The Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, who has made a habit of threatening to resign from the government, yesterday vowed again to quit, but insisted that, this time, there would be no turning back, and that his move would likely force new elections.
He said that he and the rest of his five-member coalition faction would vote against the 1998 budget, because the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, was neglecting the most needy sectors of the population and because he was failing to advance the peace process.
So often has Mr Levy threatened to bolt the Netanyahu coalition, however, that he is not being taken completely seriously. He was actually reduced to pledging, as sceptical reporters quizzed him at a press conference yesterday afternoon, that "this is not a trick". He condemned Mr Netanyahu for making a "shameful spectacle" of himself during the past few days of budget negotiations, during which minor coalition factions effectively held the government to ransom, conditioning their support for the budget law on the allocation of an extra $300 million to West Bank settlers, ultra-Orthodox students and Russian immigrants. He also derided the prime minister for ignoring long-standing commitments on financial allocations to poor Israelis.
"A signature has no value," said Mr Levy bitterly. "A promise is not honoured."
Mr Levy is widely seen as a decent man, genuinely concerned for the Israeli working class from which he himself emerged, and truly dismayed by Mr Netanyahu's failure to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians. Nevertheless, he also has a reputation for shrewd political brinkmanship.
If Mr Levy were to go through with his resignation threat, Mr Netanyahu would be left with only a slim majority in the Knesset, and would almost certainly have to call new elections - more than two years ahead of schedule.
Mr Levy's language yesterday was designed to convince even the most cynical audience of the firmness of his intentions. He described the budget as "evil" and said the government was on "a flight to nowhere".
And yet most of his cabinet colleagues last night expressed confidence that Mr Levy could yet be won around - and that, if several hundred million dollars of funding were belatedly channelled into the health service, the development towns and other such areas, the foreign minister would withdraw his threat.
Mollifying Mr Levy in this way, of course, would necessitate a major redrafting of the budget, which was supposed to have been approved by December 31st, and which was being debated in the Knesset plenum throughout yesterday. But an additional delay would not particularly trouble Mr Netanyahu, who has a so-called "period of grace", until March 31st, to get the legislation through.
The additional funding allocations could also prompt the resignation of the Finance Minister, Mr Yaakov Neeman, who has himself vowed to quit if his $58 billion budgetary framework is exceeded. But the harsh truth for Mr Neeman is that he is expendable. He is a personal friend of the prime minister's, not a member of the Knesset, and has no political constituency.
An Israeli woman was in critical condition after being shot by gunmen who opened fire on the car in which she was travelling in the West Bank in the early hours of yesterday morning.