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What happened to the syringe of history used in Saturday's extravaganza at Sheba Medical Center when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli to receive the coronavirus vaccine?
The syringes to administer the vaccine to Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Health Ministry boss Prof. Hezi Levi were consigned to the trash in line with protocol.
But according to rumors, Netanyahu's personal physician Dr. Zvi Berkowitz, who administered the vaccine, took it for safekeeping.
Is it too farfetched to think Berkowitz intends to sell it on eBay? Will it enter the state archives alongside the Declaration of Independence? Will one day a museum be constructed in Jerusalem for it to sit beside the cigars, pink champagne and his son's collection of vile and toxic tweets.
It is nice on part of Netanyahu to be vaccinated in front of the cameras, but the drama was unnecessary. Perhaps the only side effect of the vaccine is a cult of personality.
There should have been two ways to do this.
Either put all the country's leaders on one stage to let the public know that its leaders all stand behind the vaccine. Or have the prime minister go alone, greeting the nurse, baring his shoulder, getting vaccinated and calling upon everyone to do the same.
Instead he chose a third option. Surrounded by his massive entourage and clad in his real and imagined achievements. Le vaccine, c'est moi!
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu becomes the first person in Israel to receive the coronavirus vaccine
(Photo: Screenshot)
Anyone with a shred of intelligence sees that Netanyahu cannot share control. Whenever he so much as smells a hint of a possible challenge, that person is immediately branded a traitor and illegitimate.
This already happened within Likud to Reuven Rivlin during his political career and more recently to Gideon Sa'ar. It also happened to anyone on the larger political stage who thought for a second that they even stood a chance at claiming the premiership.
To paraphrase an old Russian saying: Mushrooms flourish under mighty trees, but nothing grows under a sapling.
Benny Gantz is the latest victim of this cruel philosophy but is in denial.
It should have been clear to the Blue & White leader after the March 2020 elections that he would never be able to form a minority government with external support from Joint List, solely based on the protest mantra of "Just not Netanyahu."
He should have known that if he joined a Netanyahu government, he would lose half his party members and most of his voters.
But he went ahead and signed a power-sharing agreement with a man who cannot share power. The deal was dead on arrival.
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Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu signing a power-sharing agreement on April 20, 2020
Gantz believed when he signed the deal in April that he was putting the interests of the country first, stopping the vicious cycle of endless elections.
But Gantz and his party were not built for this.
Granted, the first few months did bring Gantz some achievements: American aid in return for a halt to the planned annexation of West Bank territory and stopping Likud from meddling with police, the state prosecutor and the courts.
But since those early gains, it has all been downhill. Political weakness is a deadly virus that only gets worse by the minute. The moment Blue & White showed a hint of it, Netanyahu went on a relentless attack.
The more he humiliated them, the more voters they lost. The more the polls showed this, the more the party began to disintegrate from within.
Gantz is surrounded by genuinely good and honorable people, who unfortunately do not have the faintest clue about political machinations.
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Blue & White leaders Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi in the Knesset
(Photo: The Knesset)
He has tasked former Labor Party justice minister Haim Ramon with overseeing the negotiations with Likud to avert elections. Ramon had a long political career, with many achievements of his own, but was never a good wheeler dealer.
Blue & White has no future. The question now is whether to initiate elections and go down as heroes or prolong the humiliation and suffer a slow and cruel death.