At the UN General Assembly in New York last Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu challenged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect and report on evidence of Iran’s continued violations of the 2015 nuclear deal. Specifically, the Israeli prime minister pointed to the archive of documents pertaining to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear-weapons program that was discovered and acquired by the Mossad earlier this year, as well as to additional clandestine sites whose existence had not yet been made public. Amnon Lord comments:

Netanyahu . . . revealed that some fifteen kilograms of radioactive material was dispersed [among various locations in] Tehran. Netanyahu advised the residents of the city to buy Geiger counters . . . to ensure they were not affected by the radiation. But the big question is what the IAEA’s Director General Yukiya Amano is going to do now that he is aware of the secret nuclear warehouse [in Tehran] that Netanyahu unveiled, which could potentially store some 300 tons of radioactive material. . . .

Netanyahu has once again stated in public that the nuclear deal was based on a lie that had received a stamp of approval by the IAEA. As was the case in the press conference several months ago, in which he exposed the existence of the nuclear archive, on Thursday the prime minister showed more evidence corroborating Iran’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. It will be hard for Amano to ignore the challenge. . . .

But Netanyahu’s most vociferous attack was on Europe. “Think about this: the same week Iran was caught red-handed trying to murder European citizens, European leaders were rolling out the red carpet for President Rouhani, promising to give Iran even more money,” Netanyahu said. . . .

Netanyahu’s speech was different from his other addresses before the UN General Assembly. As before, he provided damning evidence against Iran and built a case like a well-trained prosecutor. . . . But he also managed to do something that no other Israeli public advocate or frankly anyone else has been able to do on the world stage: he has made a compelling case for nullifying the nuclear deal, managed to make the case for the policy adopted by Israel and the United States, and to convey his message in a convincing manner.

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.