The ancient city of Dandan-Uiliq, abandoned centuries ago, is located in the Xinjiang region, where Communist China is currently carrying out one of its most brutal campaigns of persecution. Once the city was an important stop along the Silk Road. In 1901, an excavation of the ruins of a Buddhist monastery there revealed an ancient letter written in Hebrew script. At the time of its writing, Persian-speaking Jewish merchants were involved in trade across Eurasia, from southwestern Russia to the Chinese heartland. Ursula Sims-Williams explains how another recent discovery helped make sense of the document:

The document was provisionally dated to the end of the 8th century CE, when the site was abandoned, and this dating was confirmed by [modern scientific] analysis. . . . The letter proved to be written in Judeo-Persian, i.e. Persian written in Hebrew script. However since the beginning and end of each line was missing, there was only a limited amount of contextual information to be deduced. Mention of sheep trading and cloth indicates the document’s commercial nature and a reference to the author having written “more than twenty letters” attests perhaps to a thriving trade. There is also an intriguing request for a harp required for instructing a girl how to play.

In 2004, however, an almost intact leaf of a similar document was acquired by the National Library of China [that] appears to be the initial page of possibly the same letter. . . . The letter is from a Persian-speaking Jew of Khotan . . . on the subject of sheep trading. It lists bribes to officials [that] include a vase, scent, silk cloth, raw silk, sugar, and other items not yet fully understood. Perhaps the most important information was the news from [the nearby city of] Kashgar that “they killed and captured all the Tibetans.” The writer himself contributed “a sum worth 100 strings of coins, or 100,000 coins” for the war effort.

Taking both parts together the Dandan-Uiliq letter is probably the oldest surviving document of substance to be written in early New Persian, marking the first phase of the Persian language after the Islamic conquest.

In a momentous meeting with the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he is lifting sanctions on the beleaguered and war-torn country. On the one hand, Sharaa is an alumnus of Islamic State and al-Qaeda, who came to power as commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which itself began life as al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot; he also seems to enjoy the support of Qatar. On the other hand, he overthrew the Assad regime—a feat made possible by the battering Israel delivered to Hizballah—greatly improving Jerusalem’s strategic position, and ending one of the world’s most atrocious and brutal tyrannies. President Trump also announced that he hopes Syria will join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.

Israel’s primary security interest lies in defending against worst-case scenarios, particularly the potential collapse of the Syrian state or its transformation into an actively hostile force backed by a significant Turkish presence (considering that the Turkish military is the second largest in NATO) with all that this would imply. Hence the need to bolster the new buffer zone—not for territorial gain, but as a vital shield and guarantee against dangerous developments. Continued airstrikes aimed at diminishing the residual components of strategic military capabilities inherited from the Assad regime are essential.

At the same time, there is a need to create conditions that would enable those in Damascus who wish to reject the reduction of their once-proud country into a Turkish satrapy. Sharaa’s efforts to establish his legitimacy, including his visit to Paris and outreach to the U.S., other European nations, and key Gulf countries, may generate positive leverage in this regard. Israel’s role is to demonstrate through daily actions the severe costs of acceding to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions and accepting Turkish hegemony.

Israel should also assist those in Syria (and beyond: this may have an effect in Lebanon as well) who look to it as a strategic anchor in the region. The Druze in Syria—backed by their brethren in Israel—have openly expressed this expectation, breaking decades of loyalty to the central power in Damascus over their obligation to their kith and kin.