Since the war began, we have seen university students, administrators, and faculty alternately respond with cowardice, hypocrisy, and sheer anti-Semitism. But what about those scholars dedicate specifically to Jewish concerns? On Monday October 9, the Association of Jewish Studies (AJS)—a body whose members are overwhelmingly Jewish—issued a statement of “deep sorrow for the loss of life” that, in Daniel B. Schwartz’s words, “managed the rare feat of being both drab and discordant.” It seemed especially milquetoast when compared with the forceful statements the AJS issued after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, or the renewed Russian assault on Ukraine in 2022.

The next day, after receiving much criticism, the AJS’s executive committee issued a new, somewhat bolder statement. Schwartz describes his reaction:

That’s more like it, I thought. But on a second reading, I noticed something—or rather its absence. here was now an agent—Hamas—and specific actions, but there wasn’t exactly an object. Civilians were targeted in Israel, but what sort of civilians? We know that tourists, Thai workers, and Arabs were murdered, maimed, raped, and kidnapped along with the Jewish residents of the towns, kibbutzim, and moshav on the Gaza border. But we also know that the aim of Hamas was to kill, torture, and terrorize Jews. Indeed, they have gloried in precisely that in their social media posts about the attack, and, after all, it is infamously called for in their chartering document.

Why did the half-dozen distinguished scholars who form the executive committee of the Association of Jewish Studies first feel obligated to obfuscate about the terrible events to which they were ostensibly responding and then, even after resolving to speak more frankly, still find it hard to speak of Jews? After all, they (we) are, in one way or another, the subject of their academic life work. I wasn’t in the room, but I have a guess, and so, I bet, do you.

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.