ISRAEL'S prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, suffered not one but two vicarious electoral defeats on Tuesday. Twice this week he has had to swallow hard and congratulate candidates he hoped would lose. The winners were equally cordial to him on the phone. If they enjoyed his discomfiture, they concealed it well. Politics is about interests, not likes and dislikes, and Mr Netanyahu is firmly on course to victory in Israel's upcoming election, on January 22. Bibi's more famous wrong horse, of course, was Barack Obama. The Israeli leader is taking flak at home and abroad for his unconcealed preference for Mitt Romney, an old friend and political kindred spirit. Less resonant around the world, but no less stinging in Israel, was the bad bet Mr Netanyahu placed in the leadership election of a small but important Israeli party, Habayit Hayehudi [The Jewish Home]. The challenger, Naftali Bennett, served as bureau chief to Mr Netanyahu when he led the opposition from 2006-2008. Mr Bennett managed to fall foul both of his boss and his powerful wife, Sara. The Netanyahus pulled every string they could to foil Mr Bennett's bid to enter politics, but to no avail. He won by a margin of 2-1 among Habayit Hayehudi's 54,000 members. “It reminded me of my own victory in the Likud primaries in 1993,” Mr Netanyahu cooed down the line to Mr Bennett on Wednesday. It was the first time they had talked in more than three years. Both presume they will be talking a great deal across the cabinet table after the January election. Habayit, with its three Knesset seats, is a junior partner in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition. Mr Bennett intends to transform it into a major one, becoming a senior minister himself along the way. “You’ll be prime minister again,” he told Mr Netanyahu. "No doubt about that now that you've teamed up with [Avigdor] Lieberman."

Mr Netanyahu and Mr Lieberman, the foreign minister, recently surprised Israeli pundits and public alike by announcing that their two parties, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu, would merge and run in the election as a single block. Their purpose is to ensure that Mr Netanyahu emerges as the head of the largest faction, giving the president, Shimon Peres, no pretext to call on a more moderate contender to try and form a government. (So far the 89-year-old Mr Peres has resisted pressure to stand down as president and run in the election at the head of a list of centre-left parties which might beat Mr Netanyahu’s block.)

Mr Bennett has told his supporters that while in government he intends to make sure that Mr Netanyahu makes no mistakes: "the Land of Israel is not up for trading or concession." A one-time head of the Judea and Samaria Settlers Council, he is an unabashed annexationist. Under his leadership, Habayit Hayehudi (formerly called the National Religious Party) will unequivocally oppose the two-state solution.

Mr Netanyahu, who professes to support the establishment of a Palestinian state, will be able to argue that he is hemmed in by his hardline coalition partners and so unable to offer any concessions to the Palestinians, or even negotiate with them. He has hewed to much the same line over the past four years. Mr Obama, after some early attempts to budge him, gave up trying. Now, free of political and electoral pressures, he will have to decide whether to try again.