For several years, sharp criticism of the Palestinians and their leaders has been commonplace in the Egyptian press. Now, writes, Khaled Abu Toameh, similar attitudes can be found in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries as an increasing segment of their populations sees Palestinians as ungrateful for the financial and diplomatic support they have received from their Arab brethren:

In the past two years, Palestinians have burned Saudi flags and photographs of Muhammad bin Salman during demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Why? The crown prince is seen by Palestinians as being “too close” to Israel and the U.S. administration. Like the Egyptians, the Saudis feel betrayed by the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia for years has given the Palestinians billions of dollars in aid, but this has not stopped the Palestinians from bad-mouthing Saudi leaders at every turn.

The Saudis are now saying that they, too, are fed up. Their outrage reached its peak last June, when Palestinians assaulted a Saudi blogger visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. The assailants spat in the blogger’s face and accused him of promoting “normalization” with Israel. . . . Other Saudis seem extremely unhappy with the Palestinians’ relations with Iran.

Many people in Arab countries are now saying that it is high time for the Palestinians to start looking after their own interests and thinking of a better future for their children. They no longer see the Palestinian issue as the main problem in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arabs seem to be saying to the Palestinians: “We want to march forward; you can continue to march backward for as long as you wish.”

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.