On Sunday, for the first time in nearly a decade, Lebanon held national elections. The results were good for Hizballah, which is now part of a bloc of parties commanding a parliamentary majority. To Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer, this victory marks a further step in the transformation of Lebanon into an Iranian satellite:

Hizballah has long had a political and military stranglehold on the Lebanese state. But now, thanks to its ever-expanding military arsenal and control over pockets of territory, coupled with new parliamentary seats captured by its representatives and allies, there can be no denying that the Shiite terrorist group dominates the Lebanese state.

American policymakers attached much significance to these elections, describing them as crucial to advancing two key elements of American policy in Lebanon: preserving the stability of the Lebanese state and strengthening its institutions. But as the elections show, this policy has only stabilized and strengthened the Iranian order in Lebanon, run by Hizballah. . . .

[Furthermore], Lebanon is a headquarters for other elements of Iran’s regional terrorist network. This is a fact the Lebanese interior minister openly acknowledged two years ago when he described Lebanon as “a global terrorist and security operations room.” Lebanon is currently the base for the senior Hamas operative Saleh Arouri, who runs terror operations in the West Bank, and other officials from the Palestinian terrorist group. It is a place where Qais al-Khazali, the commander of the Iraqi Shiite militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, meets openly with Hizballah operatives. The same goes for commanders from other deadly Iran-run militias in Syria, like Liwaa al-Baqir. . . .

Lebanon’s terrorism problem isn’t going away. As the election results make painfully clear, Washington’s policy of preserving the political status quo has failed. If anything, it has absolved Lebanon of the terrorist activities conducted on its sovereign soil. Even today, our officials speak about buttressing the country’s institutions, namely the banking sector and the Lebanese military, as a counterweight to Hizballah. . . . The problem is that these institutions are hardly fighting against Iran’s network.

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.