In the latter part of the 11th century, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, known by the acronym Rashi, wrote a commentary on the Hebrew Bible that would forever change how Jews approached the sacred text: explaining its meaning line-by-line and focusing on what he called the p’shat, or plain meaning, while drawing on the vast body of exegetical (and often nonliteral) works that preceded him. Likewise, the 12th century saw a similar shift in Christian Bible study, centered in northern France, where Rashi also made his home. Robert Harris explores the reasons for this parallel:

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: