This summer, the Chinese navy set up a naval base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa—Beijing’s first-ever overseas naval base. Its location atop the Mandeb Strait, between Yemen and Africa, allows China to guard a waterway that is crucial for both its oil imports and its exports to Europe. Gideon Elazar comments:

The establishment of the base follows several years of increasing Chinese involvement in Africa and the Middle East. . . . The Chinese vision of a new maritime Silk Road is closely related to the official celebration of Zheng He, the early 15th-century [Muslim] admiral who brought China fame and power through his voyages in Southeast Asia and across the Indian Ocean to Africa. . . . Zheng He’s voyages are frequently noted as a symbol of a world order based on trade rather than violence and controlled by the benevolent hegemony of the Chinese imperial court.

In Chinese publications of recent years, Zheng He’s fleets are glorified as a tool of regional economic growth, scientific research, peaceful cultural exchange, and universal friendship. It is worth noting that while Zheng He’s voyages collected treasures (such as the famous giraffe brought back for the Imperial Court from Africa), its main objective was to display the Ming dynasty’s power and dominance and to collect tribute from local rulers. Indeed, a number of rulers who refused to recognize the hegemony of the Chinese emperor were punished and taken back to China as prisoners.

Zheng is particularly poignant as he is often perceived as both a testament to Chinese greatness and a symbol of China’s missed opportunities. The dismantling of his ships and shipyards by the Ming emperors is widely perceived as one of the causes of the gradual decline of Chinese power and the eventual rise of the West. The reference to Zheng He and the Silk Road can therefore be seen as implying that the mistake made 500 years ago is now being corrected, as the Middle Kingdom returns to its former centrality.

Thus, it would seem to be more than a coincidence that the recent embarkation of ships to Djibouti occurred on the same date that Admiral Zheng He first set sail on his famous voyages over 600 years ago. While the supremacy of Zheng He’s fleet may still be far off, the new base on the coast of Africa seems to mark a declaration of larger intentions.

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.