Raised in Egypt by American Christian missionaries in the years before the Six-Day War, James Hoffmeier later pursued a career as an Egyptologist—but, unlike most others in this field, he also has paid much scholarly attention to the Hebrew Bible. Hoffmeier argues that the book of Exodus displays extensive signs of familiarity with the culture of Pharaonic Egypt, and could not have been composed—as many academic Biblicists today believe—by someone living under Persian or Babylonian several centuries after the events it describes. After making his case on philological and archaeological grounds, he explains why, as a devout Christian, he believes it important to see the Exodus as a historical event rather than a mere parable or legend. (Interview by Dru Johnson. Audio, 50 minutes.)

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.