In a March 8 speech, Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah called on his followers to give more generously to the organization, citing increasing U.S. economic pressure on Iran—Hizballah’s principal patron—as one reason it needs donor support more than ever. Many have taken this and similar statements as evidence that the terrorist group is in dire financial straits. But Tony Badran argues that such an interpretation takes Nasrallah’s words out of context and ignores the realities on the ground:

At the heart of Nasrallah’s much-cited speech was the domestic situation in Lebanon, which is central to Hizballah’s operations and finances. The Lebanese economy is moribund, and international donors are demanding structural reforms from the government in Beirut. . . . Nasrallah’s messaging was not aimed at raising insignificant amounts of small change from the Shiite community to fund Hizballah’s operations. Rather, he was addressing [Lebanese] Shiites as their communal representative in the political system at a moment of economic hardship and uncertainty in Lebanon. . . . [H]is speeches and anecdotes are purposeful rhetoric intended to serve a specific function: promoting total identification between Hizballah and the Shiite community. . . .

Over the past eight years, Hizballah has been involved in military campaigns in four countries, most notably in Syria. In addition, Hizballah has been using Lebanon as an operational headquarters to host, train, and treat militia fighters from the region. To sustain the logistical needs alone of these campaigns, Hizballah’s expenditures had to grow exponentially. While its fighters are still very much actively deployed, in Syria especially, the conditions in all four theaters today have lessened in intensity since the peak of the conflicts, which has allowed Hizballah to decrease or reallocate spendings. . . .

Hizballah is not bankrupt. But have Iranian funds to the group been affected by sanctions on Tehran? The answer is most likely “yes,” but . . . the more critical question is: has Hizballah’s ability to continue to run its operations, both military and nonmilitary, been substantially curtailed at this point in the maximum-pressure campaign? There is no convincing evidence to suggest that anything like that is happening.

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.