In January, China’s President Xi Jinping visited Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. His visit is a sign of China’s growing involvement in the Muslim Middle East, as Alon Levkowitz writes:

[O]ver the past decade, China has become the second largest trading partner of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The lifting of sanctions on Iran will allow China to . . . become its biggest trading partner. This has clear implications for Saudi Arabia, which is China’s main supplier of crude oil. As soon as Iran is able to export, China will be able to diversify. . . .

The warmth exhibited by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei toward China during President Xi’s visit to Iran suggests the potential for a greater role down the road for Beijing in the geopolitics of the region. . . .

It is worth noting that despite Beijing’s protestations that it does not intend to get deeply involved in the Middle East, China offers an appealing alternative: Beijing is understood to have no intention of sending military forces to the region the way Moscow or Washington would, but has veto leverage at the UN Security Council and billions of dollars available for investment. China therefore has the capacity to change the Middle East balance of power in the long run. . . .

The Israeli government should, accordingly, continue to improve its economic and political relations with China. But Israel should not lose sight of the constant tension between Washington and Beijing on issues in Asia.

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.