Despite mounting protests over the rising cost of living—much-publicized in the Israeli media—newly released data show that the Jewish state is experiencing unrivaled economic growth. Gad Lior explains:

An economy that records an 8.1-percent annual growth is definitely not in distress. The Germans, the British, the Spanish, and even the Americans are green with envy. Consumption was up 19.2 percent in the last quarter of 2021, and 11.7 percent in all of last year. This a shopping bonanza the like of which we haven’t seen in a long, long time. It seems that whatever the Israelis held back in the first year of the pandemic, they’re making up for now.

Even businesses that previously saw their footfall collapse entirely suddenly picked themselves up off the ground. Customers returned hungrier than ever, looking for any excuse to go out shopping, to eat out, to go to the movies, or to enjoy a concert. . . . Likewise, Israeli industry and importers also emerged from the pandemic with flying colors.

The fact that the state budget was approved for the first time in nearly four years also helped economic growth. . . . As for the future, the market is expected to continue recovering, save for a catastrophic event such as a war or a super-violent variant. However, these record-high numbers can’t last forever and would be almost impossible to top.

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.