Despite its many successes, Israel has been hindered by a deep-seated belief that the state is responsible for managing the economy. Among intellectuals, academics, and policymakers, the idea that a nation’s economic progress results from a culture imbued with the spirit of capitalism, and not from government intervention, is almost heretical. Amnon Lord writes:

[I]n a lecture in Jerusalem, [American] presidential candidate Mitt Romney said [in 2012] that he attributes Israeli economic success to a “strong culture.” “I come here to this city and I see the accomplishments of people of this nation,” he said. “I see the power of culture and other things.” Romney compared the Israeli economy to the Palestinian one in terms of GNP: “You see such dramatic and prominent differences in economic vitality.” Later he said in a more philosophical tone: “if you can learn something from the history of the economy in the world, this is the lesson: culture is what makes the difference.”

The pseudo-intellectual outrage that erupted in the wake of Romney’s statements is a test case in how a profound truth turns into a distortion at the hands of those who support leaving power in the hands of the state and fraudulent “social justice.” As if a statement on how culture can help the economy promotes the idea of “cultural superiority”—with racial superiority not far off, of course. This is one of the methods used by supporters of socialism nowadays to suppress any serious discussion of the profound questions of economic reform.

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.