This week began badly for those vying for an end of the Netanyahu area, and ended on a more positive note as the disappointment with the election results was replaced by a sober view of reality.
Recognizing the moment as the point of no return in terms of their own political futures, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman and Blue & White head Benny Gantz reached an understanding - if not an actual agreement - on their strategic objectives going forward.
The two party leaders must stop reacting to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's agenda or find themselves fading away over the next election cycles.
They must create a coalition supported one way or another by the Joint List alliance of Israel's Arab parties. There is no other viable option.
The Joint List will live on regardless of who the next prime minister is, but neither Gantz nor Liberman may last without the support of the Joint List.
The ultimate target for both Israel Beytenu and Blue & White is a unity government with Likud minus its current leader, but to reach that target they must carry out a complicated political maneuver that requires manipulation and political agility.
They must replace the Knesset speaker, enlist 59 Knesset members to recommend Gantz to President Reuven Rivlin to be the next premier, pass a law blocking Netanyahu from the Prime Minister's Office because of his criminal indictment, have that law upheld by the Supreme Court, form a minority coalition that can last for a while and only then extend an invitation for Likud minus its leader to join.
Will they succeed? I doubt it.
With the national debt as large as it is and the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic expected to be severe, the IDF's demand for additional budget reaching into the billions, the promises made to voters during the last campaign and the demands that coalition partners are sure to make, Netanyahu is the only uniting factor the center-left parties still have.
Arab voters came out in great numbers to support their political leadership despite attempts by Netanyahu and his allies to bully them into Isolationism and extremism.
The Blue & White party made a massive mistake in following the advice of campaigners who told them they would stand to gain votes from the right-wing if they shunned the Arabs.
Now that the party has internalized the importance of Arab support, they are still unable to overcome the opposition of two among their number, namely former Netanyahu aides Gideon Hauser and Yoaz Hendel, who are persistent in their opposition to any political attachment to the Joint List.
Overlooking and discounting Arab voters is not new in Israeli politics. In the past, Knesset members used the distasteful term "the Jewish vote" to diminish the importance of 21% of the Israeli electorate. Now a more politically correct term has been chosen: "the Zionist vote."
But who makes up the Zionist parliamentary bloc? The ultra-Orthodox parties? Their religious leaders hate the notion of Zionism more than they hate Arabs, subscribing to the belief that only after the coming of the Messiah could the Jewish people establish a Jewish government.
And the far-right? Their Zionism is far different from the acceptable democratic definition of the term. Even the post-Zionists scattered among the Labor-Meretz supporters could find themselves confused when included in the "Zionist vote."
With all due respect to the Zionist movement, coalitions are formed by agreeing on basic principles.
At this time in Israel's history, it would be unlikely for Joint List to be part of a cabinet that launches raids on Gaza, but the seeds of cooperation between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority in Israel have been sown and Netanyahu's racist campaign should perhaps be given the credit for that.