In Cairo, representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) met last week to discuss an arrangement for sharing governing responsibilities in a post-war Gaza Strip. Little has come of many similar previous negotiations. And even if they were successful, they would only empower Hamas, writes Khaled Abu Toameh:

By negotiating with Hamas about the future of the Gaza Strip, [the PA president Mahmoud] Abbas is legitimizing the Iran-backed terror group and sending a message to the Palestinians and the rest of the world that he sees no problem with dealing with murderers and terrorists who committed the most horrific crimes against Jews since the Holocaust. . . . Abbas should, instead, be condemning Hamas and distancing himself from the terror group rather than sending his officials to hug and kiss its representatives in Cairo.

He should be holding Hamas fully responsible for the destruction of the Gaza Strip as a result of the war the terror group started when it sent thousands of its terrorists to attack Israeli civilians in their homes on October 7, 2023.

The assumption that Hamas would voluntarily give up its control of the Gaza Strip because of any unity agreement with Abbas is just laughable. Abbas’s efforts to reach a deal with Hamas will only embolden and reconstitute the terror group and incentivize it to pursue its jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.

The Biden administration chose to turn a blind eye to Abbas’s efforts to legitimize Hamas.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.