Since March, the U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia on trumped-up charges of espionage. He is currently being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, whose previous inmates include Natan Sharansky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Raoul Wallenberg. Kennedy Lee calls on Americans to make a greater effort to procure Gershkovich’s release, and turns to the mass mobilization of Jewish public opinion in the U.S. in support of Soviet refuseniks for guidance:

Today, the movement to free Soviet Jewry is remembered the world over as one of the most successful campaigns for human rights in history. In fact, Gershkovich’s own parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, were two of the beneficiaries of the movement for Soviet Jewry, and moved to the United States when Soviet authorities finally relented and allowed Jews to emigrate en masse.

The movement for Soviet Jewry not only provided Jews and their allies in the cause of human dignity with a sense of common purpose; it also became the first mass, sustained campaign to expose the moral hollowness of Soviet ideology. The movement unmasked human-rights abuses and the disregard for the dignity of the individual so prevalent under Communist totalitarianism. In particular, the leadership and moral clarity of Natan Sharansky, a political prisoner of conscience and crucial figure within the movement, inspired those of his generation and freedom-seeking peoples for decades to come.

Lessons from the movement for Soviet Jewry are applicable today. The images of Evan Gershkovich standing prisoner in the Russian defendant’s cage should unite and inspire world Jewry and human-rights advocates once again. It is time for a new movement to form that is no less coordinated, no less unrelenting in its pursuit of justice. In that effort, we should welcome any and all allies, as the United States Congress and President Reagan did in the 1980s, who view Moscow’s crimes in Ukraine and at home as an affront to human dignity.

Alas, the organization founded in 1978 to shine such a light on Soviet crimes, Helsinki Watch—now Human Rights Watch—is at present more concerned with the imagined sins of the Jewish state.

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.