Hello, Mahmoud, where have you been all this time? “Sons of Dogs,” is what the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, called Hamas today in a meeting of his politburo. In a raised voice, the 89-year-old, who is nearing his 20th year of a four-year term as elected leader of the Palestinian Authority, wanted to project displeasure. By holding hostages, he said, Hamas is giving Israel an excuse to continue attacking the people of Gaza.

“Our top priority is to stop Israel’s war of annihilation and to ensure the occupation withdraws from the entire Strip,” Mr. Abbas said, his voice rising, his fists waving in the air. “Why haven’t you released the American hostage? OK, sons of dogs, release all the hostages you hold and we’ll end this thing.” He also said that Hamas must hand its arms over to the Palestinian Authority, disarm, and become a political party. 

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 Mr. Abbas’s receding clout. 

The story is larger than Mr. Abbas. The likes of Qatar and Turkey support Hamas. Yet Arabs around the Mideast are turning their backs on their extreme, murderous ideology. Jordan today announced it would outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas. Saudi and Emirati officials are demanding that “not a single bullet” remain in Hamas’ hands after Gaza is rebuilt. Mr. Abbas seems eager to offer himself as an alternative.    

Plus, too, while Hamas’ 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, Mr. Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Mr. Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.” Prime Minister Netanyahu vows that “neither Hamas nor Abbas” will rule Gaza in the future. By highlighting the “American hostage,” Edan Alexander, in his speech, Mr. Abbas might then hope to revive Washington’s support of him as the Palestinian alternative to Hamas. 

Good luck with that one, too. This week President Trump spoke on the phone with Mr. Netanayhu. “The call went very well,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “We are on the same side of every issue.” Mr. Trump seems to prefer new, creative ideas for Gaza, rather than a return to decades of stale peace schemes. Those centered on a two-state solution that fetishes Mr. Abbas and his camarila as viable Palestinian partners for peace.

They were far from it. “I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state,” President Clinton said in 2016, blaming for his failure the Fatah negotiators led by Mr. Abbas under Yasser Arafat. Prime Minister Olmert’s even more generous 2008 proposal merited nary a response from Ramallah. Mr. Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

In reality, payments to killers of Israelis and the killers’ families were handed over to a Ramallah-financed company. If the Palestinian Authority has “one penny left, it is for the prisoners and Martyrs,” Mr. Abbas told Fatah leaders. No wonder Palestinian Arabs, Israelis, Mideasterners, Americans, even the Europeans, no longer take him seriously. To paraphrase an old Washington saw, since Mr. Abbas has no friends left, perhaps he should get a pooch.

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Correction: Eighty-Nine is the age of Mahmoud Abbas. An earlier version transposed the number.