Founded in 2007, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as its titular head, Al Mustafa University has three campuses in Iran itself, as well as some 20,000 students enrolled in satellite campuses in Afghanistan, Congo, Britain, Syria, and over a dozen other countries. The purpose of this international presence, writes Hassan Dai, is political influence and indoctrination—of which hatred of Israel is a key component:

For the past 37 years, the Iranian regime has pursued a two-faceted strategy to export its revolution. On the one hand, it has created and supported radical armed groups across the Middle East, most notably Hizballah. On the other hand, it has created various “cultural” and “religious” organizations . . . to disseminate [its] ideology throughout the Islamic world. . . .

Al Mustafa’s vast global network and its growing army of clerics and missionaries is a formidable tool for generating grassroots support in foreign countries. . . . [It] is also a recruiting pool for the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and other Iranian institutions responsible for terrorism or military activities abroad. . . .

The Iranian regime’s strategy to export its revolution across the Islamic world and dominate the Middle East is built on a campaign to “liberate the Muslims from the historical reign of the West led by the United States.” In this context, the eradication of Israel as a symbol of Western presence at the heart of the Islamic world is part of the greater objective of establishing an Islamic Middle East. . . .

As a result of Al Mustafa’s ideological teaching and the financial incentives it provides to its students, a large portion of Al Mustafa-trained clerics become unconditional supporters of the Iranian regime. It is not surprising that many of them are sent to Syria and other places to assist the Quds Force. Al Mustafa students in Iran are also ordered to participate in state-organized rallies such as the protest against Charlie Hebdo magazine for drawing a Muhammad cartoon.

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.