It’s easy to focus on the problems of the Jewish people today: the war in Gaza, the specter of a nuclear Iran, social unrest in Israel, rising anti-Semitism, and American Jewish assimilation, to name just a few. But Meir Soloveichik argues that, despite these many challenges, this moment in Jewish history resembles nothing more than the scenes described by biblical prophets:

Perhaps the most striking feature of Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington [on February 4] is that it featured a meeting with major evangelical leaders, but not with Jewish ones, reflecting the fact that it is millions of non-Jewish Americans who make up the heart of the America-Israel alliance. And this, in turn, reveals a fact about our moment that has no parallel in the biblical past: for the first time since the emergence of Abraham’s covenant nation, there are, numerically, more Gentiles who care about the well-being of the Jewish people than there are Jewish people on this earth. We live, one might say, in unprecedented times.

Various aspects of Jewish existence at present seem less like the biblical description of what once was, and more like the biblical prediction of what will be. The Bible speaks of a city of Jerusalem that expands far beyond its walls, that will attract the admiration of nations. None of this is an excuse for Israel to rest on its laurels or ignore its daunting challenges. . . . But it does mean that there may not be other examples of statesmanship in the past that speak precisely to our moment, and that much of our age is paralleled not in history, but in prophecy.

Jewish statesmen and leaders, in Israel and the Diaspora, will need, increasingly, to turn not to the tales of Greece and Rome, but to the Bible in order to search for instruction—to not only its description of past events, but also its vision for the Jewish future. This vision was presented thousands of years ago, but it seems increasingly relevant today.

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.