Israel’s constitution requires that the premiership go to the head of the party receiving not a plurality but a majority—that is, 61, of the 120 Knesset seats. Since, given the country’s fractious political system, neither Likud nor its primary rival, Zionist Union, can emerge victorious alone or even with one or two medium-sized parties, each would have to form a coalition with various smaller parties, some of which could swing right or left. But, writes Haviv Rettig Gur, there’s also another variable in the equation:

With no candidate winning the 61 recommendations for an outright appointment, the president may decide to force a national-unity government. Can the president do that? Yes, with surprising ease.

It is completely within President [Reuven] Rivlin’s constitutional rights to offer both [Isaac] Herzog and [Benjamin] Netanyahu an ultimatum: agree to a national-unity government, dividing the premiership by rotation, or see your opponent get the first chance at premier. The simple fact that so much of the next Knesset won’t be beholden to either left or right makes this a possibility, since Herzog would likely be able to gather together a coalition with nearly as much ease as Netanyahu.

But would Rivlin force his will onto grudging coalition partners? Netanyahu think so. This was the fear that drove him to oppose Rivlin’s candidacy for president last year.

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.