For almost 100 years, the Christian Century has been a major publication of mainstream American Protestantism. During the 1930s and 40s, it distinguished itself by its conspicuous lack of sympathy for Jews in Hitler’s Europe and its hostility toward Zionism. When he took over the publication in the 1970s, James M. Wall tentatively apologized for its prior sins, but did not give up its anti-Zionism. Since his departure, the magazine has backed away from such positions, while Wall has become a regular contributor to the openly anti-Semitic Veterans’ News Network, a purveyor of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Dexter van Zile writes:

As Wall’s tenure proceeded, the Christian Century became fundamentally hostile toward the Jewish state, largely mirroring—and fueling—the cult of anti-Zionism that existed in mainline Protestant churches in the United States. Under Wall’s leadership, the magazine treated the Jewish state just as the magazine had treated Jews under [the previous editor’s] leadership.

When Wall retired from his post as editor of the Christian Century in 1999 and took on the title of senior contributing editor, . . . his anti-Israel bent became even more pronounced. In his regular columns, Wall’s obsession with Israel became full-blown, with his writings becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. In 2005, he wrote a piece that falsely asserted that Israel’s security barrier completely surrounded the city of Bethlehem. Also that year, he described Hizballah and Hamas—two terrorist organizations—as “Muslim non-governmental groups.”

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.