Traditional Jewish law forbids revenge, praises forgiveness, and encourages self-defense. So where exactly does it stand on the oft-cited New Testament commandment? Gil Student writes:

Forgiveness in Judaism is not automatic. If you wrong someone, you need to apologize to him—not just God. Christianity teaches that if someone hits you on the cheek, rather than fighting back you should turn the other cheek and allow him to hit that one as well. I am certainly aware that Christian thinkers have found many creative and interesting ways to understand this directive, but this is not the place for that discussion. Rather, I’d like to address the Jewish attitude to turning the other cheek, or at least to fighting back. Traditionally, Jews counter that this pacifism is strange and contrary to the Torah. But doesn’t the Torah forbid revenge (Lev. 19:18)? Isn’t a Jew required to be . . . patient and forgiving (Rosh Hashanah 17a)? Perhaps we are obligated to forgive the transgression and walk away.

[The rabbis conclude, however, that] turning the other cheek is an irresponsible response. We must protect those who need defending, including ourselves.

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.