Israel recently decided, at the behest of Christian religious leaders, to recognize those Arabic-speaking Christians who wish to identify themselves as “Arameans.” This has raised the prospect of their also reviving Aramaic, the language of Jesus, the Talmud, Judaism’s most well-known prayers (kaddish and kol nidre), and the long-ago Christian communities of the Middle East. Such an outcome is unlikely but not impossible, writes Philologos:

Many Christian denominations in Israel, such as the Maronite and Eastern Orthodox churches, still use Aramaic as a language of prayer, just as Jews used Hebrew liturgically long after they had ceased to speak it. (The survival of ancient languages that are no longer spoken in prayer and sacred texts is common all over the world, such as Latin in Catholicism, Sanskrit in Hinduism, Pali in Buddhism, Ge’ez in Ethiopian Christianity, and so on.) There is no reason that Israeli Christian Arabs should not learn to understand the language in which they pray and have a large religious literature, which is something that very few of them are able to do now. Just as many Jews in America study Hebrew, say, not in order to be spoken but in order to be comprehended as the language of the synagogue and Jewish tradition, so Aramaic could become a focus of study in Israel.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.