Reversing regulations instituted in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services recently allowed employers to request exemptions on religious grounds from providing their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives. While many on the left see the new rules as an assault on individual rights, Bethany Mandel argues that they are in fact a victory for religious liberty, and one that Jews in particular, whatever their personal opinions on birth control, ought to appreciate.

This “right” to free birth control, which only came into existence with Obamacare less than a decade ago, is now apparently sacrosanct to liberal Jewish groups like the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and Bend the Arc Jewish Action, who are opposing the rollout of these new [regulations]. . . .

Jews more than anyone else should respect the sanctity of religious freedom, which is what’s behind the Trump administration’s rollback. . . . And if these Jewish organizations can’t understand why others would oppose abortion, maybe they can understand why companies shouldn’t be forced to pay for something their owners consider a violation of their religion’s core beliefs. We don’t have to agree with these beliefs in order to . . . respect them. . . .

If women choose to use birth control, nobody—neither President Trump nor their employers—can force them not to. And just as nobody should be able to dictate the healthcare choices of American women, we should not be dictating to Americans that they have to violate their religious principles in order do business.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.