For over a decade, Israel’s economy has not just shown resilience in times of war or global credit meltdown. Since 2001, its GNP has almost doubled in value. Today, under the leadership of Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s latest government, those achievements are under a direct threat.

The issue is very simple. While the figure vary from report to report, Israel’s economy is suffering from a black hole to the tune of about 18 billion shekel, which equates to around US$4.7 billion. The fundamental causes of this dilemma are the ever increasing demands of the defense ministry – threats from Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and the cyber world – in conjunction with a political paralysis. The 2015 budget is still being debated.

For the moment, the government can still point to unemployment hovering at under 5.5%. The politicians explain that Israel long ago overtook the Greek economy. Microsoft et al are still investing in the country. Revenues from off-see gas are beginning to come in. All seems so wonderful, at least superficially. But it ain’t! Deep trouble lies ahead.

Let us go back a few months in time. With no small amount of irony, Netanyahu won the elections earlier this year by squeezing the vote of his potential coalition partners. That said, when the coalition was finally formed after around two months of negotiations, Netanyahu had caved in to and agreed to around 6 – 8.5 billions shekels of requests; 1.2 extra for yeshivot (religious seminaries), 2.6 extra for large families, 0.5 for the elderly, etc etc.

Today, the treasury is demanding – rather meekly – that all ministries cut their budgets by a flat 3%. Yet, even this would barely save 3 billion, and not necessarily in the immediate financial year.

What really annoys me is the ‘trifling matter’ of the 40 billion shekels of uncollected debts. You see, according to the 2014 financial statements, this is the mind-blowing sum of money that the government, via different parts of the civil service, has failed to bring from people, companies and organisations who owe big time. Over a quarter of the debt is unpaid taxes and a further 3 billion should have come from purchases of land.

Can you imagine the CFO of a commercial company ignoring or putting aside such sums? He would have been sacked. This issue is a disgrace. It reeks of poor management. It shows just how unable is the current set of ruling politicians, when it comes to good government.

All of Israel’s governments have been based on coalition agreements. Over seven decades, these have allowed Prime Ministers to enter office and have ensured that the country could move forward. While it would appear that this current coalition leaves Netanyahu surviving in the top job, it is not clear at what and to whose expense.