While campaigning for mayor of New York City in 2013, Bill de Blasio developed important relationships with influential ḥaredi leaders, which would serve him well politically. In turn he, delivered on two key promises: easing restrictions on a controversial circumcision practice, known as m’tsitsah b’peh—considered essential by some Orthodox rabbinic authorities—and curbing government interference in religious schools. But de Blasio leaves office unpopular with Jewish constituents across the spectrum. Jacob Kornbluh writes:

Liberal supporters chafed at what they saw as de Blasio’s overly solicitous attitude toward the Orthodox. “All the Reform leaders wanted to talk about with him was his stance on m’tsitsah b’peh and that he was too supportive of Israel,” said one former senior aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share what had been the private conversations.

But de Blasio and Orthodox Jews — both leadership and their followers — had a serious falling out when the pandemic hit. . . . The mayor managed to enrage much of the Jewish community with a single tweet in April 2020. After witnessing a large Orthodox funeral in Williamsburg, de Blasio warned “the Jewish community, and all communities” that police would vigorously enforce social distancing rules that prohibited such public gatherings. Many Orthodox leaders took offense to the singling out of their people and this particular funeral, and asked why de Blasio didn’t crack down on crowds in public parks. Others were infuriated by what they saw as “scapegoating” of all Jews based on the behavior of one sect.

De Blasio . . . has been an ardent supporter and is also an outspoken critic of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement. Barely a month in office, de Blasio delivered a fervent pro-Israel speech at a closed AIPAC meeting, and faced fierce liberal backlash.

A former senior aide said, “He believes the creation of Israel as a Jewish state is a correct and necessary outcome of the Holocaust. That’s all. . . . That doesn’t mean its government can do no wrong or that its treatment of Palestinians doesn’t need drastic improvement.”

Of course, to Israelis and committed Zionists, the idea that the Holocaust somehow justifies Israel’s existence—and that Jews would otherwise not have a right to self-national determination—is anathema.

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.”