In the coming weeks, the IDF plans to begin drafting Haredim of eligible age. Meanwhile, haredi rabbis and political leaders continue to insist that they oppose enlistment under any circumstance. Tamir Granot, a religious Zionist rabbi and the head of a yeshiva—whose own son was killed in action on October 15, 2023—reflects with sensitivity on the distance that separates him from his haredi coreligionists, with whom he shares so much. Granot, on the one hand, has little sympathy for the arguments against conscription:

I don’t believe that there is a single haredi rabbi or member of that society who thinks that if two people are sitting at home, and one is studying Torah, and terrorists are standing outside the door, then it is legitimate for the student to say to his friend: sorry, I can’t help, I’m busy—but you go out to fight or die. The thought that studying the Torah exempts one from joining the war to save the people of Israel is a desecration of the Torah.

On the other hand, he believes the problem can only be solved if the army is willing to meet Haredim part of the way:

In order to absorb Haredim into the IDF without posing a threat, the army will have to adapt itself. . . . The army will also have to compromise in terms of some of its values. For example, in terms of integrating women soldiers or commanders into units comprising Haredim, complete gender equality (to whatever degree it exists in the regular army) will need to be reconsidered.

Haredi society will have to mature and start to take responsibility—and we must believe in its power to do that. I have great faith in its strengths, because of the Torah, kindness, community, and wisdom which mark that society.

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.