Among the most prominent criticisms of Christian Zionism—the belief that Christians are theologically obligated to support the existence of a Jewish state in the land of Israel—is that it is solely a product of a particular strand of Protestant eschatological thinking known as dispensationalism. At a recent conference, Christian scholars strove to put forward arguments that could be persuasive to Christians of a broad variety of denominations. One of these scholars, Gerald McDermott, explains:

[Some] scholars at the conference argued that the history of Christian Zionism is as old as Christianity itself. . . . [However,] it took the Reformation’s return to the plain sense of the biblical text to restore confidence that there could be a future role for a particular Israel, both as a people and a land, even while Christian salvation was offered to a whole world. . . . . Long before the rise of dispensationalism in the 19th century, Protestants in a variety of churches foresaw a role for a particular Zion [i.e., Zion as a literal place rather than a figurative ideal] in times before the End [of Days]. Then, after the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel in 1948, both Catholic and Protestant theologians recognized from Romans 11 that the rise of the Church did not end God’s continuing covenant with Israel. As theologians brought new focus on that covenant, many came to see that the land was integral to it. . . .

[My colleagues] made not only theological but also prudential arguments. Israel, it was noted, is an island of democracy and freedom in a sea of authoritarian and despotic regimes. It deserves support, especially as anti-Semitism rises precipitously around the world. But the purpose of these prudential arguments—political and legal and moral—was to undergird a new theological argument that the people of Israel continue to be significant for the history of redemption, and that the land of Israel, which is at the heart of the covenantal promises, continues to be critical to God’s providential purposes.

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.