Since Britain’s current government took office, it has dropped its objections to the International Criminal Court’s attempt to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu; restored funding to UNRWA, despite many of its employees being outed as terrorists; and restricted arms exports to Israel. “In none of these cases,” writes Tom Harris, “can we see any similarity with what previous Labor governments would have done.”

Usually, the Labor turn against Israel is understood in the context of the party’s former leader, the anti-Semitic radical leftist Jeremy Corbyn. But Harris believes the shift started in 2010, under Corbyn’s far more moderate Jewish predecessor, Ed Miliband.

In his first conference speech as [party] leader, Miliband generously announced that Israel had the right to exist—a peculiar statement, since he felt no compunction to say the same thing about any other nation. But Miliband’s equivocation on Israel, a product of his desire to flirt with the left that had given him the edge over his older brother in the leadership contest, only presaged what was yet to come.

Harris looks at the reasons for the shift, which has persisted even after Corbyn’s ouster by the current prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has made a point of repairing relations with British Jews:

[T]he case for concluding that these [anti-Israel] policies have been pursued specifically in order to assuage Muslim opinion in the UK is convincing, if not overwhelming. . . . In campaigners’ experience, will there ever be a point, short of declaring that Israel should abolish itself in favor of a Greater Palestine, that more extreme Muslim opinion is satisfied? How far must the government go along the path it has chosen before it starts to win back that lost support in northern and midlands seats?

The answer, of course, is that extremists tend to demand extreme things. Those who march each week for Palestine and who voted for pro-Gaza candidates at the general election will never, ever be satisfied with a government that does anything other than express complete opposition to Israel.

By reasserting its principled support for Israel and by helping its efforts to remove Hamas as a player in Gaza, the government would be honoring its own liberal principles. It would also be sending an important signal to the pro-Palestine movement and the Islamists and terrorist apologists who dwell in its shadow: our principles of tolerance are not for sale, however many votes you think you can deprive us of.

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.