At last month’s G20 summit, President Biden announced an initiative to connect India to Israel via shipping and railroad links that would run through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other countries—and eventually link up with the European Union. Such a scheme would build on both the Abraham Accords and the warm relations at present between Jerusalem and New Delhi, and also serve American strategic interests. To Efraim Inbar, Washington and its allies should be thinking even more boldly:

It immediately comes to mind that the corridor could constitute one of the more ambitious counters to China’s own Belt and Road Initiative, which sought to connect more of the world to that country’s economy. . . . However, if the American goal is to circumvent Chinese influence, the announced corridor needs an eastern extension. This Western-oriented corridor neglects important U.S. allies such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. These states are essential in the ongoing American competition with China.

Any trade corridor needs to be defended militarily. The U.S. must control both straits via its allies or its own maritime power. That requires the U.S. to establish the military might to maintain the freedom of navigation along the extended corridor. An uninterrupted flow of goods from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific is critical. Only an America that can supply security for the trade routes can reassure its allies and hedging states about American seriousness . . . in case of greater Chinese encroachment.

Nevertheless, both wings of the corridor are susceptible to hostile interference. Iran can act against free trade in the western corridor. It already does so by attacking even American ships in its vicinity in the Indian Ocean, and its presence in Yemen is also threatening. Similarly, China acts aggressively in the South China Sea and threatens to invade Taiwan.

The U.S. must demonstrate to [these] states that getting closer to China is unwise. In the Middle East, anti-American political entities such as Iran, Syria, and even the Palestinian Authority, which signed strategic partnerships with China, must realize that Beijing is not a reliable ally. The best demonstration is a strong American response to the Iranian challenges. In contrast, neither China nor Russia can project power in the Indian Ocean, signaling that China cannot guarantee security.

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.