Netanyahu considers challenges on left and right

''The budget is right around the corner, there is quite a lot of work to be done and we need to cope with a very complicated security situation. … There is no reason whatsoever to quit a functioning government, which must deal with very complex challenges.''

It's highly doubtful whether this clear statement by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, in an interview on Israel Army Radio the morning of June 30, had a calming effect on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In recent weeks, Netanyahu has been preparing himself for an extreme scenario in which the coalition falls apart over a crisis generated by one of its partners: Lapid's Yesh Atid Party or the HaBayit HaYehudi Party of Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett. 

Netanyahu suspects that Lapid, who has recently been initiating more and more points of friction, is actually preparing the ground for a grandiose withdrawal from the government over budget issues. To his right, Netanyahu is following with concern Bennett's internal political activity designed to consolidate his position through changes in his party's constitution. Netanyahu is familiar with his former chief of staff's (Bennett's) aspirations to replace him as the leader of the political right.

In this case, Netanyahu cannot be faulted for his well-known paranoia: Bennett does, in fact, think that after the next elections, given certain circumstances, he could be the prime minister. People who have spoken to him recently are able to say that the chairman of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party has presented a scenario in which elections are held within a year.