Comparing the biblical description of the rainbow as a sign of God’s postdiluvian covenant with mankind to understandings of the rainbow in other ancient Near Eastern literature, Ron Hendel argues that the differences speak more loudly than the similarities. Ancient Mesopotamians saw the rainbow, like other celestial phenomena, as a sign that, if properly interpreted by skilled astrologers, could portend divine intentions. In Genesis, by contrast:

God is His own omen interpreter, and the encrypted meaning is meant for Him. This turns upside down the customary system of omens and their interpretation. . .

[It is also noteworthy that] Hebrew uses the word keshet for both a bow as a weapon . . . and for a rainbow; the former meaning is primary. Since the flood story is not about combat, the presence of God’s bow may seem out of place. . . .

[I]n the Mesopotamian creation account, . . . after the warrior-god Marduk uses his mighty bow and arrows to defeat the sea-monster Tiamat, the high god Anu places the bow in heaven as a bright star. . . .

God’s bow in Genesis has a comparable resonance. In the flood story, God triumphs over chaos. But the chaos in the flood story is not the rage of a sea-monster, it is rather the violence of all flesh that has corrupted its ways on earth, and which has, as a consequence, corrupted the earth. The flood is God’s natural agent to cleanse the earth from the violence of bloodshed.

After the waters of the flood have receded, God hangs His bow in the sky, . . . but the bow is not His triumphant weapon. The rainbow is a sign of peace, of God’s promise that the flood will never come again.

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.