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Who answers the red phone at 3 a.m.? Ahead of the April 2019 election, Netanyahu made that question the heart of his campaign, hoping to leverage his security edge over his challengers.

Last week we finally got the answer — but there was a twist. In the predawn hours, the phone rang in Netanyahu’s office, and the man who picked up the receiver was MK Yariv Levin, Netanyahu’s closest confidant and the next minister of justice — or foreign affairs, it’s his pick.

The taciturn Levin, who has the charisma of a tax assessor and the mind of a mathematician, leapfrogged Likud heavy hitters to place first in the party’s primaries last summer, putting him second only to Netanyahu in the hierarchy. He’s seen as the brains behind the opposition’s complex battle to unravel the change government, and now he’s heading the coalition negotiations for Likud.

Levin is virtually the only Likud politician who enjoys Netanyahu’s trust. Even his worst enemies don’t question his talent and loyalty, but his status as Netanyahu’s closest confidant doesn’t necessarily work in his favor — unless he enjoys spending endless hours poring over the bewildering myriad clauses and subclauses, stretching over hundreds of pages, of the Likud’s coalition agreements with its allies.