The exposure of the links between a leader of the Women’s March and Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, has led to the spectacle of many left-wing leaders defending Farrakhan, struggling to distance themselves from him without condemning him, or simply evading questions on the subject. To Chloé Valdary, some of the sympathy for Farrakhan on the left doesn’t merely stem from an inability to recognize anti-Semitism or bigotry in certain forms but from a more deep-seated affinity, based in the au-courant ideology of “intersectionality”:

Intersectionality has become . . . a rigid system for determining who is virtuous and who is not, based on traits like skin color, sex, and financial status. The more white, straight, or rich you are, the less virtue you have—and vice versa. Some have pointed out that it’s eerily similar to Christianity, complete with pointing out one’s original sin (whiteness), preaching repentance (admitting you’re privileged), and ritualistic attempts at salvation (working to dismantle one’s own alleged role in oppressing others). . . .

This framework that intersectionalists offer leaves Zionist Jews out of the equation for achieving social justice. It does not matter that Jews were historically oppressed and created the most successful liberation movement of the 20th century; it doesn’t matter that they suffered genocide at the hands of white Europeans barely 70 years ago. The fact that many Jews have white skin color is proof that they are part of the problem. This is why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed as a zero-sum game by many intersectionalists who believe the Israeli position is, by default, oppressive, simply because Israelis are viewed as “white.”

Curiously enough, intersectionality is [also] similar to the doctrine that Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam preach. In Farrakhan’s case, it is a much more overtly religious creed, but the principles are the same. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Farrakhan believes that “white people were not created by God but by the evil black scientist Yakub. . . . Because of the process by which Yakub created the white race, white people are inherently deceitful and murderous.”

In other words, Farrakhan also believes that white people were . . . born in original sin—the sin of being white. He also believes that people of color are superior to white people and that Jews are especially worthy of derision and persecution; thus, taking away Jewish power is key to bringing about redemption. One could argue that Farrakhan and certain progressive movements share this perspective. Why else would the Movement for Black Lives and the Women’s March leadership make statements about no other geopolitical conflict on earth except for one involving Jews?

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.