Continetti concludes his column by condemning Obama administration efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza. “This is not the time for President Obama and John Kerry to play to type, to promote bad agreements for self-satisfaction, for political gain,” he writes. “If they won’t stand behind Israel, they should at least get out of the way. And let the IDF finish the job.” When Continetti expresses his desire for the Obama administration to “get out of the way,” he really means that Obama should continue his perennial support for giving Israel $3.1 billion in annual aid, as well as selling it many of the weapons it is using in Gaza, sometimes in secret–but after lending all of that significant support, which won’t count as “standing behind Israel,” then the Obama administration should mind its own business.

Continetti and his publishers–some of the most powerful figures in the conservative movement–are perfectly within their rights to back Israel in its war in Gaza, to favor continuing the massive amounts of aid that the United States gives to that country, and to criticize Obama administration rhetoric on the conflict there. (I certainly don’t know if Obama and Kerry have it right or wrong.) When they advance their narrative of Israeli persecution by eliding the significant financial and military support the Obama administration has favored giving Israel; when they claim that Obama is interested in intervening only in Israeli affairs; and when they say that Israel is the only country Obama criticizes, they spread obvious falsehoods, and illustrate why their foreign policy judgment cannot be trusted.

It is informed by delusions.