In March, following a few years of improving ties, the Israeli president Reuven Rivlin made an official visit to Vietnam. Alvite Ningthoujam writes:

Israel’s Vietnam policy resembles the overtures it made during the 1950s and early 1960s toward the sub-Saharan countries, with which it shared technical expertise in agriculture and healthcare. . . . A similar [approach] is now being followed with Vietnam. Israeli-Vietnamese relations are expanding in the fields of agriculture, commerce, science, and technology, and—most importantly—in the defense sphere.

Israel and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in July 1993, and their economic relationship is relatively healthy. Bilateral trade volume touched $1.3 billion last year, and the countries aspire to take it to an annual $2 billion. . . . Israel and Vietnam are [also] engaged in joint ventures in the production of weapons systems suitable to the needs of the Vietnamese armed forces. Israel’s entry into this defense market is timely, as Hanoi is undergoing modernization programs for all three military services. . . . These steps have likely been taken by the Vietnamese government in response to the Chinese military build-up in the South China Sea. . . .

[During his visit], Rivlin pushed not only for the existing cooperation to continue but also for Vietnam’s political support, especially in multilateral forums like the UN. If good relations are to last, this element—in addition to economic and military cooperation—will be very necessary.

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.