In his recent book, Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon, James A. Diamond examines the influence of the great medieval Jewish philosopher on a series of later Jewish thinkers, from the 13th-century rabbinic scholar Moses Naḥmanides to the 20th-century philosopher Hermann Cohen and even Franz Kafka. Menachem Kellner writes in his review:

Diamond sets out to prove that “at virtually every critical turn in Jewish thought, one confronts Maimonidean formulations in one way or another.” Diamond’s claim is actually much stronger than that. He [in fact] sets out to prove that the collected works of Maimonides, alongside the Bible, Talmud, and Zohar, “comprise the core spiritual and intellectual canon of Judaism.” . . . Diamond . . . makes a subtle and sophisticated argument to the effect that Maimonides set the agenda for the future of Jewish thought by providing an “inextricable link between philosophy, law, and narrative.”

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.