Last week, heads of state and high-ranking diplomats gathered at the United Nations for its annual General Assembly. Invariably at these conclaves, many make speeches that garner headlines but signify little; many others make speeches that largely go unnoticed. The real work, writes Micah Halpern, happens in the corridors and backrooms, where statesmen have a chance to discuss serious matters away from the cameras. And although the General Assembly, like so many UN bodies, is obsessed with condemning Israel, these corridors and backrooms give Jerusalem opportunities. Halpern writes:

It’s a well-kept secret that Israel is very active in helping other countries solve problems—especially in Africa. Israelis are particularly adept in helping African nations improve their ability to grow crops and expand their food sources. They teach them how to get more milk from cows and more eggs from chickens. They assist in productive irrigation and efficient crop growth. Israelis assist other nations with health care, computer technology, and communication services. And, of course, Israel aids countries with their infrastructure development, security, and defense.

And most of the deals between Israel and these other nations—many of whom refuse to acknowledge Israel’s existence, let alone shake the hand of an Israeli in public, are initiated and inked behind closed doors at UN committees and during annual General Assembly gatherings. . . .

Many bodies within the UN are still anti-Israel and the United Nations is still a platform for an ugly, deplorable form of anti-Semitism. . . . [Nonetheless], Israel contributes greatly to the UN and, by extension, to the world. Those contributions . . . slowly move publicly antagonistic countries closer to recognizing Israel as a full-fledged member of the community of nations.

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.