Netanyahu's branding of Israel's critics as 'antisemitic' is seen as a way of deflecting blame from himself

The war has reignited the long debate about the definition of antisemitism and whether any criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of using Jewish crises for his political benefit, including invoking the Jewish people’s deepest trauma, the Holocaust, to further his goals. Picture: Abir Sultan via AP

After the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) top prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and top Hamas officials, the Israeli leader accused him of being one of “the great antisemites in modern times".

As protests roiled college campuses across the US over the Gaza war, Netanyahu said they were awash with “antisemitic mobs".