An ongoing excavation has uncovered the massive gate to the Philistine city of Gath, best known as the home of Goliath. The Times of Israel reports:

Gath, one of the five cities of the ancient foes of the Israelites, was one of the largest cities in the region during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. The Hebrew Bible describes Gath as the home of Goliath, the enormous warrior killed with a slingshot by the young Israelite David, who would go on to found a dynasty of kings. . . .

[The city’s] monumental gate is among the largest ever found in Israel and confirms that Gath was one of the most influential cities in the region at the time. Near the gate, [the archaeologists] also unearthed the remains of the city’s extensive fortification wall, a Philistine temple, ironwork, and pottery.

While the pottery bears hallmarks of the distinctive Philistine style, elements of Israelite techniques can be seen on the fragments as well, indicating there was more interaction between the two cultures than previously thought.

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.