In the U.S., some have complained that, in areas where houses of worship remain closed due to coronavirus-related restrictions, mass demonstrations are allowed that seem to pose equivalent or greater risks of spreading infection. The same problem exists in Israel, writes Raphael Bouchnik-Chen:

For the religiously observant citizen, whether Jew, Muslim, or Christian, it is no small matter to be subjected to restrictive decrees that cut one off from the ritual framework in which one was raised and educated. In the case of the coronavirus restrictions, the religious public accepts the law of the land and obeys it on the understanding that this is not an arbitrary caprice but a necessity stemming from difficult times—indeed from a force majeure that has visited the global pandemic upon us.

And yet, as if in a parallel world where the pandemic is nothing more than an urban legend, fervent mass demonstrations . . . to be held regularly, particularly around Prime Minister Netanyahu’s official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. Thousands crowd together in small spaces for this purpose, making a mockery of social-distancing regulations. Furthermore, the protests’ organizers repeatedly take to the media and the social networks to encourage all and sundry to flock to Balfour Street.

All of this is done in the name of democracy and freedom of expression, and with the backing of the Supreme Court and the justice minister, who declared with triumphant pride, “In the coronavirus law we made sure that the right to demonstrate will not be compromised. This is how a strong democracy operates in a time of emergency. Any attempt to subvert this ruling is an attempt to subvert the rights of the citizen.”

In other words, the right to demonstrate is a sacred cow that is not to be questioned under any circumstances. The right to pray, however, does not warrant such protection.

Such an attitude, argues Bouchnik-Chen, makes a mockery of both public safety and the very rights the justice minister claims to champion.

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.