The Samaritans, adherents of a heterodox sect of Judaism who have worshipped and brought sacrifices on Mount Gerizim in Samaria since at least the 1st century BCE, possess their own version of the Torah that differs at various points from the Masoretic text (the version used by all other branches of Judaism). Examining the evidence from ancient manuscripts of the Bible discovered in the 20th century, Terry Giles speculates on the genesis of the Samaritan Pentateuch:

[Ancient] manuscript evidence, some of it dating back to the 3rd through 1st centuries BCE, indicates that the Samaritan Pentateuch is an extension of an earlier text-type, currently labeled the pre-Samaritan text, found in the Judean desert along with manuscripts of a version that would later become the Masoretic text and manuscripts similar to the Septuagint [the ancient Greek translation of the Bible]. The Samaritan Pentateuch provides an important witness to the early textual history of the first part of the Hebrew Bible. It was considered authoritative by at least some of the New Testament writers, and it remains the sacred text of the Samaritan community. . . .

The pre-Samaritan texts from the Judean desert are characterized by many of the editorial features found in the Samaritan Pentateuch (including . . . emphasis on the role of Moses and similar grammatical forms and spelling), but without the veneer of sectarian features favoring the Samaritan religious sect. The cumulative evidence points to the conclusion that the Samaritan Pentateuch is the product of a sectarian editing of the pre-Samaritan text-type, probably produced in the 1st century BCE through the 1st century CE.

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.