In Zivotofsky v. Kerry, a Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen sued to have his passport indicate that he was born in Israel—in keeping with legislation passed by Congress, but contrary to State Department policy. The Supreme Court has now ruled against the plaintiff and in favor of the State Department. But Rick Richman sees a silver lining for Israel:

[T]here have been rumors that France plans to submit to the UN Security Council a resolution to prescribe a Palestinian state in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria with a capital in Jerusalem, and with a negotiating deadline of eighteen months. The Obama administration is thought to be considering voting for the resolution, or allowing it to pass with a U.S. abstention.

If it takes either course, though, it will be violating multiple representations made multiple times to the Supreme Court in the Zivotofsky litigation. . . . Just putting “Israel” in Zivotofsky’s passport, the administration said, could “cause irreversible damage” to negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians], by “prejudging the final and permanent status of Jerusalem.” The same representations were made in an earlier brief filed by Secretary [Hillary] Clinton.

Having litigated for years, all the way to the Supreme Court, to prevent the mere mention of “Israel” in Zivotofsky’s passport, on grounds it might signal a U.S. position on the outcome of negotiations over Jerusalem and thereby possibly destroy the peace process, it would now be remarkable—to use the least loaded word—for the administration to turn around and support a United Nations resolution specifying a Palestinian state that includes Jerusalem.

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.