There have been, over the last two years, a lot of very good reasons and plenty of appropriate occasions for Israel's Labour Party to pull out of Mr Ariel Sharon's deeply confrontational national unity government. That the party should do so eventually yesterday in a row over budget allocations to settlements in Gaza and the West Bank is scarcely testimony to courageous leadership.
The ostensible reason of Labour chairman and Defence Minister, Mr Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, for departure was a new-found concern for the economic plight of single-parent families, pensioners, and students, and the failure of Mr Sharon to accede to his demand for the redirection to them of the $148 million budget allocation to the controversial settlements. But the sum involved is barely 0.3 per cent of government spending and, as issues go, it had all the hallmarks of a demarche for internal party consumption, calculated largely to outflank more dovish challengers in Labour's leadership election..
Likud yesterday blamed Mr Ben-Eliezer for manufacturing a crisis, Mr Sharon accusing Labour of irresponsibility at a time of national crisis and insisting that he alone had been prepared to compromise.
Labour's was most certainly not the sort of bold stand that will provide a rallying point for a country sick of war and looking for an alternative to the sterile policies of Likud. Labour has for too long submerged its identity in a government that saw force as its only answer to the Palestinians and delighted in dismantling the Oslo peace process, and for many supporters, seems to have lost its authentic voice.
The resignations may not precipitate an immediate election - the budget may yet be passed and Mr Sharon survive with the support of small far-right and religious parties. But survival on this basis is likely to be precarious and almost certainly short-lived. He will face continuous pressure from the right to step up military action against the Palestinians and constant confidence votes in the Knesset and is unlikely to postpone a poll beyond early next year.
Alternatively, Mr Sharon may call elections within 90 days, and may indeed decide to do so to wrong-foot his rival, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Likud leadership contest that will be triggered automatically.
But, in truth, one way or the other, Israel now enters what may be a prolonged general election campaign. That could be a positive development, but only if Labour refinds its voice as the party of peace.