On May 11, Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed by an errant bullet during a shoot-out between Palestinian terrorists and the IDF. Last week—after much sensational media coverage and disproportionate pressure from the U.S.—the Israeli government announced that a thorough investigation had concluded that the bullet was likely fired by an IDF soldier. The Biden administration then demanded that Jerusalem review its military rules of engagement so that such incidents are not repeated—a demand Prime Minister Lapid rejected out of hand. The Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini comments:

A few years ago, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that when he wants to learn how to protect innocent lives, he learns from Israel, who does it best. . . . Dempsey’s statement is backed by all respectable research that has examined the data on uninvolved civilians who were wounded or killed during armed conflicts. . . . Even Israel’s harshest critics would have to admit that fewer innocent lives are lost during operations conducted by the IDF than in those carried out by the U.S. military.

The same goes for the Abu Akleh case. Israel conducted an extensive investigation, and even if our bullet did kill the Al Jazeera reporter, it was done in error, not with intention. The investigation was conducted and published because the IDF is scrutinized more than any other army in the world.

Israel exhibits the highest of standards during its operations, yet is still criticized by the U.S. for harming innocent lives. . . . Even if a small-scale crisis [in U.S.-Israel relations] were to emerge, the prime minister was correct in telling our dearest friend: “You’ve crossed the line.”

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.