The ongoing coalition negotiations among Israeli political parties have returned to the fore the possibility of annexing or otherwise changing the legal status of the Jordan River Valley, which has been under Jerusalem’s control since 1967. While agreeing that the IDF’s presence in the area is essential to the Jewish state’s security, opponents of the move argue that it would cause an unnecessary rift with Israel’s eastern neighbor. To Nadav Shragai, this risk has been highly inflated:

[T]here is a wide discrepancy between how Jordan openly conducts itself with regard to Israel—using critical . . . rhetoric aimed at pacifying its Palestinian majority—and how the kingdom acts behind the scenes.

Jordan has swallowed a lot of toads over the years to maintain the informal relationship with Israel that is vital to its own continued existence. Jordan enjoys economic, military, and intelligence cooperation with us that is often critical to its interests. Jordan also holds special status on the Temple Mount, and has in effect become Israel’s silent partner in managing affairs there. The way Jordan sees it, that status is of almost existential importance, given the place al-Aqsa holds in the [national] narrative and consciousness of the Hashemite dynasty and many of the kingdom’s residents. Jordan will think twice before putting that at risk.

The Jordanians prefer that the IDF remain a buffer between them and the Palestinians in the West Bank, and it’s convenient for them that this buffer exist without Israeli sovereignty. But even if Israel applies sovereignty, it doesn’t seem as if Jordan will burn its bridges. We might see the recall of the ambassador and even the peace treaty being suspended, but in essence, we can assume that Israel-Jordanian relations, and both countries’ mutual interests, will not change. The Jordanians might [keep their alliance with Israel out of the public eye] for a while, but nothing more.

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.