Netanyahu: Boycott campaign is anti-Semetic

European and Western boycott advocates against Israel over its settlement constructions are anti-Semitic, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

“Anti-Semites boycotted Jews’ stores in the past and today they call to boycott Israel. There is a new campaign against us and they believe it will harm us. But this is not new. Boycott campaigns against Jews have always existed. It is scandalous that Europeans discuss the boycott against us,” Netanyahu said at a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations in Jerusalem.

He accused European boycott advocates, including companies that withdraw their investments from Israel, of wanting to see an end to the Jewish state.

Netanyahu blamed Palestinians of stonewalling the peace talks saying they claim the settlements cause the conflict, but Israel evacuated the settlements in the Gaza Strip and the conflict remains.

The premier said that although he appreciates the US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to advance the negotiations the conflict stems from the Palestinians refusal to recognise Israel’s Jewish identity. “I hope the future will bring change when young Palestinians recognise Israel’s Jewish identity.”

Netanyahu demanded Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state in order to sign an economic agreement with them.

In his speech, Netanyahu addressed the second round of talks over Iran’s nuclear programme which will resume on Wednesday in Vienna saying: “The goal isn’t to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons, but to deny it the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons.

“If they claim to want it for civilian purposes, they don’t need any centrifuges, and don’t have a right to [uranium] enrichment. But these are precisely the elements that Iran insists on and they need to be denied. In the interim deal, they’ve been allowed to maintain these things,” he said.