After many years of crying wolf — so much so that it has become a ritual — the wolf may, indeed, arrive. Warnings of the imminent collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) go back to the beginning of the PA’s existence in 1993. The threats have gone up and down over the years, but they have always emerged as futile. Every time Israel freezes the PA’s monies, or fines the PA in a one-sided gesture, or tries to economically strangle the PA, the senior PA members emphatically announce that they will simply return the keys and close down the business. In the past, this was avoided at the very last minute. In recent years, even the natural tension that once accompanied these crises has disappeared. No one really took the threats of the elderly PA leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, seriously. But now, for the first time, the threats seem genuine.

A host of mitigating factors has disappeared; checks and balances have collapsed. Both sides cry “help me,” but there is no one to come to the rescue. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trapped in the most right-wing coalition that has ever existed, and is thus held hostage by the extremists. President Abbas is dispirited, sick, at the twilight of his tenure and striving for a dramatic way to leave his mark. The world leaders who usually know how to push the two sides into each other’s arms at the right moment are tired of the game. Special circumstances will be needed to avert a free fall.

Once upon a time, Netanyahu operated on behalf of Israeli strategic interests that viewed the survival and functioning of the PA as an important security need. Today, this interest plays second fiddle to Netanyahu’s even more existential need: his own political and personal survival, which depends on his hard-line right-wing partners. These partners hold the keys that will enable him to evade trial (an earlier Al-Monitor article addressed this issue at length). Netanyahu needs his partners to propose some sort of law that would offer him immunity. Bezalel Smotrich, a dominant Knesset member from the United Right party, feels that Israel would benefit from the downfall of the PA and from the chaos that would follow.