On Monday, the British government declared Hizballah a terrorist organization. Ariel Kahana argues that this long-overdue measure was precipitated by London’s decision to leave the European Union. That decision, he believes, has been followed by “continuous improvement in Britain’s approach to Israel”:

The incessant refusal of Germany, France, Italy, and of course the EU itself to define the murderous organization accurately is the height of folly. Because the Europeans haven’t only failed to call Hizballah by its name—a terrorist organization—but have sought to whitewash their collective conscience by concocting a flimsy distinction between its “military wing,” which they have outlawed, and its “diplomatic wing,” which they maintain is legitimate. This distinction doesn’t exist and Hizballah itself rejects it. . . .

The Europeans know all this, but as usual, they are playing make-believe. . . . Were it not for their expected exit from the EU, we can assume that the British, too, would still be playing pretend. These are the rules of the EU, which imposes a uniform foreign policy on all of its members. . . .

Thank heaven indeed for allowing us to reach this day. A few years ago, it was revealed that in the 1970s, Europe embraced Yasir Arafat because it feared the PLO would carry out terrorist attacks on its soil. It isn’t a stretch to assume that today, too, the EU’s untruthful position is guided by dread of potential Hizballah attacks. Some fears can only be cured by Brexit.

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.