Hard to believe, but it seems to be happening: Israel appears heading for elections in March 2021, its fourth in less than two years. Israel’s transformation into chaotic Italy was completed in the late-night hours of Dec. 21, when the opposition narrowly defeated a government-backed motion that would have postponed elections. The vote plunged Israel’s political system even deeper into chaos just seven months after formation of the monstrously large rotation government that was supposed to calm the waters.

For the first time since his 2009 reelection, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not setting the timetable or the agenda, and has lost control of the process. Things did not go the way he planned. He had been trying in recent days to push through a Knesset decision postponing the deadline for passage of the budget, which would also have meant delaying new elections; he even managed to get the Islamic party on board for the move, but his maneuver failed.

Netanyahu would have preferred elections in May or June, once the effects of the coronavirus vaccines had kicked in, following the May Independence Day celebrations that always prominently feature the prime minister, and after getting all his ducks in a row and further eroding his opposition. Instead, the timetable has been moved up and elections will happen far sooner than he wanted — within three months. For the first time in Israeli political history, a right-wing prime minister will be challenged by three rivals all positioned further to his right, depriving him of his exclusive hold on the right-wing electorate. What survival strategy will Israel’s greatest political magician ever adopt this time?

Netanyahu may not know the answer himself. The prime minister is under the influence of his family’s pressure to hold elections. No force in the world can convince him or them to deliver on the pledge he made earlier this year to his rival Defense Minister Benny Gantz to stay the course and hand over the reins of government to him in November 2021. That job share deal was the undoing of their so-called “unity” government before it even got off the ground.