I mean, yeah, the ternary operator is part of JS syntax. But it WAS React’s choice to not include any alternative way to if/else add an element (there is an if/else but only for the entire component, not just for conditionally adding one element within a component). So indirectly this is React’s syntax decision.
And this is typically how conditionals work in SolidJS, which also uses JSX but adds extra core components to handle conditionals and iteration. In fairness, this is largely because they can better support the reactivity model that SolidJS uses, but it's a convenient side effect.