Having fled Iraq after having their home seized by a Shiite militia taking orders from Tehran, Hussain Abdul-Hussain’s family relocated to Lebanon—another Arab nation under the thumb of Iran-backed guerrillas—where the recent bank collapse eliminated their savings. To Abdul-Hussain, who now lives in the U.S., the Lebanese economic woes are the direct result of over a decade of domination by Iranian proxy Hizballah. He urges presidential candidate Joe Biden to keep this in mind when formulating his policies toward the Islamic Republic:

The continued presence of Hizballah, a terrorist organization under U.S. law, kept Lebanon in a state of perpetual war. This stifled growth and forced the government to fund itself by borrowing from local banks, thus using depositors’ money. And to buy off the local oligarchy and make it support its unconstitutional militia, Hizballah used the state to reward loyal oligarchs. Reform thus became impossible, and corruption inseparable from the terrorist group’s very existence.

This is why my sister, my wife, myself, and many of our Lebanese-American friends felt disappointment when reading Biden’s promise to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran, and give Israel more arms to defend itself against Iranian proxies. Biden’s statement signaled that he does not plan to help the Lebanese and the Iraqis get rid of Iranian militias, but only to manage and to contain them.

Contrary to what the media often claim, a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the key to “true peace” in the Middle East. In fact, whatever happens to Palestinians does not affect our families and friends in Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq. What happens to the Iran regime, however, does. In our world, Israel is not the enemy, the Iranian regime is.

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.