For jihadists, the holy month of Ramadan is a particularly propitious time for terrorism—a fact that might explain the recent rash of attacks. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explains:

The month of Ramadan, a month of fasting, has a special status as a month of religious spirituality and devotion. However, in the Muslim tradition it is also perceived as a month of jihad and martyrdom, a month in which Allah grants military victories to believers. It was during Ramadan that Muslims triumphed in many of their battles, among them the battle of Badr in 624 between supporters of Muhammad and a merchant caravan of the Quraysh tribe; the conquest of Mecca in 630 and of Andalusia in 711; the battle of al-Zallaqa in 1086, in which Spanish Muslims defeated the Castilians near the city of Badajoz on today’s Portuguese border; and the Yom Kippur war.

Given the historic religious and military significance of Ramadan, Islamist and jihadist groups, and sometimes also mainstream Arab organizations and Arab media, escalate incitement to jihad and martyrdom during this month.

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.