In his book, The End of Europe (reviewed here in Mosaic), James Kirchick addresses the crisis the continent has found itself in as a result of economic stagnation, the collapse of cultural self-confidence, an inability or unwillingness either to limit immigration or to integrate immigrants and their descendants, and an increasingly threatening Russia. Discussing the book with Jonathan Silver, Kirchick examines the underlying causes of the crisis and its particularly deleterious impact on Jews, who are the targets of the far left, the far right, and Islamists—with the last group frequently using violence against them. Germany, meanwhile, in a tragic historical irony, has—motivated by guilt over its own history of anti-Semitism—brought thousands of anti-Semites into its borders, with predictable consequences. (Audio, 47 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

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.