In its seven-part series Transatlantic, Netflix dramatizes the story of Varian Fry, an American patrician who spent the years from 1940 to 1942 trying to get artists and intellectuals—most but not all Jewish—out of Europe before they fell into the hands of the Nazis. Despite the efforts of the U.S. State Department to thwart his activities, Fry and his collaborators rescued roughly 2,000 people, among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, and Arthur Koestler. Phyllis Chesler finds the series riveting, and a cinematic treatment of the subject matter “long overdue.” She nonetheless takes the show to task for molding the story to faddish ideas:

Varian Fry, a twice heterosexually married man and father of three, is presented by Netflix as a closeted and tortured gay man. The real Fry was a Protestant who risked his life to save Jews and others due to his ethical revulsion against the Nazi regime; the series adds, as a fictional motivation, his affection for a Jewish male lover who grew up on a kibbutz in Palestine and who has been working with the British underground in order to get Jews into the Holy Land. This rescue mission is romance enough for me.

But we unfortunately live in an age ruled by identity politics. And still, I must ask: is Fry’s sexuality or the identity of his lovers anywhere near as important as what he accomplished? The thousands of European geniuses he saved came to America, changing both American and world culture.

People want their protagonists to resemble the latest victim-hero, especially if they are members of a demonized or marginalized group. But really, who most deserves to claim Fry as one of their own? The increasingly vilified white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, a group to which Fry surely belonged?

The real Fry was likely gay—or at least bisexual. [But as Dara] Horn puts it, “Varian Fry’s oddness was not that of Marcel Duchamp. It was that of an Ezekiel. The real reason no one today has heard of Varian Fry is because the gift he had is not one that we value.”

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.