Between terrorism and outright warfare, Israel has developed a good deal of finesse in dealing with crisis. Such finesse can be seen both in the policies of the government and its officials and, more importantly, in the resilience of the citizenry. Tevi Troy draws some lessons for America and its leaders:

First, resilience is not a given; it can and should be built and enhanced continuously in advance [of disaster]. . . . [S]trong societal resilience provides the primary leverage for countering terror and attenuating its intended impact.

The preparation and thought Israel puts into resilience means that the kind of citywide shutdowns that took place after the Boston marathon bombings would be unthinkable in Israel. Attacks take place, and far too often, but the citizens move on. The American president must lead by example and make sure that even if the U.S. is attacked, life goes on, and [show] that terror cannot defeat the will to live, and to fight.

Cyber-attacks are another reality of modern life—and of disaster preparedness. A massive cyber-attack on America’s power grid or transportation network could have devastating consequences nationwide. Here again, Israel can provide a model. Israel regularly experiences attempted cyber disruptions during flare-ups in conflicts with terror groups like Hamas. . . . The Israeli Defense Forces even have a division specifically dedicated to cyber defense. According to the unnamed head of that division, in [the 2014 Gaza war], “for the first time, there was an organized cyber-defense effort alongside combat operations in the field. This was a new reality.”

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.