Archaeologists have discovered a Roman-era oil-lamp workshop in the village of Shikhin in northern Israel. Robin Ngo writes:

The lamps from Shikhin are estimated to have been made between 70 and 135 CE—between the end of the first Jewish revolt against Rome and the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt. “One type of lamp [found at the site] is a relatively plain lamp that resembles the well-known Herodian lamp with a ‘spatulated’ or ‘knife-pared’ nozzle,” explained [the excavation’s director, James Riley] Strange. “It was made in two molds, one for the bottom half of the lamp and another for the top half—both halves also molding the nozzle, which was pared after the two halves were joined.”

“The [other] kind of lamp is called a ‘Darom’ or ‘southern’ lamp,” Strange continued. “It was originally made in the Daroma region of Israel, south and west of Jerusalem. Most famously, lamps of this type were found in hideaway caves near the Dead Sea.”

The lamp workshop may also provide insights into the lamp makers themselves. “It may tell us something about the migration of Jewish lamp makers north into the Galilee from Jerusalem and Judea after 70, and perhaps again after 135, bringing their artisanal traditions with them and distributing their wares in the Galilee.” said Strange.

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.