Since the most recent Israeli elections resulted effectively in a stalemate, a second election has been called for September. Every indication from poll data is that the results will be no more conclusive the second time around, with neither the Likud nor its competitors able to form a coalition. Shmuel Rosner—after noting that a third election would be costly and demoralizing—comments:

The centrist Blue and White party is expected to be the strongest opposition party in the coming Knesset, and a unity government of [it and] Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud would likely be popular among Israelis, a majority of whom believe Netanyahu is the most fit to lead but don’t have much love for his past coalition partners, especially the ultra-Orthodox [parties].

But that’s not the plan of either party because of several factors. First, Netanyahu wants to form a government with his usual allies, the right-wing and religious parties, in part for political reasons: this alliance is easier for him to control, and it has kept Likud in power for many years. . . . Moreover, Blue and White has said it won’t join a government led by Netanyahu under any circumstances. . . . This is not because of ideological differences or competing policy prescriptions. This is about Benjamin Netanyahu. . . . For many Israelis, Netanyahu is the personification of their political grievances and social frustrations.

There are two clear ways to overcome these obstacles. One is for Netanyahu to step aside [as leader of the Likud party] and allow a coalition to form without him. The other is for Blue and White to accept that working with Netanyahu, the most popular politician in Israel, is a necessity. Both options would require the leaders of Likud and of Blue and White to learn to compromise on important principles. . . . It might not seem like the most dignified act, but Israel’s politicians must prevent a third election—for the good of the country.

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.