Sealed off from the rest of the world until the 19th century, Japan was one of the last countries in which Jews settled, and since then has never had more than a tiny Jewish population. As a result, anti-Semitism did not come to the island nation until relatively recently. Yaniv Pohoryles, in his review of a new Hebrew-language book on the subject, explains:

[I]t was ironically only after Jewish investment helped Japan beat Russia in their 1904-5 war that European anti-Semitic literature began to enter the country. [But] the Japanese reached entirely different conclusions from European anti-Semitic theorists. While the Germans believed that the solution to the anti-Semitic claim that “the Jews rule the world” is expulsion and annihilation, the Japanese concluded that they must learn from the Jews, connect with them, and implement the good things they do. In other words, their anti-Semitism became philo-Semitism.

“In order to understand the Japanese approach to the Jews, a few years ago we were visited by a senior Japanese delegation,” Ben-Ami Shiloni, [the book’s author], says. “After the meal, the leader of the group stood up, thanked the hosts, and said that he and the other members of the delegation knew very little about Jews and Israel before the trip. In preparation, they searched for a book on the subject and after reading it they felt that they now understand Israel’s success and the special position Jews hold.

“He then drew the book from his pocket and gave it to us as a gift—it was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This shows that classic anti-Semitic literature is seen by the Japanese as a model for success and imitation. In essence, they draw counterintuitive conclusions regarding the Jews and how to relate to them.”

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.