Early this year, after long and arduous negotiations, representatives of the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform denominations, together with figures from the Israeli government, worked out a compromise to allow for mixed-sex prayer at the Western Wall. The agreement, however, was tabled before going into effect due to opposition from ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset and is now in danger of being jettisoned completely. To Natan Sharansky—who, as head of the Jewish Agency, was the prime architect of the deal—doing so could cause lasting damage:

[T]he compromise reached over the Wall was truly remarkable. . . . [It] granted legitimacy to non-Orthodox communities while acknowledging that Orthodoxy remains Israel’s de-facto religious common denominator. The proposed arrangement, in turn, received the support of a huge majority of the Israeli government. Each of the parties to this unprecedented agreement understood something that their respective constituencies tend to overlook.

On one side, the representatives of the Israeli religious and political establishments recognized that Reform and Conservative Jewry are not fringe sects, as some in Israel seem to imagine, but important venues for large numbers of Jews who reject the strictures of Orthodoxy yet want to remain part of the Jewish people. . . .

For their part, the non-Orthodox parties to the agreement recognized that Orthodoxy’s preeminence in Israel is not an accident. Rather, it stems from the historic need for a unifying religious force in the Jewish state. . . .

[T]o abandon the Wall agreement now is to legitimate extremism, to alienate large groups of fellow Jews, and to allow discord to poison our public life further. . . . Anyone who cares about the future of the Jewish people should care about this issue.

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.