Next week, he is due to testify in a high-profile criminal case in which he’s facing charges of political corruption, including bribery and fraud.
The prime minister’s attempts to, again, delay the High Court hearings on account of his busy schedule and the special state of emergency (over the Iran war) were rejected at the end of last week.
Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly tried to portray the legal case against him as part of a “politically driven witch hunt” but in an increasingly polarised society, his opponents are equally determined he should face justice.
Appearing to belatedly learn about “Bibi’s” legal troubles, President Trump said Netanyahu was a “great hero” and “warrior” whose trial should be “cancelled immediately” or, at the very least, he should be given a pardon.
This, remember, is the same US president who only days earlier had publicly castigated the Israeli prime minister – with expletives – as the Iran ceasefire deal threatened to unravel before it had begun.
But Trump’s latest intervention has been described as unwise and unhelpful by many in Israel.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said he should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.
His apparently contradictory stance on Israel and attempted intervention in Netanyahu’s legal case was akin to “treating us like a banana republic”, says Prof Hermann.
On the international stage, many Israelis accuse Netanyahu of having harmed Israel’s global standing and its economic prospects by needlessly prolonging the war in Gaza, even though many former generals have said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has achieved as much as is militarily possible in Gaza.
It should not be forgotten, either, that the International Criminal Court still has warrants issued against the prime minister – and former defence minister Yoav Gallant – over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 55,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas.
Israel’s government, along with Netanyahu and Gallant, strongly reject the accusations.
Ultimately, say most commentators, it would be difficult to imagine new elections being called in Israel while the war in Gaza continues and while Israeli hostages remain captive.
But many of Netanyahu’s critics and opponents have prematurely written him off over the years and have certainly learned never to second-guess what his next move might be.