In 1970, archaeologists discovered a scroll in the ark of an ancient synagogue in Ein Gedi. The scroll was severely burned in a fire, rendering it unreadable. Now, using cutting-edge technology, experts have deciphered the text. Whitney Harder writes (with video):

It turns out that part of this scroll is from the beginning of the book of Leviticus, written in Hebrew and dated by C14 analysis . . . to the late 6th century CE. To date, this is the most ancient scroll from the five books of the Hebrew Bible to be found since the Dead Sea scrolls, most of which are ascribed to the end of the Second Temple period (the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE). . . .

The Ein Gedi scroll was scanned with a micro-computed tomography machine. . . . The scanning process is x-ray-based and completely non-invasive, as the Ein Gedi scroll is badly damaged from fire and cannot be physically opened. . . .

This is [also] the first time in any archaeological excavation that a Torah scroll was found in a synagogue.

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.