Yesterday, Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Israeli party Yamina, signed a pledge that he will not enter into a governing coalition with the left-of-center party Yesh Atid. In doing so, he has capitulated to pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party is expected to get a plurality of the votes in tomorrow’s election, but who will be hard-pressed to form a coalition without Bennett. Haviv Rettig Gur examines the dilemma which Bennett and Netanyahu—fierce rivals for right-wing votes—will likely find themselves in after tomorrow’s election.

Bennett cannot reasonably ask for a rotation as prime minister [in a Likud-led coalition], but there is a demand he might make: . . . a “parity” government, a cabinet where Bennett and Netanyahu have an equal number of ministers, and where Bennett has the sole power to fire ministers under his control. Bennett would thereby also gain a veto over the cabinet agenda.

[But Bennett’s] bid for office rests on the premise that Netanyahu’s government has failed the country and that Netanyahu’s governing style has exacted a terrible cost for all Israelis. Just as Bennett will be hard-pressed to deny the right-wing its coalition, so he’ll be under immense pressure to show that the coalition he will be helping to form won’t be merely one more Netanyahu government in which he serves as just one more bit player and political servant.

In short, from Bennett’s perspective, a demand for parity is sensible and necessary. It would ensure Netanyahu carries out his commitments and grant Bennett the kind of policy influence he believes he deserves. And if Bennett takes that path, Netanyahu will face a painful dilemma. His next cabinet is already a crowded place.

Netanyahu is already said to be considering an idea bandied about last year after Likud MKs expressed bitterness at the number of ministries handed to Blue and White in the unity agreement. He may seek to rotate two or three ministers through each post during the next government’s term. It’s a great way to give stately honors to a large number of unhappy MKs; it’s a terrible way to govern.

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”