Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, leaders of HaBayit HaYehudi, have logged many hours with Benjamin Netanyahu over the years. They spent almost two years (2006-2008) with him as close advisers — Bennett as his chief of staff and Shaked as the director of his office — when he served as chair of the opposition and was preparing to run for prime minister. A clash with Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, forced the pair to leave a year before Netanyahu was re-elected to office.

Like many others who worked with Netanyahu over the years — ministers, advisers, spokespersons — Bennett and Shaked supposedly knew how he makes decisions. They were also familiar with the indecisiveness that grips him until the very last moment, his flip-flops and reaction to pressure, and his susceptibility to blackmail. In 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described Netanyahu as “easily panicked.”

Following the Nov. 14 resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, Bennett saw an opportunity to blackmail Netanyahu. The ultimatum delivered by his party — appoint Bennett as defense minister or we walk out of your government — was based on his familiarity with the Netanyahu of old. The resignation of Liberman had left Netanyahu with a narrow majority coalition, and a departure by HaBayit HaYehudi would have meant the toppling of the government and early elections. Bennett knew that Netanyahu did not want to call snap elections at this point in time. He also knew that Liberman had left Netanyahu exposed and vulnerable to right-wing criticism over his allegedly insipid policy on Gaza.

Bennett must have assumed this was the opportunity of a lifetime: to walk into the defense minister’s office and succeed where others before him had failed, restoring Israel’s deterrence capability and resolving the seemingly intractable problem of the Gaza Strip. Bennett has been eyeing the defense portfolio for a long time, periodically lashing out at Liberman and claiming he and Netanyahu were weak on Hamas.