Archaeologists in Jerusalem have found a Second Temple-era mikveh underneath a Jerusalem nursery school, covered in what seem to be graffiti from the period. Nir Hasson and Ruth Schuster write:

The writing and painting was done in mud and soot, and some carved into the soft stone. There are also dozens of images including a boat, palm trees, various plant species, and possibly even a menorah. . . .

Examples of written Aramaic from the time of the Second Temple are very rare. The use of Aramaic on the walls suggests that it was the common language of the time. . . .

[T]o the horror of the archaeologists, within hours of the momentous discovery, the writing started to fade. Emergency archaeology conservation teams . . . were alerted. The plaster was removed for study . . . and the delicate finds have been sealed. . . .

Finding a decently-preserved concentration of inscriptions and symbols from the Second Temple period is rare; [however], the writing is not legible any more.

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.