Amid efforts to save the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the chairman of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party, Minister of Economy and Trade Naftali Bennett, informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 10 that if Arab Israeli prisoners were released within the framework of the deal, his faction would immediately leave the governing coalition. That’s typical of the Middle East: Every time you think you've reached the height of the commotion or the bottom of the pit, it turns out there’s another summit ahead, or alternatively, there’s still more digging to be done. Netanyahu now knows that if the negotiations are spared, his coalition will not be. It remains uncertain whether the recently appointed chairman of the Labor Party, Isaac (Buji) Herzog, will agree to replace HaBayit HaYehudi in the government. It would therefore be interesting to find out what Netanyahu’s motivation might be to keep resuscitating the negotiations cadaver.

The big question is, what does Netanyahu really want? Are his statements to the effect that a two-state solution is imperative for Israel’s demographic future merely lip service or does he really believe this thesis? Is his commitment to the negotiations earnest or is it a cynical and political game of survival in which Netanyahu is leading the Americans, the Palestinians and chiefly his justice minister, Tzipi Livni, by the nose and all he wants is to buy time so that he can continue clinging to the premiership?

Having followed Netanyahu since his return to Israel in 1988, after serving as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and his subsequent immersion in local politics, most Israeli commentators are convinced that the latter scenario is the correct one. Netanyahu is not a radical ideologue. He is a professional survivalist. He will do anything to remain in office. He is not cut out for making big decisions. He doesn't care to leave his mark on history. He doesn’t have that kind of personality. The only mark on history he does want to leave behind is to break the record of longest-serving Israeli premier, a record that David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, still holds. Netanyahu will soon break this record, but then what?

Israel is witnessing an intense internal struggle between the moderates and the extremists. It’s a struggle between a pragmatic public willing to pay a high price for quiet — Israelis want quiet; peace is something only a handful believe in — and those who want to make noise, thinking the bigger the commotion, the better the situation. Espousing the theory of chaos, the latter believe that the closer we get to Armageddon, the more we will be able to formulate the rules of the game and maybe reshape the entire region. In other words, what they want is to establish the third Jewish kingdom, set up a Palestinian state in Jordan and annex all the occupied territories.