When asked why it is so important that his cabinet have an equal proportion of men and women, Canada’s new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, replied, “Because it’s 2015.” Similarly, writes Abe Greenwald, Trudeau is pursuing more “balanced” relations with Israel—in part by attempting to improve its relations with Lebanon—because it’s the trendy thing to do:

Among progressives, the term “balance” can excuse all manner of foolishness. . . . There is no sound justification for Canada to cool relations with Israel while flattering Israel’s neighbors. There are only stock liberal notions about Israeli misconduct and the need for “balance” in Middle East affairs. When you act . . . mechanically, you lose the ability to think critically. What’s the real reason Canada is changing its tone toward Israel? Because that’s what liberal governments do these days. Because it’s 2015. Mischief to follow.

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.