This year, Yom Kippur falls on a Saturday, so Jews won’t have to miss work to observe the solemn day. But this is not always so. Tevi Troy tells the story of Richard Nixon’s speechwriter William Safire, who later distinguished himself as an incisive columnist:

During the 1968 campaign, Safire told Nixon that he would miss one of his speeches because of Yom Kippur. Nixon admired Safire’s adherence to tradition: “You go all the way, the cap, the shawl, and everything? Good for you!”

Troy has another Yom Kippur-related anecdote about Safire, who became famous for equipping then-Vice-President Spiro Agnew with such “memorable phrases” to describe the administration’s critics as “‘an effete corps of impudent snobs,’ ‘ideological eunuchs,’ ‘professional anarchists,’ and, most famously, ‘nattering nabobs of negativism.’”

In the fall of 1970, Safire was traveling with Agnew on the campaign trail and returned to Washington to attend [Yom Kippur] services at the Adas Israel congregation. He was less than thrilled to hear the rabbi’s sermon criticizing those who “let our country be divided and polarized by those who use the technique of alliteration.” As Safire wrote of the incident, “the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ was not a sin I had come to atone for.”

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This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.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.