Netanyahu likens US rallies against Gaza war to Nazi Germany and hits out at ‘anti-Semitic mobs’

Israeli ministers have condemned pro-Palestine protests that are sweeping US campuses amid alarm in Israel over growing international criticism of its war in Gaza.

Thousands of students at universities across the US have been protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli occupation.

About 100 people were arrested at the University of California on Wednesday and demonstrators at Columbia University in New York are in a showdown with authorities that they say will only end when the university cuts ties with Israeli institutions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the protests on Wednesday.

The demonstrations are “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s”, Mr Netanyahu said.

“Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty.

“When you listen to [the protesters], they say not only ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to the Jews’, but also ‘Death to America’.”

On social media, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli called the movement a “pandemic spreading on American campuses … not so different and not less dangerous than the fentanyl epidemic”.

He said that “mass protests act like a drug” and that most of those taking part “have no clue” about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Opposition politicians in Israel also condemned the actions of protesters.

“What’s happening on American college campuses is unforgivable,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said.

“It is anti-Semitism, it is support for terrorism, it is support for Hamas which murders people and oppresses women. The administration cannot stand by, it has to intervene.”

However, not all were critical. Israeli opposition member Ofer Cassif shared a video of students at the protest at Columbia holding a joint Passover seder.

“This wonderful event happens at no place other than Columbia University, which in recent days has been libelled in the Israeli media as the stronghold of campus anti-Semitism in the US,” he wrote.

“This is the definitive proof that opposition to successive Israeli government’s abominable policies towards the Palestinians is not anti-Semitism and that when there is no proper argument against the protesters, opponents resort to slander and lies.”

The protests at universities across America come amid unprecedented tension between Israel and the US government.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has grown increasingly concerned over the humanitarian toll of the military operations in Gaza and is reportedly angered that the Israeli government appears to have ignored warnings against escalating the conflict and tipping the region into a wider war.

Mr Biden also criticised Israel for the killing of aid workers in Gaza last month, and has warned that an offensive in Rafah could deepen the humanitarian crisis.

Despite the fractured relationship between Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu, the US this week passed a package providing $17 billion in military aid to Israel.

The move has been criticised by many in the US and abroad who say the Biden administration should withhold military support to force Israel to change its conduct in Gaza.

Demonstrators in New York staged a sit-in outside the house of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to protest against the spending package.