Many early Zionists, rebels against tradition, wished to reach back over the centuries of exile to biblical times, trying to revive the language and sometimes even the practices of the Tanakh. Still others, associated with the “Canaanite” literary movement, sought to reach back further, to an imagined prebiblical era that was Hebraic but not Jewish. But when it comes to choosing names, Israelis seem to have favored the sorts of biblical names that, over the centuries, never really went out of style for Jews. JNS reports:

Among Israeli Jews, the most common name chosen for newborn boys over the past almost 77 years was David, with Yosef coming in second place, according to data gathered by the Interior Ministry. Those two were followed by Moshe, Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov, with Michael, Daniel, Hayyim, and Shlomo closing the top ten for Jewish boys.

The biblical name most commonly given to baby girls since the modern state was founded—also among Arab Israelis—was Sarah, followed by the Jewish names of Rachel, Miriam, and Esther. Hannah rounded out the top five, followed by Rivkah, Yael, Michal, Tamar, and Leah.

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.