Last week, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas announced the cancelation of elections for the Palestinian parliament, which had been scheduled for later this month. Most likely, writes Elliott Abrams, the presidential elections planned for June won’t take place either. This decision, Abrams argues, is likely for the best, even though it undermines the PA’s legitimacy. He considers what can be done:

According to numerous critics, many of whom have positions at prestigious think tanks and publications, the normalization agreements the Jewish state reached with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain constituted an abandonment of the Palestinians. Peter Berkowitz argues that, to the contrary, the Abraham Accords can help to improve the lot of the Palestinians, and to reduce the intensity of their conflict with Israel: