With little fanfare, the Pentagon last week increased the American military presence in northeastern Syria—sending some 100 soldiers and six Bradley fighting vehicles. Jonathan Spyer explains why:

On August 26, four U.S. servicemen were wounded when the vehicle in which they were traveling collided with a Russian military vehicle. The incident took place . . . at the northeastern tip of Syria close to the Tigris River and the border with Iraq. This area lies far east of the Euphrates, and well inside of territory designated as a U.S.-controlled security zone. That is, the Russian presence in the area was itself a provocation. The collision with the U.S. vehicle took place at a time when Russian military helicopters were deployed above the area. It appears to have been deliberately initiated by the Russian force.

This incident reflects a broader pattern. Moscow [believes] that the American presence in eastern Syria lacks a clear strategic [rationale], and hence may be withdrawn if sufficient pressure is applied to it. Moscow wants to see Syria reunited under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, as a weak and dependent client of Russia. The Kurdish-controlled, U.S.-guaranteed area east of the Euphrates, comprising around 25 percent of the area of Syria, currently stands as a barrier to the achievement of this goal.

The Russians therefore appear to be attempting to whittle away at the American presence, gradually expanding their own area of activities. . . . Parallel to the campaign of harassment, the Russians are seeking, slowly and incrementally, to draw the Kurdish ruling authorities in this area back under their political patronage. . . . The slow-moving contest over the ruins of Syria thus looks set to continue.

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.