Evangelical Christianity, often assumed to be predominantly an American phenomenon, is rapidly gaining large numbers of converts all over the world—especially in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. As a byproduct, writes Jürgen Bühler, Israel is becoming more popular in those places:

An international survey conducted by the BBC revealed that the countries most sympathetic to Israel are the U.S., Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria; the common denominator [among these nations] is a high proportion of evangelicals. In Latin America, the highest support for Israel was recorded in Brazil, which has the highest percentage of evangelicals in South America. . . .

This evangelical revolution is beginning to find a political voice. In the recent presidential elections in Argentina, the pro-Israel candidate Mauricio Macri replaced Cristina Kirchner, who had taken a strong pro-Palestinian [stance] and made secret deals with Iran. This change was made possible largely thanks to the evangelical vote. . . . It is also worth mentioning the Ivory Coast’s recent decision to refrain from supporting UN resolutions condemning Israel.

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.