Although it is rarely taught in political-science courses, the Hebrew Bible has had a profound impact on Western political thought, from medieval Christian Europe to the American founders and to the present. Yoram Hazony, who has written extensively on this subject, here discusses the Bible’s political doctrines, arguing that Genesis and Exodus contrast the pastoral and nomadic life of the patriarchs with the sophisticated and all-powerful governments found in the empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Furthermore, he finds in Judges and Samuel a doctrine of the monarchy, the social contract, and the consent of the governed utterly unlike the notion of “divine right” claimed by many premodern rulers. (Interview by Jonathan Silver. Audio, 39 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

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.