In conversation with Damian Thompson, Benedict Kiely discusses the plight of Christian minorities in countries around the world. Best known may be the violence against Christians committed by Muslims from Iraq to Nigeria. But these are not the only cases: Christians have been victims of deadly attacks in Burma, Sri Lanka, and India, as well as brutal suppression by the Chinese and North Korean governments. Kiely argues that Western indifference is sometimes a product of anti-Christian and anti-religious prejudice. In contrast to this indifference, Kiely and Thompson point to the heroic efforts made by Jews to save their brethren around the world, both through philanthropic organizations and by the Israeli government—and, moreover, the leading role Jews have played in condemning the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere. (Audio, 31 minutes. The discussion of Jewish attitudes begins around the 16-minute mark.)

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.