He looks like a smart guy. Made the rank of Major-General in the IDF; degree in history; a fellow at Harvard; a fellow at Johns Hopkins; member of the Israeli Labour Party; now Israeli Deputy Defence Minister. Today he said:

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,"

It is difficult to imagine a more stupid thing for an Israeli government minister to say. The Hebrew word Shoah is a word for the Holocaust, for the nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe in the middle of the twentieth century. If somebody uses the word Shoah in this context it inevitably refers to the Holocaust.

Matan Vilnai was prophesying or predicting or threatening a Holocaust in Gaza if the Qassam fire intensifies and if the rockets achieve a longer range.

Either he meant to prophecy or to predict or to threaten a Holocaust in Gaza or he didn't. If he did then he should resign immediately - or be fired - from the Israeli Government.

If Matan Vilnai did not mean to prophecy or to predict or to threaten a Holocaust, if he was just playing with words - then he shows himself to have an exactly similar lack of political judgment and education as the kind of person who holds up a banner on a demonstration proclaiming that Zionism is the same as Nazism.

Matan Vilnai's rhetoric is antisemitic according to the EUMC working definition of antisemitism which states

Examples of ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include... drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said of Vilnai's comments: "We are facing new Nazis who want to kill and burn the Palestinian people."

How could anybody object to Hamas comparing the Israeli government to Nazis when the Israeli government itself threatens, prophecies or predicts a Palestinian Shoah?

How could anybody object to the Guardian making a big story out of the fact that the Israeli government has threatened or predicted or prophecized a Palestinian Shoah?

So what do we learn from this story?

(1) We learn that antisemitic rhetoric is difficult to spot - as difficult for an ignorant or thoughtless Israeli government minister as it is for an ingorant or thoughtless opponent of Israeli policy.

(2) We learn that rhetoric which circulates in internal Israeli debates - where certain assumptions may (or may not) be taken for granted about what is meant - becomes, in the click of a mouse, rhetoric in global debates about Israel.