Last Wednesday, a ceremony was held in the town of Tzemaḥ, near the Sea of Galilee, unveiling a sculpture in commemoration of the battle that took place there in 1918 when Australian cavalrymen—many of whom were Aborigines—stormed a German position as part of the larger struggle between Britain and the Ottomans for control of the land. Ofer Aderet describes the encounter. (Free registration may be required.)

Under the cover of darkness, [guided] only by the light of the moon, the Australian cavalry drew their swords and galloped toward the local train station, a strategic point in those days. The German enemy, allied with the Ottoman empire, had barricaded itself in the stone station building. But the Australians, fighting for the British crown, were undeterred. They surged forward aloft on their steeds and . . . fought face to face with bayonet and sword.

The fighting ended at 5:30 AM, shortly after dawn. About 100 German soldiers were dead and many more were injured. Hundreds were captured. The Australians paid a price, too: fourteen dead, dozens injured, and half their horses would never gallop again.

Jack Pollard, a grandson of one of the fighters, came to Tzemaḥ to inaugurate a statue, The Aborigine and His Horse, commemorating his grandfather and dedicated to all the Aborigine soldiers who fell during World War I. The sculpture depicts [the elder] Pollard holding a Bible and bending over the grave of his brother in arms. The horse in the rear also bows its head toward the fresh grave. The statue was designed by an Australian artist and manufactured using a 3-D printer.

About two years ago, during the centennial of World War I, James Lingwoodock, grandson of one of the Aborigine fighters [who fought in the Palestine campaign] visited Israel. Alongside other descendants of the fighters, he participated in reenactments of the battles.

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.