In a recent speech, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, the EU’s outgoing ambassador to the Jewish state, commented that “Israel has much to learn from [Europe] in the war on terror.” Fiamma Nirenstein explains why she finds this assertion “totally absurd”:

Israel is better than any other country at fighting terrorism. Otherwise, it simply would not have survived the wave of attacks that Europe now suffers. Israel suffers attacks on every possible front: from the air, in public squares, airports, streets, by fanatics of every kind—suicide bombers, Islamic organizations, lone wolves. This is why so many people, from the European government to security services, come to learn from Israel daily, on a regular and intense basis, about how to cope with terror.

I met Mr. Andersen at the King David Hotel [at a recent diplomatic gathering on this very] subject: how Israel’s endures.

One of the ambassadors attending said, “Europe could never behave like Israel because the Israelis are ready to send their children to fight and even die, which the Europeans would never do.” A very harsh assessment. Even so, I can appreciate this point of view; it is ultimately human. Nevertheless, I responded with the unfortunate truth facing Europe, “You don’t send your children to die, but they are being murdered anyway.” What choice does that leave the young people in Europe, who will find themselves in the middle of an attack without feeling like their Israeli counterparts—strong, prepared, and dedicated to their country?

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.