Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a significant role in evoking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's image as the Israeli politician who is most likely to cave in under pressure. For years, he used to portray him as panicky, using very graphic descriptions about the beads of sweat rolling down his face whenever he came across complex and stressful situations. "Don't touch Bibi, he'll ruin it for himself," Sharon derisively remarked about his Likud Party opponent, oftentimes being in the right.
For years such tales haunted Netanyahu until they dissipated. This is perhaps owing to the fact that Sharon and his associates are no longer in the loop and cannot continue fueling the image. Yet in recent days, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett — who serve as chairpersons of the Yesh Atid and HaBayit HaYehudi parties respectively — have made Netanyahu run the gauntlet, Sharon style, as part of an orchestrated move to apply pressure to Netanyahu, throw a wrench in the alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, and get both of them into his coalition. This coalition negotiation tactic is predicated on the assumption that Netanyahu will be made to believe that their alliance is unbreakable.