Hamas has been funneling cash—much of which originates in Iran—to Islamic State’s Sinai branch, in exchange for materials it needs for its rockets. And the cooperation doesn’t end there, as Alex Fishman writes:

Egyptian security officials note that it is solely thanks to Hamas’s monetary and professional support of IS in the Sinai that the branch has, in the last few years, turned from a gang of Bedouin with light weapons into a well-trained, well-armed group of 800 militants. IS in the Sinai has been doggedly fighting the Egyptian army and threatening to carry out terror attacks against Israelis close to the border.

Israeli officials believe that if the situation escalates on the Gaza front, both IS in the Sinai and IS in Gaza will aid Hamas in its fight against the IDF. . . .

In exchange for smuggling services and cooperation with Hamas, IS in the Sinai receives not only money but also logistical support. For example, when the group recently had difficulties in transferring its wounded militants to Gaza for treatment, Hamas sent medical teams into the Sinai in order to attend to them there. Hamas has also provided IS in the Sinai with training and sophisticated military equipment.

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.