It happened three times to the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu, and no one was surprised that this month it happened to his Labor successor, Ehud Barak. By law, the state budget must pass the Knesset by midnight on December 31. This is the season for every party to extract as succulent a slice of the cake as possible for its institutions and interest groups. If they don't get it now, they suspect they won't get it at all.
Budgets have to be balanced.
The Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas, now the third largest party in the Knesset, is a master in this annual market place. If he says quit, they quit. Shas is a hybrid. It is a religious party and an ethnic party. It leaders are rabbis, with the kind of beards, black hats and dark suits that would look equally at home in a Lithuanian yeshiva.