For Middle Eastern Christians, pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and other sites in Jerusalem is a time-honored tradition. Yet most, even if they live relatively near the holy city, are unable to visit it, as Robert Nicholson writes:

The problem is Israel—or rather, that most Arab and Muslim countries consider Israel to be an illegitimate enemy state. Citizens who have even the slightest contact with it or its people are frequently punished under any number of formal bans and boycotts. Some countries like Egypt and Jordan are less hostile, looking the other way when citizens visit Jerusalem to pray. But Christians in other countries, especially those within the Iranian sphere of influence, undertake pilgrimage at their own risk. They may enter Israel without incident but will almost certainly face prosecution and detention upon their return.

Lebanon is a cause for special concern as the Middle Eastern country with the highest percentage of Christians. . . . But while [Lebanese] Sunnis and Shiites remain free to visit Mecca despite conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Christians are forbidden from visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher due to conflict with Israel. Prosecution under the 1955 Boycott Law or Article 278 of the Lebanese criminal code awaits anyone who thinks otherwise.

In October, U.S. diplomats will convene a symposium in Rome to address religious freedom, humanitarian aid, and human trafficking, among other issues of shared concern with the Holy See. They should also take the chance to issue an unequivocal statement affirming the importance of pilgrimage to people of all faiths and calling on Lebanese officials to rescind all laws and regulations that place a permanent bar on Christian visits to Jerusalem. . . . Here the engagement of Pope Francis is crucial.

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.