On Saturday, the Australian government formally recognized “West Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital while at the same time clarifying that it has no intention of moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv. In his speech announcing the new policy, Prime Minister Scott Morrison also acknowledged “the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a future state with its capital in East Jerusalem.” Yaakov Ahimeir expresses his “reserved appreciation” for this ambivalent gesture:

Australia has [effectively] decided, even before negotiations with the Palestinians, that so-called “East Jerusalem” will be the capital of a Palestinian state, if one is established. This is a unilateral, premature determination, which should have been withheld until the sides properly negotiate the matter. . . .

If the Australian government recognizes only half of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, will Israel acknowledge this gesture, which predetermines the repartitioning of Jerusalem? I hope Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is appropriately questioning the move through the proper channels. The Netanyahu government should not accept a “half-recognition” of this sort. On the matter of Jerusalem . . . Israel’s government should insist on the united-city principle, under one sovereign country and beholden to one law enforced equally in both parts of the city. . . .

Morrison’s declaration has already reverberated near and far: . . . Indonesia and Malaysia will certainly scale back relations with Australia, the regional power. [Israelis] should express our reserved appreciation for the Australian gesture, but we also wish that it and many other countries one day recognize all of Jerusalem and move their embassies there.

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.