Presenting a thorough account of the falling-out between Ankara and Jerusalem, and of the factors leading to the renewal of ties—officially announced at the beginning of this week—Steven A. Cook argues against exaggerating the impact of reconciliation:

[The Israeli-Turkish agreement] ends a period of estrangement for two American allies in the Middle East, which is a good thing. Beyond that kind of generality, it is hard to discern how much will change now. In the past, analysts have touted the potential for intelligence and security cooperation, but that seems unlikely. The Turks fought tooth and nail to keep the Israelis away from NATO intelligence data, blew an Israeli spy ring in Istanbul, and have engaged in various kinds of gratuitous nastiness, including disinviting the Israelis to NATO exercises held on Turkish territory and refusing flight clearance for Israeli military transport aircraft en route to Poland for visits to Auschwitz. Add to this President Erdogan’s February 2013 declaration that “Zionism is a crime against humanity.”

[In general], the Israelis are likely satisfied with the agreement, but distrust and resentment remain. On the Turkish side, this agreement came together as a result of Ankara’s weakness, which cannot sit well with the Turkish leadership. When the headlines fade and after the ambassadors are exchanged, Israel-Turkey political and diplomatic ties will likely look a lot more like they do now than current expectations suggest, and will remain vulnerable to developments in the Gaza Strip, Cyprus, and Israel’s relations with Kurds across the region.

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.