Commenting on Antony Blinken’s recent interview in the New York Times, Seth Mandel writes:

The truth is that it’s not difficult to get Israel to make concessions, but only under certain conditions is it even possible to move the Arab side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Donald Trump came into office and reversed Barack Obama’s daylight policy, and by the end of his term Israel and Arab states had signed historic recognition deals.

Whether there is daylight or no daylight, Israel will make moves for peace—because it wants peace. But only when there is no daylight will the Arab world make reciprocal moves. This was Blinken’s point. Every time there was daylight between the U.S. and Israel, Hamas backed off from agreeing to a cease-fire and releasing hostages.

Putting daylight between the U.S. and Israel is satisfying to anti-Israel media activists. But it does nothing for the Palestinians, nothing for peace, and nothing for America.

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.