On Tuesday, the voters of West Virginia passed a measure putting a ban on “medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing” into the state constitution. The first of those terms is the one favored in Canada, where the practice has become fairly widespread; the other two were used by the Nazis, euphemistically, to describe their T-4 program, where the mentally ill and those with other chronic conditions were murdered. This program preceded the systematic murder of the Jews. Amanda Achtman describes her tour of the places where it happened:

In the spring of 2022, I visited one of eight former Nazi euthanasia centers—what Simon Wiesenthal called “regular schools of murder.” . . . All but one—Brandenburg—served as psychiatric hospitals or homes for persons with disabilities before being converted to euthanasia centers by the Nazis. [One of them], Hartheim, houses an exhibit on modern eugenics alongside a memorial to the tens of thousands of people killed within its walls.

The link between Nazism and eugenics is often noted only in passing. But it was precisely this link that enabled Simon Wiesenthal to answer questions that bothered him for years. . . . “Castle Hartheim and the other euthanasia centers were the answer,” he concluded. “Hartheim was organized like a medical school—except that the ‘students’ were not taught to save human life but to destroy it as efficiently as possible,” Wiesenthal observed.

Christian Wirth, the notorious leader of Operation Reinhard—the program to exterminate Polish Jewry—got his start supervising the Reich’s euthanasia program. . . . Other SS officers followed suit.

Strong objections to the program from the Catholic Church led the Nazis to put an end to it. And they learned an important lesson: mass killings should take place in occupied Poland, out of sight and out of mind of a German population that preferred not to know what was happening.

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.