Yes, argues the British statesman Jonathan Powell (among others): in Northern Ireland, after decades of violence, Britain successfully negotiated with IRA terrorists and convinced them to put down their arms. No, counters Eamonn MacDonagh: not only does that argument draw a false parallel between two very different conflicts, but it completely misunderstands how peace was actually achieved in Northern Ireland. MacDonagh explains:

The fairy-tale version of the conflict in Northern Ireland posits that it was only ended by the British government’s willingness to negotiate with terrorists, who could not be defeated by force. Accordingly, the tellers of the tale claim that Hamas also cannot be defeated by force, and Israel must negotiate with them however distasteful the prospect might be. But this version of the conflict in Northern Ireland is based on a self-serving fantasy. . . . [T]he truth is that the conflict ended not because the Provisional IRA couldn’t be defeated, but because it was defeated.

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.