There are, thankfully, those who refuse to surrender to such moral confusion. Considering both the global political situation and the current outbreak of anti-Semitism, the Catholic philosopher George Weigel writes:

Jew-hatred that leads to cries of “Kill the Jews!” and “Gas the Jews!” is as clear an example of a deliberate choice that “destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible” as one can imagine. It is loathsome. It is a gangrenous wound eating away at everything from higher education to politics. It cannot be tolerated, and those who advocate such barbarities should not be tolerated either.

There is no excuse—none—for the wave of Jew-hatred that has washed across the Western world like an acid bath. Anti-Semitism is usually a sign of social and cultural rot, and this latest outbreak of an ancient social disease is no exception. Western culture and society are being rotted out from within; is it any wonder that some of the worst of the recent Jew-baiting has taken place on elite campuses, where nihilism, cynicism, and soul-withering secularism reign supreme? (Any parent planning to spend a half-million dollars to send a son or daughter to an Ivy League university or some other intellectual cesspool really should think again.)

The hour is late. The threats are growing. Wake up. And take a first step toward sanity by standing in solidarity with those whom John Paul II called our “elder brothers” in faith.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.