Actor John Cusack tweeted an antisemitic image, then hastily deleted it, insisting he was the victim of a "bot".

He shared an image that carried the quote, wrongly attributed to Voltaire, saying: "If you want to know who rules over you,simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise". Below this it said: "Is it not obvious?"

The image includes a hand branded with the Star of David crushing a small group of people.

Mr Cusack wrote: "Follow the money."

After he deleted it, he wrote: "A bot got me".

This implies he did not deliberately share the image but then he added: "I thought I was endorsing a pro Palestinian justice retweet - of an earlier post - it came I think from a different source - Shouldn’t Have retweeted."

Mr Cusack, who has starred in such films as High Fidelity and Say Anything, was condemned for his tweet.

Journalist Yair Rosenberg said it was "blatantly antisemitic".

"The fact that in 2019 a celebrity can opnely share anti-Jewish stuff like this and genuinely think it's politically OK tells you a lot about why Israel became necessary and remains so," he wrote.