On Sunday, the Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan was visiting Iran, where he led a chant of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” He has also been praised repeatedly by two of the leaders of the Women’s March, which was organized in 2016 to protest Donald Trump’s election and scheduled to occur a third time in January. And admiration of Farrakhan, writes Karol Markowicz, is but one sign of the organization’s problem with Jews:

Linda Sarsour, one of the [march’s] leaders, . . . supported the radical Muslim Brotherhood, [parent organization of Hamas]. In 2012, she tweeted: “When we write the history of Islam in America, the Nation of #Islam is an integral part of that history.” . . .

People change, goes the argument, and Sarsour made these comments several years ago, before she became a high-profile political figure on the left. Perhaps she’s more responsible now. But in September, Sarsour said American Muslims shouldn’t “humanize” Israelis. There was no overwhelming response from the left to remind her that Israelis are actually human. American Jews who ignore this hatred are fooling themselves. Anti-Semitism is specifically about dehumanizing Jews until their murder makes sense. . . .

Then there’s the Women’s March co-president Tamika Mallory. In a February 2018 speech, Farrakhan said, [that he], “by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.” Mallory attended the speech. She once posted a picture of herself embraced by Farrakhan, referring to him as “the GOAT” (Greatest of All Time). Just last May, Mallory praised the “bravery” of Hamas terrorists. So when she pointedly refused to condemn Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT comments after being asked, it was no surprise. . . . .

And note: while “Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, disabled women, Muslim women, [and] lesbian, queer, and trans women” are all specifically mentioned in the [march’s] “Unity Principles,” Jewish women are not. Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attacks account for more than half of all hate crimes in the U.S. Maybe it’s not a coincidence.

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.