以色列将于2015年3月17日提前举行大选

Benjamin Netanyahu is running for a fourth term as the Prime Minister of Isreal. The nation will hold general elections on March 17, two years ahead of schedule.

Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister. Nine years in total, spread out over three terms.

It's a trend he's hoping to continue if he can win early elections scheduled for March. But to do so, he'll first have to remain his own Likud party's chairman. 

We're just outside the party's national headquarters. Most people equate Netanyahu with Likud and Likud with Netanyahu. But his critics are plenty, and they aren't shy. And some of the loudest rebuke has come from within his own party.

Some Likud parliamentarians say the Prime Minister was weak during the summer war on Gaza, not finishing the job. They accuse him of betraying the settlement movement, and abandoning the party's right-wing vision.

But analyst Assaf Meydani - who describes Netanyahu as a survivor - thinks his slight shift to the left is a tactical consideration.

"He has a great power in the Likud. The Likud voters, they know that even though you have to win the primaries, then you have to win the election, the general election. And they know that a right-wing - too much right-wing Likud - is not enough," Meydani says.

Netanyahu successfully fended off additional challengers - from the far-right factions of his party - by moving-up the primaries from January to December. Insiders say the prime minister was worried his critics could benefit from the extra time.  

Those closest to Netanyahu say he has reason to worry. But that he's grown accustomed to efforts aimed at topping him several coming from his own cabinet.

Gil Samsonov has known Netanyahu for more than twenty years, and once served as his strategist. He says the problem is institutional.

"You are running the country, and your financial minister is a minister that wants to be instead of you. Your foreign minister says that he wants to be the prime minister. It's crazy when your own ministers are fighting against you. It's impossible to run a country in that way," Samsonov says.

And yet, Netanyahu still wants the job.