As long as Obama is around, Bibi has to be around too.

In North Korea too, no primaries ! Our Dear Leader will have a huge statue of HimSelf in the hall of the Likud building with, in some corridor, a small picture of Begin and Shamir and maybe one smaller of Jabotinsky.

so if I have understood you correctly once Mr. Obama isn't president then Mr. Netanyahu can retire....I am sure that the Prime Minister will be happy to know that.

Netanyahu wanted to run again so he put his name forward but nobody else was willing to take him on probably believing they would loose, thats not Netanyahu's fault. Whilst it looks like Netanyahu is safe for now the next election will be a hard one because he will have been around for a very long time by the standard of Israeli politics and there are to many parties as usual, Labor are making a slow but steady recovery and the opportunist Lapid has successfully given himself an image makeover and is not far behind Netanyahu in the polls so it won't be an easy fight but at the same time the party just doesn't have anybody else right now who can win an election.