In the American legal system, as in the Israeli, the confessions of perpetrators tend to be preferred as evidence of crimes. Among the problems with this approach is the danger that confessions might be coerced. By contrast, the Talmud states that a person’s testimony against himself is ipso facto inadmissible, thus avoiding the problem of coercion. However, writes Shlomo Brody, rabbinic jurisprudence provides ample exceptions:

[M]edieval and modern Jewish communities that retained semi-autonomous penal systems would regularly convict criminals based in part on confessions. [Medieval Spanish scholars] such as Rabbi Shlomo ibn Adret and Rabbi Nissim of Gerona asserted that Jewish law recognized the right of a king or government to administer a justice system according to societal needs, [even if these contradicted the letter of talmudic law].

As the Talmud [itself] states, sometimes the court can punish in spite of the law. Otherwise, it [might] be impossible to convict any criminals. . . . Given this [opinion], could confessions be accepted even if coerced from the defendant? [The] talmudic evidence remains somewhat contradictory.

On the one hand, there is recognition that coerced admissions cannot be taken seriously. On the other hand, there seem to be cases in which force [was] used to confirm the guilt of certain suspects.

Commentators debate whether in these cases actual physical violence was used or if mere threats or other forms of intimidation were employed. In any case, within medieval rabbinic literature, there are sporadic sources that indicate the use of physical force, with some figures explicitly asserting that such capabilities remain within a judge’s purview.

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.