In a rhetorical move that has become so common as to be a cliché, writes Douglas Murray, political commentators create a parallel between two opposing positions and then claim themselves to be the reasonable and independent-minded people in the middle. Yet such thinking often relies on a false equivalency and, worse still, “attempts to repackage an act of astounding political cowardice as some kind of admirable moral stance.” Murray sees this tendency on frightful display in discussions of Britain’s national election, which takes place tomorrow—as pundits equate the anti-Semitism systemic to the Labor party with instances of “Islamophobia” among Tories:

[W]hat would the Conservative party have to be guilty of in order to be the subject of this one the one hand/on the other–ism? [The Tory prime minister] Boris Johnson would have had to have laid flowers at the grave of Baruch Goldstein (who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslims in 1994), plausibly the equivalent of Jeremy Corbyn laying a wreath at the grave of the Munich Olympics murderers. Yet, to date, no photograph has been found showing the Conservative leader making a pilgrimage to the outskirts of Hebron in order to perform this act of homage.

In 2017, Darren Osborne drove a truck into a crowd of worshippers leaving prayers at a mosque in Finsbury Park. And yet, to date, Boris Johnson has not campaigned that Osborne should not have been charged, found guilty, or sentenced for this appalling crime. So far as I am aware, no elected member of the Conservative party has pretended that Osborne is some poor, misguided innocent.

And yet this is the sort of act that would have to be found in the ranks of the Conservative party in order to find an equivalence to Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh—two men who were convicted for a car-bomb attack on a London Jewish charity’s headquarters in 1994. While Corbyn acted as a long-time defender and indeed character referee for the anti-Jewish bombers, no senior Conservative appears to have made Darren Osborne into some kind of sick campaigning cause.

So why this strange emphasis from members of the commentariat who like to pretend that they are independent-minded, that they cannot vote for either main party because they are in some way equally bad? [The most] likely explanation is that many of these “independent-minded” columnists are simply far more tribal than they would like the rest of us to think. . . . And so they come up with ways to reorient the political landscape to present themselves as the only people remaining stable while everyone else is disoriented.

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.