A recent survey conducted by the ADL ranked Korea the third most anti-Semitic country in Asia (after Malaysia and Armenia). The country has a tiny Jewish community, mostly consisting of American expatriates, that until recently was centered around a U.S. military base. Korea’s Jews claim that they have encountered minimal anti-Semitism and instead cite widespread admiration for, and interest in, Jews and Judaism. With this admiration come numerous stereotypes about Jewish success, which may explain the results of the ADL survey. These attitudes have produced some strange results, writes Dave Hazzan:

In fact, an interest in Judaism has made the Talmud a best-seller in Korea. [Korea’s only rabbi, Osher] Litzman runs regular Talmud and Torah classes for Koreans, most of whom have no interest in converting. . . . [T]here are Koreans who have been regulars at Friday-night services for 30 years and know the liturgy better than many American Jews do. A 2011 story from the [London] Jewish Chronicle, “Why South Koreans Are in Love with Judaism,” estimates there are more Talmuds in Korean homes than in Israeli ones. The story quotes a Korean mother who said, “The stereotype of Jews here is that they are ultra-intelligent people. Jews have come out of nowhere to become business chiefs, media bosses, Nobel Prize-winners—we want our children to do the same. If that means studying Talmud, Torah, whatever, so be it.”

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.