The Ministry of Home Front Defense was created in January 2011 during the days of the second Netanyahu government for clear political reasons and one single purpose: to preserve the diplomatic deadlock. At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak were facing serious pressure from two senior members of the Labor Party, who sat with them in the Cabinet: Binyamin (Fouad) Ben Eliezer and Isaac (Buji) Herzog. They demanded that the diplomatic process with the Palestinians be revived and threatened to quit the government if the deadlock continued.
Barak and Netanyahu, then the Bobbsey Twins of Israeli politics, were fed up with all those threats. Barak wanted to continue serving as defense minister, Netanyahu wanted him by his side when dealing with the Iranian issue and both were concerned about the integrity of the coalition. That was the background for the establishment of the Atzmaut faction in the Knesset, which split off from the Labor Party practically overnight. In addition to its Chairman Barak, Atzmaut also included Minister Shalom Simhon, Deputy Ministers Matan Vilnai and Orit Noked and Knesset member Einat Wilf. As compensation for their decision to break with their original party, Noked and Vilnai were offered a promotion to full ministerial positions. Noked became the minister of agriculture and Vilnai, a retired general who was then serving as deputy minister of defense, was put in charge of the new Ministry of Home Front Defense, created for the occasion.
