The National Library of Israel (NLI), located in Jerusalem, just announced that it has acquired 250 pages of documents from Afghanistan, dated mostly to the early 11th century. This is the largest collection anywhere of archival materials from pre-modern Afghanistan. Arutz Sheva reports:

Because of the widespread destruction during the [13th-century] Mongol conquests, [the collection] represents virtually the only primary source for information about this once-thriving Jewish community, as well as the region’s Islamic and Persian cultures prior to the Mongol invasion. . . .

Part of the collection comes from the same archive as the handful of pages already held by NLI, [known as the Afghan Genizah]. These texts flesh out our understanding of the lives of the 11th-century Abu Netzer family of Jewish traders living in and around the city of Bamiyan, a once-bustling commercial center located on the Silk Road. [Included among the documents are] parts of multiple tractates from the Talmud, as well as liturgy, Jewish law, a historical chronicle, and portions of the Bible. A full 27 pages of a bound merchant’s account book offers a look into the economic realities of an ancient and sparsely studied community. The collection is written in Persian, Arabic, Aramaic, and Judeo-Persian.

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.