Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team of lawyers were surprised this week when they learned that hidden among the evidence against Netanyahu was a surprise witness: none other than Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid. According to the police, Netanyahu tried to persuade Lapid, who was the minister of finance in his previous government, to advance a law that would have granted Israeli billionaire Arnon Milchan tax benefits estimated to be worth tens of millions of shekels.

The Israeli Police recommended that Netanyahu be indicted for two separate cases of bribery. The publication about Lapid’s involvement in the case made it all the more dramatic. Not only is Netanyahu facing the fight of his life. It now looks like the person who could bring him down is his old finance minister, a man long determined to defeat his old boss and succeed him as prime minister.

This scenario seemed unimaginable until just two days ago. Now it has transformed Lapid into Netanyahu’s main rival minister. It could even shape the political system into a two-headed beast. Until now, Lapid and leader of the Zionist Camp Avi Gabbay competed over who would dominate the center-left bloc opposed to Netanyahu. Now Lapid has established himself as the front-runner.

Despite all of Tuesday evening’s commotion surrounding the recommendations, Netanyahu realized that the established order of things had changed and that Lapid had become his biggest problem. In a speech to the Center for Local Government on the day after the recommendations were released, Netanyahu was already attacking Lapid. He did what he had been so careful to avoid until then: saying anything whatsoever about the chairman of Yesh Atid.