Since 2011, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria’s civil war have settled in Germany, a country that prides itself on its success in overcoming its historic legacy of anti-Semitism. But they have brought with them an anti-Semitism of their own, the product of many decades of government indoctrination. Rawan Osman, himself a Damascus native who now resides in Strasbourg, writes:

The influence of anti-Semitism is perhaps most overtly visible in Syria’s foreign policy; the Baathist regime has unapologetically supported terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Hizballah, that target Israeli civilians. The regime’s backing of these organizations should not be miscategorized as support for the Palestinian cause—the horrific state of the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in the southern outskirts of Damascus shows the Syrian regime’s blatant disregard for Palestinian lives. Rather, support for these terrorist organizations should be seen as some combination of political expediency and real hatred of Jews.

[A]nti-Semitism is also endemic inside of Syria, and has taken root at every level of society. Religious leaders quote—out of historical and religious context—Quranic [passages] to drive this ideology of hate, while many Syrian intellectuals and artists adopt the dictatorship’s hateful rhetoric without question.

Syrian popular literature is one area that demonstrates the deep relationship between the Syrian state . . . and anti-Semitism. . . . But perhaps the best and most influential example of anti-Semitism in Syria since the start of Bashar al-Assad’s rule is the 29-part Syrian television series ash-Shatat—“The Diaspora.” The writers, along with some of the Syria’s most prominent actors, delivered an appalling compilation of anti-Semitic canards and libels, presenting Jews as the most wicked and immoral people on earth.

Yet while the German government has vowed to combat anti-Semitism, its threats so far have mainly consisted of unspecified consequences for individuals who attack German Jews. As a Syrian, I know that warnings alone are not enough to counter decades of anti-Semitic messaging. In the febrile minds of extreme anti-Semites, attacking Jews can be seen as an honorable and courageous act. In many cases, these individuals have been conditioned since birth to perceive the Jewish people as their enemy.

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.