Azeem Rafiq, a Pakistan-born British professional cricket player, recently made waves after testifying before parliament about the racism and prejudice he suffered from teammates earlier in his career. Shortly thereafter, a decade-old correspondence between Rafiq and another cricketer came to light in which Rafiq made multiple anti-Semitic comments. Melanie Phillips observes:

Let’s park judgment for the moment on Rafiq himself. What was striking was the sharp difference between the reaction to the claims of racism against him and to the odious behavior by him. His racism claims led to instant anathema being pronounced upon the cricketing personalities he named. Yet the revelation of his past anti-Semitism—for which he instantly and abjectly apologized to the Jewish community—produced no such reaction.

Generous-minded people will want to believe that Rafiq is genuinely sorry for his past anti-Jewish prejudice. But [his former teammates] weren’t given the benefit of the doubt for their own shows of contrition. They were hung out to dry, with speaking engagements and radio appearances cancelled. So why the difference?

The real reason is surely the widespread refusal to acknowledge that Muslims might harbor bigoted attitudes. This is despite repeated evidence that a disproportionate number of Muslims hold anti-Jewish views. In 2019, a worldwide poll commissioned by the U.S. Anti-Defamation League found that Muslims in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK were on average almost three times more likely than the general population to accept anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Yet in all the recent sound and fury over anti-Semitism, this factor has almost never been mentioned. This is because of the “intersectionality” dogma that black- or brown-skinned people can’t be racists. And so those drawing attention to Muslim anti-Semitism find themselves anathematized instead as Islamophobes. [Even] Jewish leaders almost never mention it.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.