In the latest kerfuffle in Israel-Diaspora relations, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely—in an interview on an English-language Israeli news station—stated that teenagers in Israel overwhelmingly serve in the military, while American Jewish teenagers rarely do. For this comment, for which she has already apologized publicly, she was roundly criticized by some and enthusiastically defended by others. Rumors flew of her pending resignation. But Gil Troy, an American-born writer who has lived in Israel for many years, sees this as a tempest in a teapot:

Perhaps [Israeli and American Jews] could discuss our differences calmly if [Hotovely] had first affirmed that American Jews are our “brothers” and sisters and that she “cares” about them. She could have “welcomed” all Jews to see Israel as their “home.” And she should have singled out radicals trying to impose a “liberal dictatorship” who shut down alternative viewpoints and only blame Israel without acknowledging the conflict’s “complexity” or any Palestinian culpability.

Surprise! Watch the entire . . . interview: that’s what she did. She highlighted the importance of the [Israel-Diaspora] relationship before conveying her accurate criticism. . . .

Israeli and American Jews have never had more constructive grassroots contact. Forty percent of American Jews and Israelis have visited each other’s country. That percentage doubled in twenty years, thanks to Birthright Israel, general tourism, and other bridge-building initiatives. . . . Yet too many leaders, who should know better—along with loudmouth extremists in both countries who don’t want to know better—foul the relationship with aggressive demagoguery and thin-skinned responses. . . .

[It’s] true: Israelis are targeted by Palestinian terrorism, Iranian nuclear ambitions, and every anti-Semite and anti-Zionist on the planet, while American Jews barely are. And the typical Israeli serves in the army, while the rare American Jew does. . . . [T]he different experiences my kids have as soldiers and their [American] cousins have as students merit thoughtful conversation, not finger-pointing or posturing.

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.