Video footage recently obtained by the American military reportedly shows Islamic State (IS) fighters in Mosul forcing civilians into buildings—not to use them as human shields, but in the hope that these civilians will be killed by U.S. troops or their allies, thus generating outrage that will, in turn, discourage further attacks. As Evelyn Gordon notes, this practice, dubbed the “dead-baby strategy” by Alan Dershowitz, was pioneered by Hamas:

This tactic . . . was borrowed [by IS] because the world’s response to successive Hamas-Israel wars convinced IS that creating massive civilian casualties among residents of its own territory is an effective strategy. . . . [I]nstead of blaming Hamas for [deliberately jeopardizing its own subjects], the world largely blamed Israel. Mass demonstrations were held throughout the West condemning Israel; there were no mass demonstrations condemning Hamas. Journalists and “human-rights” organizations issued endless reports blaming Israel for the civilian casualties while ignoring or downplaying Hamas’s role in them. Western leaders repeatedly demanded that Israel show “restraint” and accused it of using disproportionate force. Israel, not Hamas, became the subject of a complaint to the International Criminal Court.

In short, by blaming Israel for civilian casualties that were . . . deliberately caused by Hamas’s actions, the world ensured that other terrorist organizations would adopt a similar strategy.

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.