Now Likud is Unhappy with Netanyahu

This story offers the flipside of the Barak-Netanyahu deal: Netanyahu put so much on the table to win over Labor that there isn't much left for Likud, and the party (most of whom don't seem to be cited by name in this Ha'aretz story) is noting that even key Likud figures may not get Cabinet posts because so few have not been promised to other parties.

There's another interesting possibility: of Labor's 13 Members of the Knesset (MKs), seven opposed entering the coalition. If they were all to bolt, Barak would have only six MKs left, including himself, and has been promised five ministerial positions and two deputy ministers: he could end up not having enough MKs to fill the slots, while Likud doesn't have enough portfolios to reward its stalwart leading figures.

My instincts — and I've watched Israeli politics pretty closely for years — suggest that this isn't a very viable coalition. But as out of place as Labor may seem in present company to Westerners focused on the peace process, in Israeli domestic terms Labor, Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu are all secularist parties (YB extravagantly so) and are more likely to quarrel with Shas over religious/secular issues than with each other over peace (unless there is some real breakthrough on the peace front, which will be difficult unless there is a unified Palestinian leadership). And if some Labor MKs refuse to support the coalition, the majority starts to erode very quickly.