To Hussein Aboubakr, the signing of the Abraham Accords by Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel on Tuesday represents a massive change in the Middle East, and the Islamic world as a whole. For nearly a century, successive political and religious movements have held up the Palestinian—or, better, the anti-Israel—cause as a lodestar, imbuing it with near-eschatological significance. The willingness of these two Arab monarchies to engage openly with the Jewish state suggests signals that this cause is rapidly losing its power:

On December 20, a Palestinian waited in a wooded area near a Jewish village in northern Israel in the hope of encountering a victim. Soon enough he spotted Esther Horgan walking home from an evening jog and killed her by beating her with a rock. He later told the police that he did the deed to avenge the death of Kamal Abu Wa’er, a terrorist in Israeli custody. Itamar Marcus explains: