Despite the burdens of history—and Israel’s desire to maintain good relations with Moscow—the Jewish state is fostering better economic and military ties with Ukraine. David Daoud writes:

Israel has been sending military aid to Ukraine, much to the chagrin of neighboring Russia. Israel reportedly began exploring the expansion of arms trade with Ukraine after Moscow lifted a ban on the sale of the advanced S-300 missile-defense system to Iran, a move it has long opposed. Israel has also offered to assist Kiev diplomatically in its conflict with Moscow over Crimea, which Russia invaded and then annexed in 2014.

Trade between Israel and Ukraine now totals $1.3 billion dollars, and includes cooperation in the hi-tech sector, where Israel is a world-leader. . . .

“The people of Israel understand what it means to fight for their own state,” said Oleg Vishnikov, a Ukrainian businessman who was given the title of Israel’s honorary consul [in the city of Lviv]. “The people of Israel are experts at security, and I want this expertise to be shared with Ukraine.”

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.