The Jews of Iraq—who constitute the Diaspora’s oldest and for many centuries most important Jewish community—now find themselves threatened with massacre by Islamic State and facing discrimination by the central government. Tina Ramirez argues that the U.S. should be trying to protect them, along with Iraq’s other beleaguered religious minorities:

When I met with Sherzad Omar Mamsani, the Jewish representative to the Kurdish government, in December 2015, he proudly wore his kippah in public—an act of bravery and defiance against those who would see him and his people wiped out in Iraq. He told me that, contrary to reports of only a half-dozen Jewish families, there are as many as 430 such families left in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Although most of these Jews have kept a low profile in public, they experienced a renewed sense of hope with Sherzad’s appointment by the Kurdish government. Sherzad is working in the relative safety of the Kurdish zone to rebuild Iraq’s remaining synagogues and Jewish holy sites, and is helping rewrite the Jewish portion of Kurdish school lessons on Iraq’s religious history. . . .

[I]t is now the Kurds who are helping the Jews rebuild in Iraq. Similar support has not been forthcoming from the Baghdad government. Iraq is facing a critical turning point in its history. The last historic Jewish community and countless other minority faiths are at risk of disappearing. The U.S. and United Nations need a robust policy that recognizes the departure of these communities as the result of more than just the existential security challenges from Islamic militants. Iraq’s government must treat Jews—and every minority group within its borders—as full and equal citizens or they will disappear in the Middle East.

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.