In the Lebanese city of Sidon, once home to a vibrant Jewish presence, at least one synagogue, built in 1850, still stands in the former Jewish quarter, and legally belongs to the community. But its last congregants departed in 1982. Currently, a Syrian family lives in the men’s section and a Palestinian family in the women’s section. Rana Moussaoui writes:

On the walls, Hebrew renderings of the Book of Genesis and Jewish laws have been daubed over with red paint. But while little remains of the synagogue’s former life, its past has not been forgotten. “I’ve received visitors from Canada, France, and Brazil who showed me photos of their [Jewish-Lebanese] ancestors from Sidon,” said Muhammad, [one of the current residents].

In 2012, two rabbis from Neturei Karta—a sect of anti-Zionist Jews who believe that the state of Israel should not exist—prayed in the synagogue, much to the surprise of its residents. It was the first prayer held in the building for 40 years, and came as part of a tour that also included a visit to the nearby tomb of Zebulun, one of the sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob.

Nagi Gergi Zeidan, a specialist on the Jews of Lebanon, says the synagogue once housed 50 Torah scrolls dating to the Roman era, which were [rescued] by Israelis during their 1982 invasion.

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.