Among the National Library of Israel’s vast collection of Haggadahs, only one was printed in Korea. Compiled by two Jewish chaplains in 1952, it was distributed to soldiers participating in a seder in Seoul in the midst of the war—complete with gefilte fish, kosher wine, and matzah-ball soup. Channa Lockshin Bob writes:

The U.S. Army granted Jewish soldiers time off for the celebration, moved army operations out of the abandoned schoolhouse in Seoul that the chaplains chose as the location for their seder, and transported soldiers from all over Korea to that location. But they also showed their encouragement in other ways: the Haggadah begins with two pages of Passover greetings from the top military brass stationed in Korea. Many high-ranking officers also attended. . . .

The highest-ranking officer [present] was General Frank F. Everest, the commanding general of the U.S. Fifth Air Force, who delivered an address to the soldiers as part of the festivities. We have no record of what he said at the seder, but in his greetings inside the Haggadah he wrote, “Even as the ancient Hebrew people answered the call of freedom symbolized by Passover, we too must heed its voice and stand fast in preserving freedom’s principles for the world of our time.” . . .

The Haggadah’s cover is decorated with hand-drawn insignias of the main military units involved in the seder, with the insignia of the Jewish chaplaincy in the middle. . . . Preparing a Haggadah in Korea must not have been simple: a page in which the Hebrew text appears upside-down illustrates the challenges of working with local printers who were not familiar with [the language].

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.