Shalev said Jewish leaders throughout the world have warned that anti-Zionism is a reincarnation of the anti-Semitism that raged during the Nazi era.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Shalev, who will leave her post on Aug. 31, focused much of her blame on the Arab world.

The Arab world “did not succeed in the wars, then the economic boycott failed, then the terrorism failed; now it is de-legitimization.”

She also blamed the international community’s actions toward Israel as being potentially detrimental to the country’s future.

She specifically cited European court prosecutions of Israeli officials for alleged human rights offenses and UN efforts to single out Israeli conduct for reprimand.

Shalev cited a slew of lawsuits against Israeli officials in European courts and the singling out of Israel for condemnation in the United Nations as two blatant examples of the campaign to quietly destroy the Jewish state.

Many of the suits were spawned by the report by retired Jewish South African Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed a UN rights panel that accused Israel of war crimes in its war against the Hamas infrastructure.

After the Goldstone Report, some Palestinian groups began bringing civil lawsuits against Israeli high officials for their conduct in the Gaza war in European courts.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, told attendees at a farewell reception for Shalev last week in New York American Jewish Organizations that she would “continue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel — including and especially at the United Nations.”

Rice said US will continue to bolster Israel’s “qualitative military advantage so that it can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat.”

Indeed, while public attention has focused on diplomatic disputes between Israel and the US over settlement expansion in Palestinian territories, security and military tie between the two countries have grown ever closer during the Obama administration.

Military relations were very close during the Bush Administration, but “in many ways the cooperation has been extended and perhaps enhanced in different areas” during the Obama administration, a senior Israeli official recently told The Washington Post, adding that “high-level exchanges of senior military and defense officials take place almost weekly.”