A recent piece by an opinion writer for the New York Times argued that “liberal Zionism”—which the author seems to equate with support for a two-state solution—is dead, and that the U.S. decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem is “another nail in [its] coffin.” Although this argument has rapidly been gaining ground, writes Emily Shire, it is entirely without merit:

[L]liberal Zionism and its preferred two-state solution have persisted in the face of a growing chorus of critics insisting a one-state solution is now inevitable. . . . Despite [the Times writer’s] and others’ accounts, reports of the death of liberal Zionism are greatly exaggerated.

But even though it lacks substantive support, the “liberal Zionism is dead” refrain is dangerous because it makes it easier to convince liberals that they should dispense with Zionism altogether—liberal or otherwise. Zionism is the basic support for Jewish sovereignty; it entails no specifications about two-state solutions, settlements or, for that matter, opinions of Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet when critics argue that Trump’s [announcement about moving the American embassy to Jerusalem] sounds the death knell for liberal Zionism, they are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) making support for Israel a partisan issue.

[This line of reasoning] boosts the myth that liberalism and Zionism are mutually exclusive. . . . Moreover, it all but ensures that antipathy toward any form of Zionism will grow because it makes it easier to discount—or plainly demonize—the concept of Jewish sovereignty. The “liberal Zionism is dead” narrative insidiously lays the groundwork for people across the political spectrum to accept a world where Israel is dispensable.

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.