Despite American claims that Syria gave up its chemical-weapons program in 2013, there is now overwhelming evidence that Bashar al-Assad still has such weapons and is using them regularly. Dany Shoham explains, noting implications for the Iran deal:

Increasingly worried about his military position, Assad could expand the employment of chemical weapons (chiefly chlorine, during the last year) in order aggressively to defend his core territory. VX [gas], in addition to sarin, could also be very useful for that purpose. . . . If this option becomes necessary for his survival, and is the only option open to him, he will expectedly exercise it—international opinion be damned. . . .

[T]he Syrian regime has repeatedly exploited . . . the civil war and the confrontations with Islamic State (IS) and the rebels as an excuse for impeding inspections activities. Regime representatives have been able to prevent the inspectors from reaching a specific location by simply stating that it is too dangerous. If an inspection team ignores this advice, there are a number of options to ensure it does not reach its destination, the ultimate one being a physical attack, deniable under the “fog” of the civil war. . . .

The employment of weaponized chlorine by Syrian helicopters is almost routine, and, although forbidden, is tolerated by the international community. It has proved to be effective, usually dropped [on targets] in barrels. . . . IS [also] has deployed chlorine gas-based chemical weapons against Iraqi government forces, Syrian government forces, and Syrian opposition forces, and has used unidentified chemical weapons against Kurds in Kobane.

Taking a broader perspective, there are lessons to be drawn from this Syrian weapons-monitoring experience and the current debate over the P5+1 accord with Iran. . . . Effective implementation of the Iran nuclear deal is subject to good intelligence and effective monitoring. The reluctance of the international community to act forcibly regarding the inspections regime in Syria, in particular with respect to investigating its undeclared chemical-weapons capabilities, is a very bad sign.

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.