Mentioned in the book of Joshua, the ancient city of Dor was located near a natural harbor about twenty miles south of modern-day Haifa. In the mid-5th century BCE, the Athenian navy took it over as a convenient Mediterranean base of operations. Archaeologists are now engaged in exploring a fortress built by the Seleucids—the Hellenistic dynasty that ruled the area after the death of Alexander the Great—which is now entirely submerged in water. Edward Whelan writes:

Once [the fortress] was two stories high and . . . measured 60 by 120 feet. Some stones have wooden post holes that may have been used for wooden platforms upon which catapults were placed. We know much about the turbulent history of Tel Dor from the books of Maccabees. It appears that the fortress was built by Diodotus Tryphon, who acted as regent for a young Seleucid king before declaring himself ruler in 142 BCE, around the time the Greeks and the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom were battling for control of what is now Israel.

[Diodotus] was one of the three rulers who vied for control of the area in a series of bloody wars, the others being Demetrius Nicator [who also claimed the Seleucid throne] and Jonathan Apphus, ruler of Judea. Details of these battles are found in the book of Maccabees and portray Diodotus Tryphon as a cruel and treacherous ruler. . . .

Some missiles believed to be slingshots and arrowheads have been found that date back to Demetrius’ siege of Dor and some bear the marking “victory over Tryphon.” . . .

Tel Dor was [later] occupied by the Romans, but the fortress did not stand long because of storms and rising sea levels. By the 1st century CE, much of the fortress was underneath the waves of the bay.

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.