Next week, on March 31, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will find out whether he finally has lost control of the Likud Party to Danny Danon and the settlers.

Members of the party’s central committee will gather at the convention center in Tel Aviv to decide between two proposals: one by Netanyahu, and the other by Deputy Minister of Defense Danny Danon. The proposal submitted by Danon, who also serves as chairman of the Likud central committee, includes a few clauses that are intended to significantly increase his authority in the faction. Among other things, the proposal would empower him to summon the party’s central committee more frequently and to make decisions within the committee that would restrict Netanyahu in diplomatic negotiations. Netanyahu will try to prevent the inevitable by offering a counterproposal that will restore his authority over the party.

As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the very fact that such a fight is taking place is humiliating. He is in his third term as prime minister, having won the trust of the Israeli public yet again just one year ago. Nevertheless, he is being dragged before his party’s central committee by order of the court, at the demand of a relatively new Knesset member, the darling of extreme right-wing groups that want to limit the ability of the prime minister to make major diplomatic decisions.

Netanyahu will arrive at the event beaten up and weakened inside his own faction, with several embarrassing defeats already inflicted upon him. In contrast, Danon will arrive as a winner. He already succeeded in dragging the prime minister before the central committee against his will and in turning the event into a face-off in which the prime minister has no advantage over him. The situation is almost unprecedented in the history