Currently the greatest threat facing the Jewish state is an attack on three fronts, in which Hizballah and other Iranian forces launch tens of thousands of missiles simultaneously from both Lebanon and Syria, while Hamas—now also taking orders from Tehran—does the same from Gaza. Such a barrage would likely overwhelm Israel’s storied missile-defense systems, severely disrupt civilian life and possible result in high casualties, and gravely interfere with the IDF’s ability to counterattack. Noting that the Islamic Republic could unleash this mayhem at the time of its choosing, Benny Morris suggests a straightforward preventative measure. (Free registration required.)

The Israeli government should declare tomorrow, . . . publicly and unequivocally, that if Iran’s proxies forced Israel into an all-out war, for any reason, with a massive rocket barrage, Israel would respond immediately and forcefully against Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Bushehr, Natanz, Qom, and other Iranian population centers and strategic targets.

Iran would know that such a clear and powerful public statement would compel every [subsequent] Israeli government—regardless of who’s prime minister—to act on it, lest Israel be seen as a paper tiger and lose all its deterrent capability. . . . The fear of such a massive Israeli reprisal—hundreds of missiles and bombs on Iran’s cities and strategic assets for weeks—would make Iran’s leaders think very carefully about whether they should dispatch Hizballah and Hamas and their proxies in Syria on any adventures.

So far, Iran has enjoyed immunity from attacks on its soil, with Israeli governments opting to respond to rockets from Lebanon and Gaza with (limited) strikes against targets in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria. This was a mistake that left Israel under a constant threat in the north and south, and led to a balance of deterrence—a balance that Tehran could nullify whenever it chose. . . . Israel’s ability to strike Iran is much greater than Iran’s ability to strike Israel.

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.