Last month, the Palestinian Authority president gave a speech simultaneously absolving the Nazis of anti-Semitism and arguing that the Holocaust was justified. The speech attracted widespread media coverage, condemnation from the European Union, and even an open letter of denunciation from a group of Palestinian academics. (The past statements of such signatories as Rashid Khalidi does, however, raise questions about the writers’ sincerity.) Perhaps the most puzzling reaction came from the veteran American Middle East hand Martin Indyk, who said he was “despairing about how to respond” to this “profoundly anti-Semitic diatribe” from someone he considered “a personal friend for three decades.”

All these responses are far more newsworthy than the speech itself, in which Abbas simply repeated a sampling of the canards about Jews he has spent his entire career spouting—as the Middle East Media Research Institute details:

These statements are in fact part of a comprehensive anti-Semitic ideology Abbas has espoused and elaborated on over the years. This ideology includes blaming the persecution of Europe’s Jews, from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, on their behavior or “social role” in Europe, while repeating classic anti-Semitic tropes such as the Jews’ avariciousness—yet at the same time questioning the scope of the Holocaust and the authenticity of the gas chambers. Another central theme in this ideology is accusing the Zionist movement of collaborating with the Nazis and of resembling the Nazis in its ideas and methods. Abbas’s accusations against the Zionist movement and Israel likewise incorporate anti-Semitic themes such as allegations about poisoning wells.

Some of Abbas’s ideas were set out in his 1982 doctoral dissertation, submitted to the Oriental College in Moscow and titled The Secret Connection between Nazism and Zionism—1933-1945.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.