Both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump have suggested that renewed Israel-Palestinian negotiations could be aided by the involvement of Arab states friendly to the U.S. and Israel, including Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia that have a growing unofficial economic and military relationship with the Jewish state. To John Hannah, this is precisely the wrong way to take advantage of improving ties between Israel and Arab countries:

While I agree wholeheartedly that a historic opportunity may now exist to advance relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors, it would be unfortunate to squander it in service of efforts to solve a maddeningly intractable conflict that has defied resolution for nearly 70 years—and whose current prospects for progress are probably as bleak as they’ve been in a generation. . . .

My main concern is with preserving the major strategic opportunity represented by Israel’s budding relationship with the Arab states. The fact is that the basis for that relationship rests entirely on the shared sense of danger that both now face from the radical Shiite theocrats of Iran, on the one hand, and the Sunni jihadists and Islamists of al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic State, on the other. On those issues, the countries’ views are largely identical. By contrast, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, the differences over what would constitute an acceptable solution remain profound. . . . Does it really make sense to stress-test Israel’s incipient and still-fragile cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states on the one issue that remains the source of their greatest disagreement? . . .

Of course, it’s important to note that the promise of enhanced Israeli-Arab cooperation is greatest against the twin dangers—Iran and Islamic terrorism—that also happen to pose the most urgent threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East. In an age of multiplying crises and declining resources, rigorously identifying U.S. national-security priorities is more important than ever. From that vantage point, countering the Iranian and jihadist threats are clearly matters vital to the safety and security of the American people. But rushing once more into the breach to try to midwife the birth of a weak and divided Palestinian state that would likely be prone to terror and anti-Americanism? Well, perhaps not so much.

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.