It is hard to ignore the dissonance between the media and the opposition's perception as to the coalition's ability to pass the state budget and the utter panic gripping the government as to its ability to actually do so.
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Coalition members themselves seem to doubt this ability and that, perhaps most of all, reflect the fragility of the government. Eloquent statements by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on the "different nature" of the coalition can't hold water when clearly, neither he nor his partners believe they can actually get through a vote on a bill that will decide the fate of the government.
In the unlikely event that the budget bill fails, the government will have no one to blame by itself. If some MK or another rebel at the last minute, we could discern that it was the very insecurity of Naftali Bennett, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman that caused it.
There is, of course, another option, namely that the sense of doubt is amplified on purpose, so as to leverage the success when it is all said and done; so that coalition MKs can pat each other on the back and create the appurtenance that the government passed the ultimate test and can therefore withstand anything.
However, this plan – if there is, indeed, such a plan – could prove to be a double-edged sword. MKs in the backbenches who are observing the loggerheads at the top may feel, once the budget passes, that they can do as they please; that the pretense of unity, and that they can again fight for principles put on hold for the sake of forming the coalition.
Israel has been in need of a budget for nearly two years, but not the budget proposal at hand. The latter's as a whole is not bigger than the sum of it political parts, and that the Israeli public will be made to pay for, literally.
The current budget makes no sense and it looks like a collection of whims the likes of which the Treasury has been trying to push through for years but have been unable to sell to any other government until this one came along.
If the coming taxes, levies, and fees the public is about to be subjected to – such as on plastic disposables and Netflix – were not coming out of our pockets, it would be amusing. But it's not.
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