The fall of more than 60 years of Ba’ath Party rule in Syria — 50 of those years under the Assad family, father and son — is a watershed moment for the Middle East. The removal of Bashar Assad, a butcher who slaughtered more than half a million of his own people, is in itself a positive development. Notably, Assad was pliant to the ayatollahs’ Iran, the theocratic state bent on reshaping the region in the name of Shi’ite jihad. Under his rule, Syria served as the “hub of hubs” for delivering Iranian weaponry to terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Even so, many of Assad’s opponents were jihadis of a different flavor, and the collapse of his regime may allow critical Syrian assets to fall into the wrong hands. Israel has acted quickly and justly to prevent these weapons and territorial positions from falling into the wrong hands. Sadly, although there are forces in Syria inspired by Western democracy, these did not lead the takedown of the Ba’athist state. Instead, the most prominent faction in the successful opposition is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebranding of a former Al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front. The most prominent HTS leader in world media in the final days of the Assad regime was Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a, who uses the nom de guerre al-Jolani, a reference to Israel’s Golan Heights. In 1948, when the British withdrew from what is now Israel, the Syrians invaded the Israeli Galilee and captured the northeastern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s most important water source. In 1967, Israel defeated an alliance of Arab countries, pushing Syria out of the Galilee and capturing the basaltic plateau of the Golan Heights, which have since become part of the Israeli state, as recognized by the United States. Israel’s frontier with Syria at one time was its most contained and predictable, and there were even serious peace negotiations with Assad’s father in the 1990s. Sadly, in the last several years, Iranian forces have launched attacks on Israel from the Syrian side of the border. Jolani’s revanchist ambitions threaten a continuation of this dynamic that mandates an active defense. Immediately after the fall of Assad’s regime, Israeli forces entered areas within a largely unpopulated demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria established after 1973’s Yom Kippur War. Critically, Israel established strategic control over the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, a strategic high ground at the base of the Anti-Lebanon mountains that was part of the lands of the Tribe of Manasseh in Ancient Israel. The usual anti-Israel suspects have organized a great hue and cry over this intervention while remaining strangely quiet over Turkey’s attacks on the U.S.-backed Kurds of Syria’s northeast, which has overrun a vastly greater area and displaced tens of thousands of civilians. Israel has also acted decisively to ensure that the most destructive weapons developed by the Assad dictatorship, or funneled to it by its Iranian and Russian sponsors, do not fall into the hands of the jihadis. In the largest Israeli air operation since at least the Yom Kippur War, Israel has targeted Syria’s chemical weapons program, one of the world’s largest. Assad repeatedly used these weapons on his own people over the last 13 years of civil war as he struggled to stay in power. At the same time, Israel has acted to render what is left of Assad’s navy inoperative. Overall, Israel estimates that it has taken 70% to 80% of the former regime’s military capabilities offline in the targeted strikes. Importantly, Israel’s operations in Syria advance not only Israeli but U.S. and global interests. Jolani’s nom de guerre and his Al Qaeda background show that he is not the kind of figure that should suddenly be placed in charge of an operational chemical weapons program or an offensive military force. It is to be profoundly hoped that the jihadis will not have free reign in Syria and that democrats, religious and ethnic minorities, and lovers of peace will have a key role to play in the new Damascus government that emerges from the chaos. Still, this is the Middle East. Caution must prevail over dreamy-eyed utopianism. The best outcome was indeed for Israel to take these dangerous assets out of the hands of the untried and unpredictable jihadi-led forces currently consolidating in the Syrian capital. In making these bold moves, Israel has acted (and not for the first time) to protect both its own citizenry and the world. Eid is a West Bank-based Palestinian human rights activist.