Last month, Iraqi forces in Mosul liberated from Islamic State (IS) control the site traditionally considered the tomb of the biblical prophet Jonah, famously sent by God to call on the people of Nineveh—located across the Tigris from Mosul—to repent. The tomb was venerated by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. Hannah Lynch writes:

[T]he Nabi Younis mosque, [located at the tomb], was first built as a synagogue and then was an Assyrian [Christian] church before being converted into the mosque. . . . Islamic State militants blew it up on July 24, 2014 as part of their campaign to destroy sites they deemed idolatrous. When . . . Iraqi forces took control of it, they found only ruins. . . .

Even before IS arrived, Mosul’s Jewish history was neglected. Rabbi Carlos Huerta, [a former American army chaplain who was stationed in Mosul in 2013], was able to explore the city during his time there and discovered five ancient Jewish synagogues, “all destroyed, some being used as garbage dumps.”

Sherzad Mamsani, the Jewish-affairs representative to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), confirmed that Jewish historical sites in areas under Iraqi control are in terrible condition. “I can say about 60 percent of them have been turned into garbage areas.” He is worried about the sites, pointing out that they will not have fared well under IS. “We see that IS is destroying Sunni mosques. Imagine what they will do to [Jewish] sites—certainly much worse.”

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.