Politicians, government officials, and the media are often quick to describe the recent murderous attacks in Europe and America as the work of individuals who either commit violence for largely personal reasons or are inspired by reading jihadist propaganda online. In truth, argues Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, most have been recruited by Islamic State (IS) and have received operational assistance:

Jihadists plotting murders in the West used to congregate in person, meeting in small groups in underground mosques, houses, or other discreet locations. Radicalization occurred through in-person contact. Counterterrorism officials looked for physical hubs of recruitment, tapping phones and scanning videos for evidence that cells were meeting.

But with the social-media boom and the growth in encrypted communications, [both] radicalization and operational planning can easily take place entirely online. IS has capitalized on [developing] communications technologies, building cohesive online communities that foster a sense of “remote intimacy” and thus facilitate radicalization. The group has also established a team of “virtual planners” who use the Internet to identify recruits and to coordinate and direct attacks, often without meeting the perpetrators in person. [For instance], Junaid Hussain, a British IS operative who was killed in August 2015, played the role of virtual planner for the May 2015 strike against the “draw Mohammed ” contest in Garland, Texas.

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.