Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Israel was about more than improving economic ties between the two countries. Omer Dostri explains:

Since Abe came to power, Japan has undergone a process of changing its foreign policy, especially regarding its relationship with Israel. . . . Japan is turning toward more assertive and active policies when it comes to foreign relations, and it is interested in taking on a central role in the local and global arenas. . . .

These changes were made as tensions with China grew in the background, especially with regard to the ongoing conflict over the disputed islands in the East China Sea. Added to that tension is the nuclear threat against Japan from North Korea. These threats draw Japan closer to Israel on a strategic level, because, like Japan, Israel is threatened by a country racing to achieve nuclear military capability and is challenged by predatory neighboring countries, even if they are not in the same geographic area.

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.