The original three-year term of the commissioner of Israel Police, Roni Alsheikh, will end in a couple of months. Likud leaders do not envy Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan, who will soon have to decide whether to extend the term of Alsheikh, whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees as leading the attempt to topple him by means of criminal investigations.

Since the investigations of the prime minister were revealed to the public in December 2016, Erdan has made sure to conduct himself professionally and appropriately with this hot potato, but Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, have long considered him a collaborator with Alsheikh. The Netanyahus expected Erdan to act aggressively with Alsheikh and to fall on the grenade for them. In other words, they expected Erdan to follow Minister of Culture Miri Regev’s example. Regev did not turn down any chance to fulfill their expectations and their whims, as she showed at the Independence Day torch ceremony, for instance, when Netanyahu addressed the public, contrary to tradition, on that day.

Aware of Netanyahu’s feelings and the resentment that has built against him at the prime minister’s residence, Erdan has been trying to thread the needle all this time. On the one hand he’s made sure to say the prime minister is presumed innocent, and on the other he’s made sure to back the police and not leave them to face the delegitimization campaign against them alone.

Before Alsheikh’s three-year term ends in December, Erdan will have to decide whether to extend the term for another year, as the law allows, or appoint a new commissioner. The question of who might be the next commissioner has agitated the top ranks of the police as well, and the discord has intensified with allegations from Alsheikh and others that the prime minister is promoting the candidacy of Maj. Gen. Yoram Halevy and has even met with him secretly behind the backs of Alsheikh and Erdan.