Last week, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a prestigious bipartisan think tank, hosted a lecture by the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif—something it has done for several years running. While there are always a few activists protesting these visits, this year the issue received far more attention because of the Islamic Republic’s recent execution of the wrestling champion Navid Afkari, who had participated in pro-democracy protests. The CFR’s president—and former State Department panjandrum—Richard Haas responded to his critics with the following tweet:

Like many others I condemn the execution of Navid Afkari. I also hold the view that human rights constitute an important dimension of U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, I believe that CFR is correct to meet with Iran’s foreign minister.

Amir Taheri comments:

In November 1938, a few days after Kristallnacht, the French ambassador to Berlin, Robert Coulondre, reported the event to Paris, describing the savagery in the heart of Europe, concluding that “nevertheless one should understand German grievances against the Jews.” Western intellectuals who visited the Soviet Union under Stalin tacitly admitted that thousands were killed by the regime and millions starved to death but—using the same “nevertheless” talisman—they also concluded that all was for the best in that best of all worlds.

[In his lecture] at the CFR meeting, Zarif repeated the same claims, not to say lies, that he has been dishing out to the illustrious audience for years. And it seems that his audience gobbled them up with the same appetite as before. . . . [As] portrayed by Zarif, the Khomeinist regime is a peace-and-love enterprise where the judiciary is independent, all freedoms are respected, and the strategic aim is to establish peace and harmony across the globe. There are no political prisoners in Iran. Tehran’s support for Hizballah and Hamas is cultural and Iranian presence in Syria is only advisory at the invitation of the Syrian government.

In the CFR echo chamber the airing of opinions without an ethical barometer is, at best, a trivial pursuit, and, at worst, a betrayal of scholarship.

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.