Archaeologists excavating in the coastal city of Caesarea have uncovered a colorful and sophisticated mosaic dating from the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE. Some 300 years later, a sort of Byzantine shopping mall had been built on top of it, obscuring it until now. Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:

[This] is one of the few extant examples of a mosaic from this time period in Israel; its craftsmanship is compared by archaeologists to the fine artistry found in Antioch. . . . According to Peter Gendelman and Uzi Ad, the directors of the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, the mosaic . . . was once part of an even earlier building from approximately 1,800 years ago.

According to the archaeologists, the mosaic measures 3.5-by-8 meters and is “of a rare high quality.” . . . There are three figures depicted on the uncovered section, as well as typical multicolored geometric patterns, which were formed using small tesserae (mosaic pieces) placed densely at about 12,000 stones per square meter. . . .

Of potentially even more interest than the beautifully formed images is a long inscription in ancient Greek. It was unfortunately damaged by the Byzantine building constructed on top of it, but is being studied now by the epigrapher Leah Di Segni from the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology. . . .

The mosaic dates from when the area was the Roman Empire’s administrative center in the province of Judea.

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.