While Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, has encouraged investigation of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, and the mysterious death of its lead investigator, Alberto Nisman, there are reasons to worry that nothing of substance will eventuate. Toby Dershowitz and Joseph Humire argue that American assistance can make a difference:

With a fresh investigation under new stewardship, Argentina should undertake—and the United States should support—an independent inquiry into whether Iran had any role in Nisman’s murder. Washington should share its intelligence on the role of Iranian networks in and around Argentina at the time of Nisman’s death. . . .

The lifting of trade, banking, and other sanctions as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran will make it more difficult for the new Argentine government to counter Iran’s influence in its borders. The influx of Iranian cash may be used to curry political and intelligence favors with Argentine industries that could be tempted to accept even uncomfortable offers because of their desperate economic situation. Iran has been known to provide commercial cover for some of its more nefarious objectives in the region.

The Macri government should therefore exercise due diligence on Iranian commercial activity and work with the U.S. and others to identify illicit behavior. The U.S. should use a “whole-of-government” approach to intelligence collection, mindful that Iran has used both commercial and cultural covers for its nefarious activities.

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.