In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and seven other Muslim countries imposed an embargo on Qatar, angered by its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its unwillingness to close ranks in opposing Iranian expansionism. Yet last month the Saudi king hosted the Qatari prime minister in Riyadh. Joshua Krasna notes this as but one of many signals that both sides are interested in easing tensions, and discusses what such a thaw might imply for the Jewish state:

From Israel’s point of view, a possible rapprochement is a mixed bag. Israel has reasonable relations with almost all of the Gulf Cooperation Council states (with the notable exception of anti-Israel Kuwait), and an easing of the blockade of Qatar will probably facilitate Israeli business and covert diplomatic activity in the region. It may also lead over time to an attenuation of the alliance between Doha and Turkey, which, while it is not Israel’s main rival in the region, is certainly a secondary one so long as Erdogan is at the helm. [Reconciliation] may perhaps curtail Ankara’s efforts to extend its regional reach, to entrench itself in the Gulf, and to embroil itself in every regional conflict.

A return by Qatar to the Arab fold may well be predicated, even if not formally, on a lessening of its support for radical elements in the region, including Hamas (as part of the Muslim Brotherhood), a development that has both positive and negative repercussions for Israel.

The divided Gulf has . . . pushed Qatar, and ostensible neutrals Oman and Kuwait, closer to Iran. [Yet] a divided Arab world has also afforded Israel more opportunities for shared interests with various players, and for leveraging ties with one side to improve ties with another. . . . To the extent that the rapprochement among the Gulf states indicates a possible inclination towards relaxing tensions with Iran, . . . it may threaten Israel’s anti-Iranian regional alignment.

This, coupled with the perceived American disinclination to back up its robust declaratory policy on Iran with military measures (and the not unimaginable possibility that President Trump may yet engage with Iran, as he hinted again after the recent prisoner exchange), could mean a net loss of Israeli leverage and deterrence vis-à-vis Iran. It could also roll back some of the significant diplomatic gains Israel has had in recent years in its relations with the Gulf states, who seem to need Israel more than they dislike it.

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.