Located not far from the center of Jerusalem, the National Library of Israel holds among its many treasures medieval haggadahs, ancient Hebrew manuscripts, and the suicide note of the Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig. Aviya Kushner recounts its origins:

In 1890, a Jewish doctor in Bialystok, Yosef Khazanovich, started to charge his patients in books instead of rubles for making house calls. He sent 10,000 books to Jerusalem, and in 1902 Midrash Abarbanel was officially opened—the first free library in Palestine; that was the beginning of what is now the National Library. The Seventh Zionist Congress, held in 1905, decided to build a national library with Midrash Abarbanel as its foundation. So yes, there was a [national] library before there was a state. For years the library was run by its first director, Samuel Hugo Bergmann, a close friend of Franz Kafka. . . .

People—both visitors and employees—are the true delights of a visit to the National Library. On my visits to figure out what exactly it held, I checked out the trilingual circulation desk and saw Ḥasidim, Ḥaredim, secular students, and two women in hijabs; there were also career eccentrics, pulpit rabbis, and Gershom Scholem obsessives, along with two chatty women in the cafeteria who did not hesitate to tell me that they were researching Israeli songs. In the bathroom I encountered tourists. And everywhere, I saw scholars—passionate devotees of the library, many clearly in a state I can describe only as determined bliss.

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This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.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