Foreign Minister David Levy's table-thumping oratory, perceived intellectual shortcomings and repeated threats to quit have made him the butt of Israeli jokes for decades.
This time the white-haired, 60-year-old veteran of Israeli brinkmanship may enjoy the last laugh.The Moroccan-born father of 12, who lists his profession as "construction worker," is threatening to take his five-man faction out of the ruling coalition in a move that would cripple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
The issue this time is not his own personal honor - as it has often appeared to be in the past - but the needs of low-income Sephardic Jews with origins in Arab countries to whom he owes his political life in the first place.
Levy threatens to leave his longtime rival, 48-year-old Netanyahu, writhing in the political dirt and to stop Middle East peacemaking dead in its tracks unless the prime minister finds the many shekels in the 1998 budget that he promised Levy six months ago for helping the working-class poor.
Analysts said the foreign minister, who still returns home each night to the impoverished town of Beit Shean, stands to lose nothing with his latest gambit as the champion of Israel's growing number of post-socialism "have-nots."
"If Netanyahu bows to his demands, Levy becomes a hero of the underclass. If Netanyahu rejects them, Levy positions himself as a man of principle who has torn away a portion of Net-an-yahu's blue-collar power base," said David Makovsky, diplomatic correspondent for Israel's Haaretz newspaper.
As Israel headed into the political recess of the Jewish sabbath, Netanyahu vowed to work to assuage the worries of his rebellious foreign minister in time to present the budget to parliament for approval Monday.
Israel's self-proclaimed advocate for the underdog had brought Netanyahu to his knees. But on peacemaking, critics have long labeled Levy an opportunist swinging left and right to suit his political aims.
Although now the biggest booster of U.S.-brokered Middle East negotiations, in 1989 he was one of three Cabinet ministers imposing constraints on then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's peace efforts.
Now he presents himself as both a nationalist backing Jewish settlement of occupied lands and a pragmatist who favors an ac-com-mo-da-tion with the Arabs - even when it comes to swapping land for peace with the Pal-es-tin-ians.
While Netanyahu refuses to say how much West Bank land he plans to hand over to Palestinians to meet the requirements of interim peace deals, Levy has outright insisted that Israeli leaders know they risk an end to peacemaking if it is anything less than 10 percent.
Levy has also said he supports giving back to Syria some of the occupied Golan Heights Israel captured in 1967 in return for peace with Damascus - a position that contradicts the guidelines of Netanyahu's government.
Levy is the most successful Moroccan-born politician in an Israeli establishment long dominated by Jews from Europe.
His decision to enter politics followed his being jailed for 12 days when he vandalized an employment office after a long bout of joblessness in the 1960s.
But analysts say his rise to foreign minister, twice in Likud governments, defies logic. He speaks French but not English - a handicap with Washington, Israel's closest ally, and a sharp contrast to the smooth-talking, U.S.-educated Net-an-yahu.
Jokes about him are an Israeli institution. Some are ethnic slurs. Some stem from his tendency to personalize everything, his flowery speech and his anti-intellectual rhetoric.
Foreign Ministry sources have long whispered that Levy neglects his foreign affairs duties, spending few hours at the ministry each day, consults little and delays political appointments.
His on-again, off-again relations with Netanyahu are the stuff of Israeli legend.
Fearing he would be sidelined, Levy bolted Netanyahu's Likud party in 1995, a year before elections, and established his Gesher (Bridge) party with the aim of running for prime minister. He later merged Gesher into an alliance with Likud.
Correspondent Herb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post Friday described their relationship as "a match made in hell."
"For nearly a decade, the two men have been bitter, bitter rivals. Levy with his ego, vanity and arrogance has clashed constantly with Netanyahu with his ego, vanity and arrogance," Keinon wrote.