On the face of it, Yisrael Beiteinu settled for way to low a price in exchange for propping up a weak coalition. They got one minister (as opposed to the four that Shas has) and their demands on civil marriage and further withdrawals were not met. What gives?

The answer is that Olmert's preferred coalition all along has been with Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, Yahadut Hatorah and the Pensioners. The reason is simple. All those parties are one-man shows and hence very easy to deal with as opposed to the rudderless Labor Party. He needed Labor for the "Hitkansut" but now that that's off the table, he's going back to the original plan. He's got three out of four parties in and he's been amazingly obsequious towards Yahadut Hatorah lately. Once he gets them in, he'll happily let Labor leave the coalition. Obviously, the deal with Yisrael Beiteinu is that they get little now, but if they wait patiently for Labor to leave, they get all the goodies ahead of Likud.