Since the 2015 nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic has received millions of dollars from the U.S., benefited greatly from sanctions relief, upgraded its centrifuges, expanded its regional influence, arrested and killed protestors, threatened Israel, and avidly pursued its ballistic-missile program. Meanwhile, the military sites where it is most likely working to build atomic weapons are protected from inspections, and the deal’s restrictions will begin to be phased out in six years. By declining to recertify the agreement, President Trump has opened the door for either scuttling it or modifying its terms. Mark Dubowitz, in conversation with Jonathan Silver, advocates the latter course of action, and discusses how Washington might best pursue it. (Audio, 62 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

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.