In 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power, Germany enacted a law forbidding Jewish ritual slaughter. Three years later, the Polish legislature passed a similar bill, supposedly on humanitarian grounds—but the actual motivations of a government that was increasingly hostile toward Jews, in an era before animal-rights groups, were no mystery. Such laws have of late experienced renewed popularity in Europe, most recently in the form of a 2017 ban in Belgium. Like its Polish predecessor, it comes in the form of a requirement that animals be stunned before slaughter—a measure unacceptable to both halakhah and sharia. Last week, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) upheld the law. Melissa Langsam Braunstein writes:

[T]he CJEU took the rare step of disregarding [its own] advocate general’s recommendation [that religious carve-outs to the law be made], effectively prioritizing animal rights over Jewish and Muslim Europeans’ religious freedom. It’s a striking choice because Europe remains a continent where millions of minks are still farmed for fashion (or culled for COVID-19 infection), and ducks or geese are force-fed to produce foie gras, a process wherein the “liver swells to approximately 600 percent of its normal size.”

Without question, Thursday’s ruling stands in stark contrast to Europeans’ preferred image of themselves as open-minded and tolerant. Insisting that Jews and Muslims adapt religious laws, which seek to minimize animals’ pain, simply to suit contemporary sensibilities is anything but that.

[Moreover], this ruling won’t be contained. Kosher meat, which is already expensive, will likely become even harder to obtain in a growing number of countries. Further, this ruling is likely to encourage political extremists who would relish making life inhospitable for their countries’ Jewish and Muslim minorities.

Europe’s hostility toward religious outsiders is a centuries-old tradition. It appears that it will always find a way to justify bigotry.

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.