Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted to Facebook late in the evening of Nov. 30. At first, Netanyahu’s comments seemed to lack any context. He used more than 500 words just to say that the media and the left were persecuting him and his family “after failing to convince the people of Israel that their way was the right way by defeating us in the ballot box.”

Whenever he faces a political crisis, Netanyahu has a habit of delivering speeches or writing social media posts along these same lines. In them, he attempts to portray the media and the left as a single enemy that uses illegitimate means to bring him down. In most cases, this is a response to various personal scandals and police investigations against him. This time, however, when he went on the attack, there was no obvious reason for it.

The explanation only came the following afternoon, when it was learned that his wife, Sara, was summoned for another criminal investigation concerning the misuse of public funds, a scandal surrounding the prime minister’s residence. The basis for this latest interrogation was apparently new information obtained by her interrogators.

Netanyahu knew by Nov. 30 that his wife would be spending many long hours in the interrogation room, so he decided to deliver a pre-emptive strike. He wanted to get the first shot in by telling the public that this was yet another case of political persecution waged against him by the left.