I did it," Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted 12 minutes before the deadline, which would have expired at midnight.
That was the untruth.
Because since the alleged conclusion of the coalition negotiations, negotiations have continued happily: about posts, responsibilities and other demands of the partners in his Likud.
They will agree so that by January 2 the government can be sworn in and Netanyahu can return to office, from which he believes he has been unlawfully ousted.
But the weeks since the election have shown that the ideological radicalism that characterizes most of the future governing parties will not make life easier for him.
To know every trick in the book
It is one of the many ironies surrounding this that the Likud is more right-wing than ever, in the coalition nonetheless will form the left, moderate flank.
Netanyahu worries about Israel's place in the world.
Rightly so: An Israel in which the rule of law is curtailed, in which ultra-Orthodox Judaism marginalizes other currents and in which settlers determine occupation policy, will be subjected to more criticism than before – including from friends.
But Netanyahu is up to the task: it cannot be ruled out that he will provoke an escalation in order to persuade the mainstream parties to form a coalition with him.
Either way, more troubled times lie ahead for the country.