On Sunday, President Idriss Déby of Chad arrived in Israel and met with Benjamin Netanyahu; the two later announced the renewal of diplomatic relations between the two countries. While Jerusalem has established ties with numerous African nations in recent years, Chad is the first of these (excepting Egypt, which established ties in Israel in 1978) with a Muslim-majority population. Eldad Beck writes:

Many nations that had fought for their independence from colonial rule saw in Israel and its successful struggle against the British and the Arabs, as well as its agricultural and military achievements, a source of inspiration. Those countries sought to learn from Israel and worked to develop close ties with Jerusalem. . . . From Israel’s perspective, Africa presented an opportunity to break the Arab political and economic blockade imposed on the Jewish state immediately following its establishment.

This love affair continued until the early 1970s, when the Arab states discovered the power of their oil. Under enormous pressure from the Arabs, who promised Africa generous financial aid, many African countries neglected and downgraded Israel ties. In Chad’s case, this pressure proved to be effective prior to the Yom Kippur War, when many African countries cut diplomatic ties with Israel. . . .

Renewed diplomatic ties had been on the table a decade ago, but were removed from the agenda as a result of pressure from Chad’s anti-Israel Arab neighbors Libya and Sudan. This process, so important to the future of Israel’s ties with Muslim Africa, was made possible thanks to the fall of the Ghaddafi regime and Libya’s decline in that country’s civil war, as well as the slow transformation of the Sudanese regime into a more moderate government under the influence of, inter alia, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states.

It is quite possible that once Chad restores its relations with Israel, other Muslim-majority countries in Africa will follow. . . . The recent improvement in Israel’s international standing, completely detached from the lack of progress on any “peace process,” has gotten [the continent’s] attention. As has always been the case, Israel has a lot to offer to Africa, and Africa has a lot to offer to Israel in return.

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.