This year, the Shiite holiday of Ashura coincided with another Iranian national holiday: the anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy on November 4, 1979. Iranian leaders used the occasion to make clear their attitudes toward Israel and the United States and thereby respond indirectly to President Obama’s fourth personal letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The following excerpt, introduced and translated by A. Savyon, Y. Mansharof, and E. Kharazi, is from an interview with Ahmad Khatami, a close associate of Khamenei:

As Western [officials] say, “Even if the nuclear issue is resolved, the other issues will remain.” We too say that even if the nuclear issue is resolved, we will continue to say “Death to America,” because this motto is anchored in our faith. The Western side is the symbol of arrogance, and the motto “There is no God but Allah” is the repudiation of the arrogance. . . . This year, the chant of “Death to America” will be more fundamental and more profound than in previous years. . . . The claim that we use religious slogans to preserve the regime is wrong. The Iranian nation uses mottos from Islam and the Quran properly and appropriately. . . . Those who misunderstand [the religion] and are passive vis-à-vis America [i.e., Iran’s pragmatic camp] call this passivity wise. But it is not wise. It is humiliating. . . . The mottos “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are taken from the tenets of the religion.

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.