The Jewish state has had decades of experience—and much success—combating the sort of murderous violence that European countries now face from Islamic State and its supporters. Therefore, argue Richard Kemp and Arsen Ostrovsky, European governments should stop demonizing Israel and start imitating it:

The [recent] vehicular terror attack in Barcelona follows a similar wave of car-ramming attacks in Nice, London, Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm over the past year, which have claimed a combined total of 130 lives. . . . [This tactic] was pioneered by Palestinian terrorists in Israel, when the world mostly looked the other way, trying to downplay, excuse, or just plain ignore the attacks, seeking to differentiate terror in Israel from terror in Europe. Today, Islamic jihadists are copying and exporting this murderous methodology across Europe. . . .

First and foremost, European leaders must diagnose the problem and identify their enemy. You cannot win a war unless you know whom you are trying to defeat. It is not just plain “extremism,” some generic form of “terrorism” or a mass outbreak of undiagnosed patients suffering “mental-health” [problems]. . . . The European Union appears to have no problem labeling Israeli pickles and tomatoes produced in the West Bank, yet many still seem reluctant to call out Islamic terrorists by their name and label radical Islam as the root of this wave of terror sweeping the continent. . . .

One area in particular in which Europe can learn from Israel is in cyber security and counterterrorism surveillance, in which the Jewish state is an unparalleled leader. . . . There also needs to be a greater physical presence of security, including armed officers and barriers in major public places and landmarks, which are glaring targets for potential terrorists. Many police officers across Europe, especially in the UK, do not even carry firearms. . . .

Europe also cannot be serious about fighting terror on the one hand and embracing Iran on the other hand. Iran continues to be the foremost state sponsor of terror globally. Its support of the Assad regime is a primary cause of the Syrian refugee crisis and the spread of Islamic State, as well as Hizballah operatives roaming freely across Europe. Tehran is not a partner in the war on terror, it is one of the primary instigators of global terror.

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.