Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

* * *

That is the famous exchange in the Sherlock Holmes mystery “Silver Blaze.” It is rattling around our mind as the Obama administration maneuvers toward war in Syria. There has been nary a peep out of Israel. No strategic statements. No threats. No warnings. Reserves have been called up. Gas masks distributed. But the Knesset and the government of the only democracy in the Middle East have been silent. The White House hasn’t had more than a glancing word to say about Israel either.

That’s fine with us, so long as in the silence no one forgets the Jewish war front. That phrase is from the title of a book brought out in 1940 by the Zionist prophet Vladimir Jabotinsky. There are those of us who consider it the most important piece of journalism of the 20th century. It called for, among other things, the establishment of the Jewish state to be declared an Allied war aim. And for the Jews to be considered a member of the Alliance in their own right, with a Jewish army on all fronts.

Jabotinsky’s fixation was, as he put it, “to prove just what some people would prefer to forget — that this is the Jews’ war as much as Britain’s, France’s and Poland’s.” The array of nations may be different today. And today we have a Jewish state. Let the Obama administration not make the error that was made in the first Iraq war, when President George H.W. Bush refused to provide Israel with the identify-friend-or-foe codes that would have permitted Israel’s air force to enter the battle against Saddam Hussein.

The codes were withheld, even as Saddam was loosing Scud missiles at the Jerusalem. The idea seemed to be that our alliance with the “moderate” Arab states would be broken up were Israel allowed to enter the lists. A chance to include Israel in the coalition against Saddam was lost. At the moment it appears to be but France and America declaring against Syria. But let us not forget — how to put it — the curious incident of the only democracy in the Middle East.

We are not suggesting that this is all about Israel. Or that Israel rely on any army or air force but her own. We are suggesting that the use by President Al-Assad of chemical weapons against his own people can precipitate a clarifying moment. President Obama’s decision to go now to the Congress for a mandate in respect of Syria offers a chance to bring about a bipartisan resolution that we’re all in this together, including on the Jewish War Front that is so central to our common struggle.