Michael Herzog explains why America’s approach to resolving the conflict in Syria is doomed to fail, and what the continuation of the war means for Israel:

The current diplomatic efforts are predicated on three key assumptions, all of which are flawed. First, that there is a visible horizon for putting Syria back together as one functioning political entity. Second, that a diplomatic solution is a prerequisite to defeating Islamic State (IS). Third, that the major stakeholders in Syria can currently agree on a common goal and implement it.

In reality . . . it is hard to see Syria reunified as one functioning political entity in the foreseeable future. Defeating IS is a prerequisite to a solution in Syria, (if there is one to be had), rather than the other way around, while the likelihood of currently securing an agreement that will be implemented by the stakeholders is very slim. Furthermore, while negotiating on how to extinguish the fire, some of the players, especially Russia, Iran, and the Gulf states, are fanning the flames since they understand that strength and position on the ground will dictate the political outcome. . . .

[For Israel], there is the challenge of hostile actors positioning themselves in the Golan Heights along Israel’s border with Syria and turning it into an active front with established military infrastructure and cross-border attacks. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and some IS-affiliated elements such as the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade are already there, though currently focused on fighting Assad’s forces and their allies. Meanwhile the Iran-led axis has been striving, so far with little success, to establish itself along both the Israeli and Jordanian borders. . . . No less challenging for Israel is the shipment through Syria to Hizballah in Lebanon of strategic weapons . . . which could serve as game-changers in a future conflict with Israel.

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.