On November 19, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued instructions to his staff to identify those groups that support efforts to boycott the Jewish state—many of which happen to be nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) ostensibly devoted to defending human rights—and to ensure that they don’t receive federal funds. Gerald Steinberg explains:

There is ample evidence that the agendas of such groups and their impacts go far beyond straightforward criticism of [Israeli] policies, and venture into anti-Semitism. This problem has persisted at least since the 2001 NGO Forum of the infamous UN conference on racism in Durban—led in part by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International—at which anti-Semitism was very visible. The participants declared that their objective was the “complete isolation of Israel as an apartheid state.” In the two decades that followed, these groups have worked intensely to implement the goal of turning Israel into a rogue state.

From false accusations of “massacres” in Jenin in 2002 to the UN’s infamous Goldstone report on the Gaza war in 2009, and the repeat performance in 2014, to the UN Human Rights Council’s recent travesty of publishing a discriminatory blacklist, with many other examples, this powerful NGO network has led the way.

Officials of organizations who purport to promote human rights have repeatedly and obsessively singled out Israel for attack on social media, while systematically erasing the history of terror and rejection it has faced.

[Therefore] it is important that the State Department’s initiative be joined by both Democratic and Republican party leaders in the United States, and by Europeans. . . . Human rights, anti-Semitism, and the need to take a strong stand against campaigns that combine them are too important to be rejected on the basis of narrow political partisanship.

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.