Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman launched a controversial campaign video this week, which some even dubbed antisemitic, depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wearing peyot and a round Chasidic hat.

Mr Lieberman, who forced a second election by refusing to enter Mr Netanyahu’s coalition, has tried to focus the campaign on the alliance between Likud and the Strictly Orthodox parties.

In a short video released by his party this week, Mr Netanyahu is seen in Charedi dress and hairstyle, flanked by the leaders of United Torah Judaism, Shas and the nationalist-religious Union of Right-Wing Parties.

It included a play on the Likud slogan Yamin Hazak (“strong right”), which was replaced by Yamin Mithazek, a common euphemism for someone becoming more religious.

געוואלד >> pic.twitter.com/rEv3ph76HG

— אביגדור ליברמן (@AvigdorLiberman) July 1, 2019

Mr Lieberman is promising after the election to ensure the new coalition will be right-wing but without Strictly Orthodox parties.

While Charedi politicians did not respond to the video, the Strictly Orthodox media was livid.

Arye Erlich, deputy editor of the Mishpacha weekly, said Mr Lieberman was “trying to excite his voters using hateful and antisemitic methods.”

Yisrael Cohen, a popular columnist and broadcaster on Kol Berama radio, asked: “What would Lieberman think if in Russia someone would produce a video of Putin with a Jew’s peyot? It’s real antisemitism.”

Even on the opposition side there was criticism, with Eldad Yaniv, a left-wing campaigner who now supports Ehud Barak’s new unnamed party, saying the Yisrael Beitenu video reminded him “exactly of the posters with Rabin wearing a keffiyeh.”