survival, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is changing the game ahead of Tuesday’s election. He isn’t just taking on a rival party – he’s taking on the entire establishment

Bibi is in the midst of the biggest crisis of his career. He failed to form a government after the April election, forcing another ballot. And the Attorney General intends to indict him in three corruption cases. Netanyahu has been trying everything, but the polls won’t shift from the kind of tight margins that got him into a pickle after the last election. A few days before the polls open, he remains tied with the centrist Blue and White party, led by the former military chief Benny Gantz.

His prize prop is Donald Trump. Billboards across the country show him shaking the US President’s hand. “Netanyahu – another league” says the slogan: only Bibi has the access to world leaders needed to keep you safe. He drove the message home again last week, on his return from a visit to London. Name-dropping world leaders has worked well until now: Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal and called the Palestinian Authority to account. But as Gayil Talshir, political scientist at Hebrew University, points out, “It isn’t working for him now as well as he wants.” Trump’s pro-Israel gestures have dried up, and he is even offering to meet the Iranians. “Everything has blown up in his face,” says Talshir.