Although Azerbaijan, a Shiite-majority nation in the Caucasus, does not maintain an embassy in Israel, it has a strong alliance with the Jewish state, importing Israeli military technology and exporting oil. Israel also seems to use Azerbaijan for intelligence-gathering, in exchange for advice and training for the Azeri military. But the relationship runs deeper than that, as Gallia Lindenstrauss writes, as the two countries share an enduring interest in checking Iranian aggression:

[D]uring the [1991-1994 Armenian-Azerbaijani] war over Nagorno-Karabakh and the nearby areas, Iran was (and still is) an ally of Armenia. Another source of dispute between Azerbaijan and Iran is the division of natural resources in the Caspian Sea, and in addition the Azerbaijanis accuse Iran of encouraging a religious revival among their Shiite population. . . .

While many countries perceive Iran, and especially its nuclear program, as a threat, most do not regard it as an existential threat; the few countries that do, include both Israel and Azerbaijan. . . . [I]n many respects, Azerbaijan is irreplaceable for Israel, and the proximity of this country to Iran makes it especially attractive.

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.