From hardcore neo-Nazis to David Duke to such newer faces as Richard Spencer, many members of what has been termed the “alternative right” have displayed an admiration for Bashar al-Assad. Since Assad is the head of a political party that combines nationalism and socialism, and has dedicated a great deal of effort to killing Jews, perhaps this should not be particularly surprising. Liz Sly and Rick Noack write:

Assad’s politics—and those of his father before him—have historically been associated more with the left than the right. His late father, President Hafez al-Assad, was the closest Middle Eastern ally of the Soviet Union throughout the cold war. The son has enjoyed the stalwart support of international leftists throughout his attempt to crush the six-year-old rebellion against his rule.

In recent months, however, Assad has [also] become an icon for the far right, whose leaders and spokesman have heaped praise on the ferocity with which he has prosecuted the war, his [alleged] role in fighting Islamic State, and his perceived stance against Muslims and Jews.

That Assad’s harsh methods have resulted in [hundreds] of thousands of civilian casualties seems only to have enhanced his stature. In a video posted on Twitter, three men who participated in the Charlottesville protests hailed Assad’s use of barrel bombs to subdue communities that turned against him. One is wearing a T-shirt that says: “Bashar’s Barrel Delivery Co.” . . .

The far right’s love affair with Assad [should] not be entirely unexpected. His Baath party is fiercely nationalist and ethnocentric, focused on the promotion of Arab identity. One of the few [other] political parties permitted by his regime and one of his staunchest supporters in the war is the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which drew the inspiration for its logo from the swastika.

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.