The current earl of Balfour, in a letter to the New York Times, recently wrote that Israel’s “increasing inability to address [the Palestinians’] condition, coupled with the expansion into Arab territory [sic] of the Jewish settlements, are major factors in growing anti-Semitism around the world.” Therefore, wrote Lord Roderick Balfour—a descendant of the author of the famous 1917 British declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”—it is Israel’s duty to “allow the Palestinians their own state” and thus save Jews everywhere from hatred and violence. Alan Dershowitz responds:

Anyone who hates Jews “around the world” because they disagree with the policies of Israel would be ready to hate Jews on the basis of any pretext. . . . To prove the point, let us consider other countries: has there been growing anti-Chinese feelings around the world as the result of China’s occupation of Tibet? Is there growing hatred of Americans of Turkish background because of Turkey’s unwillingness to end the conflict in Cypress? . . . The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no. If Jews are the only group that suffers because of controversial policies by Israel, then the onus lies on the anti-Semites rather than on the nation state of the Jewish people. . . .

Even if it were true that anti-Semitism is increasing as the result of Israeli policies, no Israeli policy should ever be decided based on the reaction of bigots around the world. Anti-Semitism, the oldest of bigotries, will persist so long as it is seen to be justified by apologists like Roderick Balfour. Though Balfour does not explicitly justify anti-Semitism, the entire thrust of his letter is that hatred of Jews is at least understandable in light of Israel’s policies.

Balfour doesn’t say a word about the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s repeated offers of statehood to the Palestinians. . . . Nor does Balfour mention Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorist groups that constantly threaten Israel, along with Iran’s publicly declared determination to destroy the state that Lord Arthur Balfour helped to create. It’s all Israel’s fault, according to Balfour, and the resulting increase in anti-Semitism is Israel’s fault as well.

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.