An Iraqi-born Jew, Elie Kedourie (1926-1992) left his native Baghdad to study at the London School of Economics, where he went on to serve as one of the leading scholars of the modern Middle East. From his doctoral dissertation onward, he was a fierce critic of the regnant Middle East studies establishment that deeply influenced British (and American) foreign policy after World War II, and continues to do so today. Michael Doran discusses Kedourie’s intellectual legacy and in particular his 1970 essay, “The Chatham House Version.” The title refers to the view of the Middle East proffered by the British counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations—a view based on a flawed faith in a chimerical Arab nationalism and a tendency to blame Western imperialism for Arab pathologies. (Interview by Eric Cohen; audio, 48 minutes.)

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.