Between 1948 and 1967, the number of Jews living in Arab lands went from about 800,000 to a few thousand, most of whom lived in the larger cities of North Africa. The majority had left for Israel, France, or America in the face of increasing persecution. After the Six-Day War, however, life became untenable even for those who had remained behind. Lucette Lagnado writes:

That week in June—which sparked terrifying anti-Jewish riots, shop burnings, mass incarcerations, and even murders—eliminat[ed] any last lingering illusions these Jews may have held that they could stay put.

We know of course how multiple Arab armies who had expected to stamp out Israel were themselves crushed. It was all so humiliating. . . . [R]esidents of those countries chose to vent their rage by turning it against the Jews in their midst, most of who were studiously apolitical and had nothing to do with the war, its outbreak, or its outcome.

Even in those countries that were, as some of us like to say, “nice to the Jews”—such as Tunisia, where fairly sizable Jewish communities were left in 1967—there were terrifying demonstrations and expressions of hatred and venom. Jews from Morocco left in [a mass] exodus. In countries like Libya, murderous assaults took place that prompted an emergency evacuation of hundreds of Jews.

Egypt, where I was born and spent my early childhood, engaged in especially tawdry behavior. . . . On that week in 1967, the Egyptian government began rounding up Jewish men, to send to jails and prison camps. By accounts of the time, as many as 400 or 500 Jews were imprisoned. . . .

Perhaps that is why, whenever a supporter of the BDS movement targeting Israel insists they are “only” anti-Israel not anti-Jewish, I cast a cold eye, recalling how bogus that distinction turned out to be for Jews of Arab countries. It is as false now as it was 50 years ago.

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.