Perhaps the most influential anti-Semitic text in 19th-century Russia was The Book of the Kahal—a precursor to, and major influence on, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Its author, Yakov Brafman (1825-1879), was a Jewish convert to Christianity. And he was not the only Russian Jewish convert to use his status to defame his people before an all-too-credulous Russian audience. In fact, the tsar’s secret police kept careful lists of converts who could serve as informers. Among them was Dmitry Ivanovich (né Moshe Itzkovich) Blank, who has the added distinction of being the great-grandfather of Vladimir Lenin. Hadassah Assouline writes:

We know of at least two episodes in which Moshe Blank . . . quarreled with a fellow townsman and members of the community of Starokonsantinov [now in western Ukraine]. In 1809, after a string of earlier disagreements, the Jewish community accused him of setting fire to the town. A trial acquitted Blank, but he left the community and moved to [the nearby city of] Zhitomir, where he continued his retaliation against members of his former community in a letter of complaint that he sent to Tsar Alexander I. This letter, which predates the one below, never reached the tsar but remained with the local authorities in Zhitomir.

Blank also became embroiled in disputes with the local Jews of Zhitomir and following legal proceedings he lost most of his vast property, including a local brick factory. The episode stretched from 1838 to 1844, and immediately afterward Blank converted. . . .

Unlike other letters from informants in the [secret-police] files, Blank’s does not inform on a particular person or on members or leaders of a particular community, but on the Jews of Russia in general, and his missive had consequences for Russian Jewry for years to come. . . .

Two days after the head of the [secret police read Blank’s 1845 letter to Tsar Nicholas I describing systemic Jewish perfidy], he presented the tsar with a report about the letter. . . . In the report, the head of the department noted all of Blank’s accusations against the Jews and suggested adopting a series of measures in the spirit of Blank’s letter. . . . In August 1846, Blank wrote another document, again in Yiddish, “about various methods of converting the Jews.” This document was sent to the Ministry of the Interior, which passed it on, by order of the tsar, to the Committee for Jewish Affairs. . . .

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.