Much like its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Council (UNHRC)—whose current member nations include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba—dedicates much if not most of its time to condemning the Jewish state for imaginary crimes. Its recent report, produced by an “independent” commission of inquiry and concerning the violence along the Gaza border, is no exception. Alan Baker writes:

The commission’s legal assessment determines that the demonstrations [at the border fence] “were civilian in nature, had clearly stated political aims and, despite some acts of significant violence, did not constitute combat or a military campaign.” As such, the commission interprets the applicable legal framework to be that of law enforcement and policing, [rather than of] “combat or a military campaign.”

In making this curious assessment and determination, the commission totally ignores both the declared and documented intentions of the organizers as well as the declarations by the Hamas leadership calling upon the demonstrators to . . . charge the border fence, hurl explosive devices toward the Israeli soldiers guarding the fence, attach explosive devices to the fence, break through and infiltrate into Israeli territory, and attack and kill Israeli residents in towns and villages in the vicinity of the fence. . . .

In making their legal assessment, and in so downplaying the illegal nature of the demonstrations, the commission is, in effect, denying Israel’s sovereign right to defend its border against armed assault and to prevent illegal and violent infiltration into its sovereign territory.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.