Although Mahmoud Abbas condemned yesterday’s terrorist attack on worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, in the next breath he condemned “invasions of al-Aqsa mosque, the provocations of settlers, and the incitement of certain Israeli ministers.” Over the last weeks, he and his Fatah associates have praised perpetrators of terrorist attacks and published cartoons glorifying violence. Nor are they content to support terror merely with words, as Shoham Wexler writes:

The Palestinian Authority . . . is also active in protecting murderers and terrorists. Thus, for instance, the PA pays a salary to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. A prisoner serving a sentence of up to three years gets a monthly salary of 1,400 Israeli shekels. If he’s serving a period of 10-15 years, he receives a monthly “salary” of 6,000 shekels. The hardcore prisoners serving for 30 years and above get 12,000 shekels. In addition to the “salaries,” the PA prison-affairs ministry and the PLO prison-affairs authority provide grants of 2,000 shekels a month to released prisoners who can’t find work. Some of the prisoners also receive money from Hamas and organizations like the al-Nur prisoners’ association. So a terrorist can receive a monthly salary of thousands of shekels just for attacking Jews.

Before we Israelis throw up our hands and argue that there’s no way to fight a “grassroots war,” we need to remember that this was preceded by a massive incitement campaign and financial aid and security for anyone (or their families) who attacks Jews. This is a psychological and financial lifeline we can and should cut, and the sooner the better.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days