More than immigration, economics, or xenophobia, argues Elliott Abrams, British voters’ decision to leave the European Union was ultimately about nationalism—and the EU’s hostility thereto. The same contemptuous attitude toward nationalism has exacerbated Europe’s relations with Israel:

For Israelis, Britain’s referendum helps explain their unpopularity among European elites. If nationalism is primitive and infantile and dangerous, it is no wonder that Israel is criticized endlessly and its efforts to defend itself are seen as excessive. Its basic demand—to be understood and acknowledged as a Jewish state—is itself considered illicit; ethno-national states are out of the question these days. Defending your state with actual guns is positively medieval in the eyes of today’s European leaders.

Americans beg to differ, and that’s a reason that Israel is more popular here. Believing in your country and defending it with your army is considered patriotic here, not primitive. The sacrifice of sovereignty to bureaucrats abroad would offend Americans just as it offends so many Britons. . . .

The EU project, which deprecates nationalism, also necessarily deprecates and undermines national sovereignty and democratic institutions. I can understand why sacrificing these values might make sense on a continent soaked in the blood of world wars, but I can also understand why it will never make sense to Americans and in the end did not make sense to Britons. They invented modern democracy and representative institutions. Their nationalism never caused a world war; instead, it fueled the effort to save freedom in Europe. They’ve just reminded their political elites that they love their country and their institutions, not Brussels. They fought and died for England, so why be ruled by Brussels?

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.