I don’t think that’s fair at all. Some people ABSOLUTELY criticize Israel as a proxy for criticizing Jews. Just because some people do that however does not make criticism of Israel inherently anti-Semitic as he claimed.
I don't understand your reply as I never said all forms of criticism of Israel are anti-Semitic. I myself am critical of Likud policy and Netanyahu.
I am referring to the use of anti-Semitic tropes where the word "Israel" is used instead of the words "Jew" or "Jews" but otherwise the statement is uncannily similar to accusations made against Jews for thousands of years. Hypnotic powers of persuasion. Using money to manipulate people to achieve nefarious ends. Disloyalty to one's home country in favor of another. Etc.
Similarly, some people criticize say, Liberia because they are racists (Trump). This does not make criticism of Liberia inherently racist.
Liberians haven't had vicious accusations made against them for 1000's of years now, and are not now seeing them repeated not only by people on the fringe right, but also now on the far left. You know, the liberal left, who are supposed to fight bigotry in all its forms. More to the point, black people have an ally in the left. Jews, who throw three-quarters of their votes to democrats - I'm not so sure.
How would it be if the leaders of say, the tea party movement, were playing footsie with people like David Duke? Because we have several leaders of the Women's March who are cozy with Farrakhan - who is as anti-semitic as Duke - and refuse to denounce him. While other liberals run cover for them and make excuses.
We don't get to say there's a "dog whistle" for racism against non-whites then claim it's all OK if you search and replace the word "Jew" with the word "Israel" in what is otherwise indistinguishable from a standard anti-semitic screed.
All forms of bigotry should be unequivocally denounced on the left, and that includes the forms where it isn't made explicit.