Last week’s firebomb attack in Israel, which left an eleven-year-old girl in critical condition, will be met at most with a pro-forma condemnation from the White House. But, argue Moshe Philips and Benyamin Korn, concrete steps can and should be taken by the U.S. to punish such attacks and deter future ones. They write:

The problem is that [U.S. condemnations] will be just words; there will be no real-life consequences. A more effective response would be for President Obama to tell Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that if he wants to continue receiving $500 million in U.S. aid each year, he must tell the Palestinian public that such attacks are immoral. Not that he “condemns all violence.” And not in some English-language media outlet that average Palestinians will never hear. Abbas has to say that violence against Jews is immoral and that it must stop; and he has to say it in Arabic, on prime-time television.

If the Palestinian Authority believes the U.S. will never penalize or even seriously criticize its actions, it will continue encouraging and justifying Palestinian violence. In fact, a major Palestinian news agency, Ma’an, already has reported that the town where [the terror victim] Ayala Shapira resides is part of “a settlement bloc surrounding a number of Palestinian villages on at least three sides and preventing Palestinians from freely moving in the area.” That allegation is, of course, nonsense, but it gives Palestinian advocates a way to rationalize an otherwise inexcusable attack on a little Israeli girl.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.