In February, Harvard University once again found itself in the spotlight when student and faculty groups distributed a poster on social media that included an anti-Semitic cartoon. Sara Yael Hirschhorn notes that the drawing came from a newsletter published in 1967 by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC), which, under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael, had then decided to ignore the second word of its name and embrace Black Power, Third Worldism, and anti-Semitism:

The unsubtle message of the cartoon was that Israel and the Jews, together with American capitalism, were guilty of subjugating and murdering not only Black and Brown peoples, but Arab nationalism and Islam. It illustrated a feature called “Third World Roundup,” which asked readers to “test their knowledge” of 32 anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic talking points regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict. . . . For example, apparently thanks to “white European, American, and Australian states . . . Israel was planted at the crossroads of Asia and Africa,” and “the Rothschilds . . . were involved in the original conspiracy with the British to create the ‘state of Israel.’” The text seems to have been drawn from PLO propaganda, itself likely a product of Soviet agitprop.

This conflation of American racial tensions with a toxic mix of old-fashioned anti-Semitism, Arab hatred for Israel, and general anti-Western leftism doesn’t seem very different from what one might encounter at a ceasefire protest today. While the campus groups last month pled “ignorance and inadequate oversight,” and scrubbed the cartoon from the poster, the results weren’t much better:

Then they re-shared the larger post with the offending cartoon swapped out for a photograph of Stokely Carmichael. Interestingly, no one seems to have commented on a graphic on the flyer’s bottom left of Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, meeting Yasir Arafat in 1980. The photo was taken from The Black Panther, an often virulently anti-Semitic periodical supporting violence. Stokely Carmichael himself would later quip that the “the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.”

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.