Sociology presents itself as an objective and value-free science, but most sociologists exhibit a stunning uniformity of outlook and place their discipline at the service of a particular ideological agenda. For many of its practitioners, Christian Smith argues in a new book, sociology has become a kind of substitute religion. Peter Leithart explains:

Borrowing from the aims of Christianity [writes Smith], sociology unsurprisingly offers “a secular salvation story” with roots in the “Enlightenment, liberalism, Marxism, reformist progressivism, pragmatism, therapeutic culture, sexual liberation, civil rights, feminism, and so on.” Some sociologists are true believers; others are tacitly friendly to the project. . . . [Smith] shows that the typical sociology text is not a statistical analysis but a study of a threatening social problem brought about by injustices committed by elites, and the research aims to mobilize “social and political movements for political and economic change.” . . . He also cites anecdotal evidence from conversations with grad students who focus their research, for instance, on learning what the “enemies” are up to (enemies being the Religious Right).

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.