On Tuesday, the European court of justice ruled that food items originating from the Gaza Strip or West Bank must be labeled as such, and that the labels must further specify if the items were produced in a place inhabited by Jews. Alan Baker notes that the policy in question “is intended to harm Israel and Israel only,” and is intended to bolster boycotts of the Jewish state:

The EU labeling policy is based on a unilateral EU premise that Israel’s settlements are contrary to international law. This premise runs counter to other relevant legal opinions as to the legitimacy of Israel’s settlement policy in accordance with the accepted international norms regarding the administration of territory. Additionally, and more importantly, the issue of Israel’s settlements is an agreed-upon negotiating issue between Israel and the PLO, pursuant to the Oslo Accords. Thus, the EU labeling directive is tantamount to interference in, and prejudgment of, an agreed-upon negotiating issue between Israel and the Palestinians.

The EU labeling requirement is [therefore] a political measure strengthening the already existing links between the EU and the predominantly European boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign. It represents full identification of the EU and its member states with the aims of the BDS movement to undermine Israel and to weaken the relations between European countries and Israel.

The selective and discriminatory EU labeling policy . . . ignores the numerous situations in the world where states administering territories have transferred hundreds and thousands of their own citizens into [those] territories, such as Turkey in Northern Cyprus, Morocco in occupied Western Sahara, Russia in occupied Ukrainian territory, and the like. This is indicative of an acute double standard in EU policies, raising pertinent questions regarding the real motivation behind such policy.

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.