Over the weekend, Representative Ilhan Omar, making a stump speech for the presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, praised him for his willingness to “fight against Western imperialism and . . . for a just world.” But, notes, Clifford May, it is unlikely she was referring to, say, European colonization of Africa, which ended in the 20th century. She seems, in fact, indifferent to contemporary imperialism:

Right now, people in Hong Kong, Iraq, and Lebanon are putting their lives on the line in struggles against oppressive empire builders. Omar, Sanders, and others who fancy themselves anti-imperialists show not the slightest concern for them. Start with Hong Kong, a colony of the British empire in the past, most of whose 7.3 million citizens vehemently oppose Hong Kong’s becoming a colony of the Chinese Communist party in the future. . . . [I]n a “just world,” wouldn’t governments require the consent of those they govern?

Move on to Iraq, where demonstrators by the tens of thousands have been protesting the ills caused by chronic corruption and economic mismanagement. They blame the Islamic Republic of Iran. . . . Turn next to Lebanon, [also under the thumb of Iranian imperialism, via the Tehran-controlled terrorist group Hizballah].

Unlike Western imperialists of the 20th century, the rulers of the Chinese and Iranian empires are unlikely to respond to protests by quietly lowering their flags and going home. Nevertheless, the free nations of the world should be implementing policies in support of those fighting 21st-century imperialism. At the very least, that means providing no financial assistance to governments controlled by terrorists or Communists.

One last question: is there no enterprising reporter willing to ask Omar and. Sanders what they mean by “Western imperialism,” how they plan to “fight” it, and whether they have any sympathy at all for those now resisting domination by non-Western empires? Their answers would be edifying.

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.