The book of Kings describes the palace of King Ahab—who ruled over the Northern Kingdom of Israel (also known as Samaria) in the 9th century BCE—as an “ivory house.” Drawing on textual and archaeological evidence, Rupert Chapman argues that this palace was of a type, known as a bit hilani (literally, “a house of windows”), then common in parts of what is now Syria. Megan Sauter explains how this theory illuminates a particular biblical passage:

Since a bit hilani must contain a window (or windows) for its name to make sense, some scholars have proposed that the window(s) in question were clerestory windows (i.e., windows near the ceiling). However, Chapman has another interpretation. He believes that the bit hilani [took its name from the presence of] a “window of appearances” above the palace’s entrance. From this window, kings and queens would show themselves to the people standing below. This is akin to what the [British] royal family still does from Buckingham Palace’s balcony. . . .

This identification also sheds light on Queen Jezebel’s death as recounted in 2Kings 9:30-37. When Jezebel (the widow of King Ahab) hears that Jehu, who had [just killed her husband and] usurped the throne, is approaching the palace, she “painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window.” At Jehu’s command, Jezebel is thrown from this “window” and killed. Now we can better envision this scene as taking place at a “window of appearances.”

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.