The Jewish National Fund (JNF)—which owns much of the land in Israel—together with a few Israeli families who live near the Gaza Strip, has filed suit in an American court against organizations that, they allege, support arson attacks on southwestern Israel, often accomplished by attaching makeshift incendiary devices to kites and balloons. In doing so, writes Nadav Shragai, the plaintiffs have an opportunity to shed light on the how Palestinian terrorist groups raise funds in the United States:

If the details of the suit are found to have a legal basis, it will be possible to point to three links in the money chain, the first of which are the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF). The group was established by the former PLO leader Yasir Arafat during the second intifada [to] coordinate among the various organizations fighting against Israel. . . . It turns out that the PNIF was never dismantled and in fact helped establish the Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege, [which coordinates attacks from Gaza and attempts to breach the border fence]

A total of twelve religious and nationalist Palestinian factions belong to the PNIF, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, [and] the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. . . . All of them are recognized as terrorist groups by Israel, the U.S., and Europe.

The second link is the BDS National Committee (BNC), a leading player in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that was founded in Ramallah. BNC sees itself as an umbrella organization that heads the international movement to boycott Israel.

The third link is the specific group named in the lawsuit: the American charity Education for Just Peace in the Middle East U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). According to the lawsuit, at least as far back as 2017 the group has functioned as a pipeline to transfer donations to terrorist organizations, utilizing the BNC [for that purpose]. The funds USCPR transfers to the BNC are designated charitable donations, and are therefore tax-exempt. The lawsuit argues that starting in 2018, the USCPR has been involved in a conspiracy to support, promote, and encourage the marches of return, which are directed [and] led by a terrorist coalition. Therefore, the suit argues, the BNC receives tax-free donations and uses them to promote an agenda of hatred and the arson-balloon and kite attacks against Israel.

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.