Shiites, many of whom live in the city of Lucknow, make up 18 percent of India’s Muslim population. Shimon Shapira, a retired IDF general, recounts his experience at a conference there hosted by Amir Khan, a leader of the Indian Shiite community and a local noble:

The meeting in Shiite Lucknow with Saudi Sunnis from Mecca and Medina stimulated a delicate dialogue with restrained tension. [Khan] expressed his opinion that all religious extremism in Islam in this era began with the disintegration of the Ottoman empire and the creation of the Saudi Arabian kingdom. He contended that the Saudis supported Islamic movements that became extremist and violent over the years.

Anwar Majed Eshki, the chief Saudi guest, respectfully contended that as a devoted Muslim, he saw great importance in bridging the Islamic sects. Indeed, he believed that the presence of Jewish guests from Israel was evidence of a huge advancement in the mutual understanding necessary for solving the many problems in the Middle East. One morning, Sunnis and Shiites gathered as one for a joint morning prayer, without allowing the religious differences between Sunnis and Shiites to interfere. The commitment to Allah dominated all differences at that moment. It’s also worth noting that Eshki visited Jerusalem this year and led Muslim prayers in the al-Aqsa Mosque.

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.