To an apparently small minority of people in the world, there is something strange and quite frightening going on: A sovereign nation is being castigated for defending itself against acts of war that threaten the security of its citizens.

A great many more people apparently view Israel as being to blame for the war it is fighting with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that, one month ago, began an unprovoked campaign of raining rockets down on Israeli soil. They look at simple death count numbers—fewer than 40 innocent Israelis verses hundreds of Lebanese—ignoring the fact that Israelis are specifically targeting terrorists and trying to avoid civilian casualties while Hezbollah is virtually arbitrary in its attacks—and conclude that Israel has just gone out of control and must be stopped at all costs.

Or something like that. For the apparently small minority that believes states have the right to fight back when attacked, it is hard to understand the precise motivation behind an emerging increase in acts of anti-Semitism cropping up in nations all over the world since Israel began its campaign in Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post recently reported,

[July 28’s] fatal shooting of an employee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle was followed by further incidents over the weekend. On Sunday [July 30], the windows of a synagogue in Australia were broken and two Florida synagogues and Jewish businesses were defaced by graffiti, while several groups have received threatening e-mails and letters.Since the fighting began “there’s been a rise in expressions of hostility toward Israel” and “a spike in incidents of anti-Semitism,” according to Paul Gardner, chairman of Bnai Brith of Australia’s Anti-Defamation Committee. “So this is not surprising.” …One of the perpetrators of the Miami desecrations, a youth, has been held by police after swastikas and kkk lettering appeared on two synagogues, a kosher butcher and a Judaica store. …Mark Garner, spokesman for British Jewry’s Community Security Trust, estimated that there has been a 25 percent increase in anti-Jewish incidents since Israeli-Hezbollah violence broke out nearly three weeks ago. He said there had been a particular rise in the number of threatening e-mails individuals had received, many of which mentioned the situation in Lebanon.

These events playing out in the streets of several cities—though they are perpetrated by the small minority of people willing to commit arbitrary, vigilante-style acts of vandalism and violence as an apparent expression of political views—are only the most extreme manifestations of what is actually proving to be a majority viewpoint. The perverse pinning of blame of the Middle Eastern war on individual Jews worldwide finds an unmistakable resonance in discussions among governments and international organizations.

Many nations are essentially treating Israel as the aggressor nation, demanding that it withdraw its troops and cease its attacks—a move that would award Hezbollah with a tidy little victory, leaving it intact to start the war again at a time of its choosing. This represents a perversion of justice and is also hard to understand.

At least, to an apparently small minority of people.