In 1969, the Central Intelligence Agency decided it should cultivate a relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—then designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.—with the goal of wooing Yasir Arafat away from the Soviets. Arafat, writes Sean Durns, played along:

To facilitate this relationship, Arafat relied on Ali Hassan Salameh, the head of Force 17, his personal security force and counterintelligence unit. . . . A flamboyant womanizer, [Salameh] wore leather jackets, drank alcohol, and practiced karate. His father, Hassan Salameh, had been a famous Palestinian terrorist who took part in, among other acts, a failed Nazi plot to poison Tel Aviv’s water supply during World War II. . . . The CIA told Salameh that he “has friends in high places and so does his cause.”

Salameh even admitted to his handler, Robert Ames, that he had recruited a Paris theater-owner who had sent agents to blow up a hotel in Israel.

Neither this information, nor the PLO’s murder of two American diplomats in Khartoum in February 1973, dissuaded the CIA from maintaining the relationship. In fact, terrorism seemed to have had the opposite effect: in November of the same year, the Agency formalized its relationship with the PLO and, in 1976, then-CIA director George H.W. Bush invited Salameh to visit headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

During his January 1977 visit to Langley, a CIA operations officer named Alan Wolfe gave Salameh—whom Israelis held responsible for helping plan the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre in which eleven Israeli athletes were held hostage, tortured, and murdered—a leather shoulder holster for his gun. Perhaps most incredibly, at his request, the CIA subsequently took Salameh and his wife to Disneyland for their honeymoon, accompanying him on the rides and paying for the trip.

Salameh’s initial CIA contact, Robert Ames, would be murdered, along with 62 others, in an April 18, 1983 suicide car bombing at the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The attack was carried out by Shiite jihadists and reportedly planned by Imad Mughniyeh, formerly an operative of Salameh’s Force 17.

As for Salameh himself, the Mossad assassinated him in 1979. Another CIA officer sent his son a condolence letter.

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.