The Bible (1 Kings 9:15) mentions Gezer as one of four cities whose walls were built by King Solomon. Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the ruins of Gezer; according to some, the evidence suggests that its walls were indeed Solomonic. But the city’s sophisticated water system is decidedly older, as Henry Curtis Pelgrift writes

[T]he water system at Tel Gezer has now been dated by project archaeologists to a much earlier period [than King Solomon’s day]—the Middle Bronze Age (MBA)—with a date as early as 2000 BCE. In fact, this should not be surprising, since Gezer is also the site of massive fortifications and other structures dating to the MBA—in addition to the Iron Age monumental architecture of biblical fame. . . .

Gezer was originally inhabited in about 3500 BCE. but remained a small settlement until the MBA, when massive fortifications were constructed throughout the site, including stone walls, possibly several stone towers, a glacis, and a large gate on the south side of the west hill. . . . The water system at Tel Gezer was meant to provide a safe means of getting water to Gezer’s inhabitants within the city walls.

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.