After a week-long hiatus imposed by the flare-up in Gaza and ended by a still fragile cease-fire with Hamas, the election campaign resumed on Sunday - or, as the mavens maintain, it finally started in earnest. The closing days of political campaigns, when most undecided voters make up their minds, are always critical, of course, but are usually the culmination of a continuous process.

The Gaza recess broke the continuity of the 2019 election campaign, creating a vacuum that the politicians are now rushing to fill. The opening skirmish of the frenzied battle to reset the all-important agenda was decided, ironically, by the campaign itself. The return of public and media attention from the war that never was in Gaza to the far fiercer slugfest between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz included a delayed outburst of widespread protest against the escalating use of personal defamation, fake news and dirty tricks. And while Netanyahu’s fans maintained that both sides are to blame, most of the criticism was directed at the Likud’s attempt to eliminate his rival Gantz through what can only be described as targeted character assassination.

With nine days left, the outlook is this: According to the polls, Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s Kachol Lavan are running neck and neck, with a slight but stable advantage to the latter. In terms of the overall bloc, however, Netanyahu has a clear and no less stable advantage, one that could allow him to form a stable-right wing coalition, albeit one beholden to right-wing racists and kooks.