In 2012, an excavation at Tel Motza, located just four miles northwest of the center of ancient Jerusalem, revealed a structure resembling the First Temple. Archaeologists, having completed a thorough examination of site last year, surmise it was in active use as an auxiliary place of worship from the 10th through the 6th centuries BCE, corresponding approximately to the time the First Temple stood. Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:

[The structure] would have been about two-thirds the size of the First Temple and was likely built by similar builders who came to the region from Syria [or Lebanon], as described in the Bible. . . . Due to Motza’s proximity to the First Temple in Jerusalem, the excavation’s principal researchers, Shua Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University, hypothesize that this separate cultic site would have been approved by the administration of the Jerusalem “main branch.”

“You could not have built a major monumental temple so close to Jerusalem without it being sanctioned by the ruling polity,” said Kisilevitz.

Among the other remains of worship activity, [besides a stone altar], are a stone-built offering table, and “a whole lot of artifacts,” including figurines, cult stands, and chalices, which would have both been brought by the penitents and been the “furniture” of the temple. Another telling clue is a nearby refuse pit, where the team discovered bone and pottery remains. Kisilevitz explained that it was used in a similar way that Jews today use a genizah for sacred texts.

Kisilevitz noted that the Bible records two religious reforms enacted [respectively] by King Hezekiah and [his great-grandson] King Josiah, and said wryly that the fact that there were two is very telling about the widespread cultic practices that were being forbidden. According to the biblical account, the kings consolidated worship practices at the Jerusalem temple and eliminated cultic activity beyond its boundaries.

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.