Although there is ample reason to fear rising manifestations of anti-Semitism in the U.S., writes David E. Bernstein, there is in fact little reason to believe that hostile attitudes toward Jews have risen dramatically. He cites a recent study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as evidence:

While belief in stereotypes about Jews remains widespread, the ADL found that only 11 percent of American adults believed in six or more of the eleven stereotypes tested—a tie for the lowest percentage ever. By contrast, the first year the ADL undertook this study, the figure was 29 percent. So much for the constant refrain from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt and others that we are living through “the worst period of anti-Semitism in the United States since the 1930s.”

Now, I admit that ADL methodology is far from perfect, but it does provide a basis for comparison, and there has been no spike, or even an increase, in anti-Semitism because of Donald Trump or anyone else. The problem of anti-Semitism in the United States is a problem of the far-left and far-right fringes, and the way social media, technology, partisanship, and the decline of media gatekeepers have allowed them to have a much louder voice. These fringes need to be isolated; the Trump administration shouldn’t be giving discretionary media credentials to far-right anti-Semites, and Bernie Sanders shouldn’t be allying with Linda Sarsour, Rashida Tlaib, and company. And of course better security and preemptive work by law enforcement is needed to stop what does appear to be a spike in anti-Semitic violence.

But for those who thought that the U.S. was heading toward the sort of commonplace, mainstream anti-Semitism prevalent in some European countries, you can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now.

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.