On the night of Sept. 15, the media reported yet another escalation in the conflict between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid regarding the 2015 budget. At the time, Netanyahu was participating in a celebratory toast in honor of the New Year with Likud Party members in the city of Petach Tikva, where he received a very warm welcome. Dramatic headlines screamed that the prime minister had instructed to freeze the authorization process of the "0% VAT bill," the finance minister’s signature plan, until the latter withdrew his opposition to an increase in the defense budget. The news threatened to create a coalition crisis that could snowball into early elections.

However, the prime minister circulated leisurely around the sports hall in Petach Tikva, enjoying the holiday atmosphere. He shook hands with dozens of activists and supporters and basked in applause. His people informed him that none of the Likud’s ministers and Knesset members (except for Moshe Feiglin) attended the competing gathering held at the same time in the city of Ashkelon by Knesset member Danny Danon. Danon had been Netanyahu’s deputy defense minister until he was fired in July after becoming Netanyahu’s in-house opposition.

Upon meeting Knesset member Gila Gamliel at the event, Netanyahu seized the chance to tell her that he was not the one who gave the order to freeze Lapid’s law, whispering, “It didn’t come from me." Nevertheless, journalists asked the prime minister’s spokespeople if he was behind the threat to Lapid, and they would neither confirm nor deny. They had good reason not to deny the headline, which was at best inexact or at worst the result of a successful spin. In fact, the individual behind the freeze message was coalition chairman and Knesset member Yariv Levin. Levin argued that so long as Lapid would not authorize an increase in the defense budget, then there was no point in promoting Lapid’s law in the Knesset.

But the fact is that the atmosphere of crisis in the coalition benefits both the prime minister and the finance minister. Both Netanyahu and Lapid used the inflated reports on the confrontation between them to put on a show for their respective publics, but the truth is that both sides know how the performance will end. Since neither really wants early elections, a solution will be found and this time, the government will stand firm. Lapid is not interested in leaving the government until he has at least one achievement to show his constituents, and Netanyahu is not interested in starting an election campaign at this time, after Operation Protective Edge and going into budget discussions. At this point, the political forces are reorganizing themselves and no one can predict where the campaign will end up.