In a recent reversal, the United Kingdom outlawed Hizballah’s “political wing” from operating within its borders, after over a decade of considering only its “military wing” a terrorist organization. Yet, write Mark Dubowitz and Benjamin Weinthal, other European countries refuse to follow suit:

On Friday, the German government rebuffed requests from the U.S., Israel, and a number of Arab countries to outlaw all of Hizballah. Europe’s . . . approach to Hizballah puts it at odds with reality—not to mention Hizballah leaders’ own view of their group. . . . The partial ban prompted the Hizballah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi to repeat what other top officials of the group have stressed over the years: “Hizballah is a single, large organization. We have no wings that are separate from one another.” . . .

But the EU, [along with Germany, has] continued to ignore Hizballah’s self-described identity as a unitary organization. The rationale: Europe, in particular France and Germany, desired to continue a “critical dialogue.”. . .

As the main economic engine of Europe, Germany could influence a change in EU policy toward Hizballah. [Moreover], Germany has long been a hotbed of Hizballah activity. The organization’s representatives raise funds, recruit members and spread a lethal anti-Semitic and jihadist ideology. . . .

The real reason Germany (and the EU) hesitate to ban the whole of Hizballah has to do with appeasing Iran, Hizballah’s sponsor. Berlin is well aware that Hizballah is tied at the navel to Tehran. . . . That treasured friendship was on display last month when German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sent a warm congratulatory telegram to Tehran to honor the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic.

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.