Unlike in the West, writes Yoram Ettinger, in the Arab world “historical memory is very long; nothing is forgotten [and] nothing is forgiven.” Thus, Jordan hasn’t forgotten that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) nearly overthrew its monarchy in 1970; nor has Lebanon forgotten the PLO’s role in igniting its bloody civil war. Ettinger calls attention to the less-known case of Kuwait, a country where, at the beginning of 1990, Palestinian refugees made up a fifth of the population:

Kuwait was the most generous Arab host of Palestinian migrants, providing them with a high level of social, economic, and political freedom, and facilitating their rise to senior managerial, civil-service, media, and professional positions. . . . Kuwait’s Palestinian migrants, [who included] relatives and loyalists of Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, evolved into the wealthiest Palestinian migrant community. . . . The oil-producing sheikhdom levied a 5-percent excise tax on all Palestinian earnings, and transferred it to the stashed accounts of the two PLO leaders. It also extended $65 million of annual aid to the PLO.

Kuwait’s generosity [was] intended to reduce the threat of Palestinian terrorism, and constrain the explosive potential of Palestinian migrants. . . . In return for Kuwait’s hospitality and generosity, PLO leaders displayed deep sympathy toward [Kuwait’s enemy] Saddam Hussein. They spent much time in Baghdad during the months leading up to the August 1990 invasion [of Kuwait], which was facilitated by three PLO battalions stationed in Iraq and vital intelligence that was provided by Palestinians in Kuwait. The PLO [then] heralded the plunder of Kuwait, lobbying . . . against an Arab League resolution that called for military action for the liberation of Kuwait.

As a result of such instances, Arab leaders continue to pay lip service to the Palestinian cause, but little else:

Therefore, contrary to Western conventional wisdom, there has been an unbridgeable gap between . . . pro-Palestinian Arab talk and the [very different] Arab walk. Arab leaders have [followed] the fundamental Middle Eastern [aphorism], “on words one does not pay customs tax.”

Are Western democracies aware of the costly Palestinian terroristic track record? Do they intend to learn from past mistakes by avoiding—rather than repeating—them?

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.