Prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution, Persian Jews enjoyed tolerance and prosperity, as they did for much of ancient history. Yet the current regime’s hatred of Jews and the Jewish state is also not exceptional, as Lawrence Franklin writes:

When Zoroastrianism was declared the official state religion during the Sassanid Dynasty (224–651 CE), the plight of Iran’s Jews deteriorated. This fusion of state and religion gave Zoroastrian clerics more political power than the monarchy. It also led to the enforcement of intolerant uniform rules of worship for all of Persia’s citizenry. . . . The Sassanids burned synagogues and outlawed the celebration of the day of rest, Shabbat. One Sassanid monarch, [referred to in the Talmud as] “Feroz the Wicked,” had most of the Jews of Isfahan murdered.

Later, in most of the Safavid (1502–1736) and Qajar (1781–1925) dynastic eras, the monarchs’ relationship with Iran’s Jews was at best problematic. . . . For centuries, there were forced conversions, the closing of synagogues, and destruction of Hebrew books. Outward signs distinguished Jews from the rest of Iran’s “loyal” citizens. Throughout the Safavid era, Iran’s Jews were forced to wear colored hats and non-matching shoes. . . . Attacks occurred: Muslim imams whipped up their followers in anti-Jewish diatribes.

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.