On March 13, the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and its security chief Majid Faraj were in the Gaza Strip on the first visit by high-ranking West Bank officials since the 2007 Hamas takeover. They were greeted with an assassination attempt. To Eran Lerman, the incident seems like a portent of the violent struggle for succession that is likely to follow the death of the aging, and possibly very ill, Mahmoud Abbas:

The attempt to assassinate both Faraj and Hamdallah in Gaza can serve as a rude wake-up call to all who expected the transition period to be orderly. . . .

[A]t the political level, what we end up facing in Ramallah is a weak, divided leadership driven to radical positions by internal rivalries. (Although it’s worth noting that this is what everyone thought would happen in Egypt when Sadat took over in 1970.) There does not seem to be much that Israel or the U.S. can do to reach a better outcome, and no number of sweeteners thrown in by the American government, as it puts the final touches on an administration peace plan, will bring about a different outcome. The “deal of the century” may therefore need to wait . . . until a younger, more effective, and more flexible generation takes over at key positions and can honestly look at the necessary compromises.

Until then, what Israel will need to apply—both in the West Bank and vis-à-vis Gaza—is a sobering dose of sophisticated conflict management. It would be best if Israel would avoid provocative political actions such as partial annexations. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration should focus on shoring up the Palestinian security forces, and on making the rising crop of younger Palestinian [leaders] acutely aware of what they can legitimately expect (a workable two-state solution with territorial contiguity) and what they can’t (total withdrawal with minimal swaps, the majority of settlers uprooted, some recognition of the “right of return,” carving up the living city of Jerusalem). This would establish a new paradigm for a new generation of leaders.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.