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White House tries to ease flare-up over Netanyahu insults
Published October 29, 2014
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WH officials reportedly called Netanyahu names like 'coward'
The White House on
Wednesday sought to tamp down the controversy over a magazine piece that
detailed deep tensions between the U.S. and Israel – and quoted an unnamed
senior Obama administration official calling the Israeli leader a
“chickenshit.”
Administration officials,
including White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, did not deny the quote.
They also did not signal there would be any robust effort to find out who said
it.
But Alistair Baskey,
spokesman for the National Security Council, said the criticism does not
reflect how the rest of the administration views Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
“Certainly that's not the
administration's view, and we think such comments are inappropriate and
counter-productive,” Baskey said in a statement. “Prime Minister Netanyahu and
the president have forged an effective partnership, and consult closely and
frequently, including earlier this month when the president hosted the prime
minister in the Oval Office.”
At the same time, Baskey
acknowledged they “do not agree on every issue,” including on settlement activity
that the U.S. considers “illegitimate.”
Officials quoted in The Atlantic magazine article, written by Jeffrey
Goldberg, were far more blunt in their characterization of those differences.
Goldberg quoted one anonymous senior administration official saying: “The thing
about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit.”
The article said Obama
administration officials have also described Netanyahu over the years “as
recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and
‘Aspergery.’”
The comments prompted
criticism among Republican and Jewish leaders.
Republican National
Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Tuesday accused the administration of
“hurling expletives” at the Israeli leader.
House Speaker John
Boehner also condemned the "disrespectful rhetoric used time and again by
this administration with respect to the special relationship the United States
has with the state of Israel."
He added: "The
president sets the tone for his administration. He either condones the
profanity and disrespect used by the most senior members of his administration,
or he does not. It is time for him to get his house in order and tell the
people that can't muster professionalism that it is time to move
on."
That statement led to a
pointed rebuke from Earnest, who said Boehner himself is known for using
"salty" language.
"It's a little rich
to have a lecture about profanity from the speaker of the House," Earnest
said, while also saying the reported comments do not reflect the
administration's views. Earnest said he'd be "surprised" if Obama
knows who made them.
State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and others
"don't view" the language used in the article as "appropriate or
accurate."
Dan Gillerman, former
Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News that if the quotes are
accurate, “I think it’s shameful.”
“This is not the way you
speak about your only ally, about the only democracy in the Middle East,
especially not when the Middle East is so volatile,” he said Wednesday.
The Atlantic piece
described a relationship that has steadily gone south over the years, and that
it claimed is moving toward a “full-blown crisis” – which could get worse after
the midterm elections next week. A possible nuclear agreement with Iran is a
major factor that could cause more friction.
Goldberg, in his piece,
laid plenty of blame on Netanyahu, and reported that sources say he’s likewise
“written off” the Obama administration. He noted that the U.S. is angry with
him for his settlement stance in the West Bank.
One official also told
The Atlantic they don’t think Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on
Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
“The good thing about
Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” another official was quoted as
saying. The official reportedly criticized him, though, for doing little to
reach an accord with the Palestinians and allegedly being more interested in
political preservation.
In the wake of the
article, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called for
President Obama to "name, apologize for, and repudiate" the person
who offered the “chickenshit” insult, according to The Algemeiner.
"It is rather ironic
that a senior American official is prepared to curse his friends, yet when it
comes to the mortal enemies of the United States -- as the Iranians discovered
during the recent nuclear negotiation -- praise is heaped on them,” Hier said.
