Queen Esther has been criticized, most notably by feminists, for her alleged passivity, deviousness, and reliance on her beauty alone. Michael V. Fox argues that such a reading not only is ahistorical but profoundly misunderstands Esther’s evolution from a passive naïf to a brave and intelligent operative and heroine. The pivotal moment, Fox writes, occurs the second time Mordecai urges her to take action against Haman’s genocidal plot:

[Esther] resolves to do her duty and immediately a change comes upon her. She abruptly and surprisingly commands Mordecai [who until now has done all the commanding] and, using the imperative, with no polite circumlocutions, instructs him to assemble the Jews for a public fast. In convening such an assembly and issuing directives to the community, Esther is assuming the role of a religious and national leader. She has taken control. . . .

She now takes her fate in her hands with a courageous declaration: “And in this way I will go to the king, contrary to law, and if I perish, I perish.” This is the courage of one who realizes she must do her duty without certainty of success, and even without a simple faith that a higher being will protect her. . . .

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.