The executive director of one of the world's leading international human rights organisations has been criticised after suggesting Israel is responsible for the rise in antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict.

Writing on Twitter, Human Righst Watch director Kenneth Roth said: “Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism.”

His tweet accompanied a link to an article in Ha'aretz about the fact antisemitism rose to record levels according to data collected by the Community Security Trust. 

A report by CST stated that 628 antisemitic incidents were recorded during the one-period between May 8 and June 7, a rise of 365 percent over April and “the highest number CST has ever recorded in any month-long period.”

Mr Roth’s tweet was widely condemned as people pointed out that he would not look to place the blame on any other minority community facing an increase in hate crime.

Board of Deputies vice president David Mendoza-Wolfson said: “People using the actions of Jews – either real or fabricated – to justify their beliefs is nothing new. Neither is the behaviour of those who state that if only Jews halfway around the world did things differently, other Jews elsewhere wouldn’t be hurt.

“It is unclear how the head of a charity supposedly concerned with Human Rights can make this sort of victim blaming statement. If he had done so about any other ethnic group whose members were being targeted under the pretext of something happening thousands of miles away, he would be a pariah. But, as often seems to be the case with antisemitism, those excusing it or rationalising it seem to get a free pass.”

Instead of apologising, Mr Roth went further to defend his comments. 

In another tweet he said: “Interesting how many people pretend that this tweet justifies antisemitism (it doesn't and I don't under any circumstances) rather than address the correlation noted in the Haaretz article between recent Israeli government conduct in Gaza and the rise of UK antisemitic incidents.”