On "Israel's right to exist"

Following on from my gripe about the expression "I believe in Israel's right to exist" used by my  local MP in our recent correspondence (I think it is a ludicrously minimal from of 'support' that would never be used in connection to any other country in the world), the MP has responded as follows

I take your point. I should have probably said that I believe in Israel's right to defend itself rather than its right to exist. The reason behind using the phrase I did was that sometimes I get the impression some criticism which is supposedly directed at the Israeli government - any government should be subject to criticism - is actually a cover for deep-rooted anti-semitism which of course is completely unacceptable, or should be.