Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the public a live special announcement on the afternoon of Feb. 6. He built up suspense for a dramatic address but when the security situation deteriorated, he was forced him to shelve his big announcement. It is thought that what Netanyahu planned to say had something to do with the annexation of some small part of West Bank territories even before the March election, or perhaps warming relations with some Arab state or another, surely intended to seize control of the diplomatic and security agenda before the upcoming election.

Netanyahu’s strategy is to inundate voters daily with headlines of major diplomatic and security advances and minimize focus on his indictment for bribery. At the same time, he is plowing across his Likud base with at least two election rallies per night. On Wednesday, he was in Herzliya and Petah Tikva. On Thursday, he was in Ramle and Hadera. The gatherings were packed. Likud supporters have tied their fate with Netanyahu, giving him the tailwind and political safety net he needs.

But there are some things that even an expert campaigner like Netanyahu can’t control. There was a series of terror incidents that began shortly after midnight on Feb. 6 with a vehicular attack in Jerusalem that left 12 soldiers from the Golani Brigade injured. Around noon, gunshots were fired at a border police officer at the Lions’ Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City and there was another shooting that afternoon at an IDF position in the settlement of Dolev. These incidents ruined Netanyahu’s plans for the day and instead, he went on a tour of the tunnel checkpoint in Etzion settlement bloc instead. From there he went to the hospital to visit the wounded soldiers.

He did not cancel his election rallies in Ramle and Hadera. Instead, he changed some of the content. He spoke about his diplomatic successes and threatened the Palestinian president, declaring from the podium in Hadera, “None of this will help you, Mahmoud Abbas, not the stabbings, not the car-rammings, not the shootings and not the incitement. We will do everything necessary to maintain our safety, determine our borders and ensure our future. We will do all that with you or without you. And only the Likud can do it.”