Three steps ahead: How Edelstein outmaneuvered everyone and is positioned to save Israel - opinion

Once sidelined and dismissed, Yuli Edelstein (Likud) may now hold the strategic key to dismantling the Netanyahu era – not with noise but with quiet precision.

When Arye Deri steps out of coalition negotiations and hints at elections, the public’s instinctive response is to cheer. Maybe the politics have sobered. Maybe the politicians have finally awakened – after more than 600 days.

But a more troubling question lingers beneath the surface: What was promised on the other side of the river?

The timing, the hints, the half-denials all reek of orchestration. Not only among the ultra-Orthodox parties, but perhaps even within segments of the opposition that still, on occasion, know how to play the political game.

Beneath the radar, a deal may be brewing – one nobody dares to speak of, but that quietly begins to shape the shift.

Edelstein could be the central pin

Suddenly, a letter of support surfaces – seemingly out of nowhere – from groups of reservist soldiers. Not just another protest. A well-timed, surging wave of public legitimacy.

The simplest form of justice – the demand for equal service – suddenly has a face, a name, and a headline. For a moment, it felt like sanity returned to the streets. As if reason – long exiled from the halls of the Knesset – finally found its way home.

But the precision of this moment, its surgical timing, raises questions. The writing had been on the wall. Someone was simply waiting for the perfect moment to pull back the curtain.

What triggered this now? Was it another carefully crafted move, painting the battle in the colors of simple justice, while concealing a far more complex political agenda?

To understand the move, one must understand the man.

Edelstein was never a viral hero or a creature of the moment. He’s the kind who works quietly, builds slowly, and only in hindsight do people realize how close he’s been to the center.

He’s the man who burned himself too early – challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long before the political uprising was ripe. He was ousted, sidelined, cast to the periphery. But he never disappeared. He waited.

Not like Yoav Gallant, dependent on the mercy of executive decisions. Not like the head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) or the IDF chief of staff, rotated out when they become inconvenient. Not like David Zini, who found himself, against his will, as a pawn in someone else’s political chessboard.

Edelstein, in contrast, remained quiet, but sits in one of the few positions protected by law from dismissal. And at the right moment – perhaps this very moment – he can release the bolt that holds the entire structure in place. He could be the central pin that, once pulled, brings the whole system crashing down.

That’s what it looks like when Edelstein pulls a “Netanyahu” – but without the megalomania. Three steps ahead. One subtle move. And suddenly, everyone is dancing to his tune.

Perhaps, right now, we are witnessing the redemption of the man who was shot in the first act but storms back in the final act with a submachine gun, to save what’s left of Israel.

And as for Netanyahu? The final chapter has yet to be written. But the closing pages are already spread out on the table. And even the man who never falls cannot stop what has already begun to end.