Considering the possible ways that Iran may decide to retaliate against Israel for the targeted killings of some of its chief terrorists, Ron Ben-Yishai writes:

I will go out on a limb here and say that the level of anxiety, might I say panic, that has spread to large parts of the Israeli public, should be taken down a notch. . . . The Iranians will likely launch an “open conflict,” against Israel that could last two or three days, based on the international efforts of its regime and the statements of its senior officials and commanders. The attacks will be launched by its proxies as well and will attempt to challenge the U.S.-led coalition and Israeli defenses, but the attack will be measured and not very destructive.

This assessment is based on the knowledge that Iran is weak and its regime is concerned over its instability. If the Israeli home front were badly hit, Israel would be easily able to target at least 30 percent of Iran’s oil industry.

Israel will also quite easily destroy Iran’s dams, causing not only drought but a shortage of drinking water that would require the population to receive it in rations. Iranian ports, the country’s lifeline to the world, are large and more vulnerable than the ports of Haifa and Ashdod.

Not all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are underground and its military production sites, including its drone-production plants, are known to Israel’s intelligence and air force and are also susceptible to attack in a manner that would threaten the regime’s stability, and that is reason for restraint.

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.