Born in a shtetl in what is now Belarus in 1915, Yitzḥak Shamir came to the Land of Israel in 1935, where he later joined the underground Zionist group known as the Leḥi and was eventually imprisoned by the British mandatory authorities. After Israeli independence, he served for several years in the Mossad before entering politics. He held the post of prime minister from 1983 to 1984, and again from 1986 to 1992, leading the nation during the first intifada, the Iraqi Scud-missile attacks of the Persian Gulf war, and the Madrid peace talks with the Palestinians. Although Shamir, who died in 2012, is remembered in a positive light by large numbers of Israelis, he is much less admired by journalists and academics.

Erez Fridman and Igal Lerner, who have recently released a documentary about Shamir, discuss his legacy with his son Yair Shamir, the historian Martin Kramer, and the marketing executive Noa Cacharel. Among much else, they highlight the role of Israel’s seventh prime minister in cultivating peace with Jordan, in orchestrating the Russian aliyah, and in transforming the Jewish state into the start-up nation. (Moderated by Naomi Reinharz. Video, 62 minutes.)

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.