Top Jewish leader calls on Obama to ‘name, apologize for and repudiate’ official who mocked Netanyahu

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has called on President Obama to "name, apologize for, and repudiate" the anonymous official quoted in an Atlantic Magazine article describing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "chickenshit," The Algemeiner reports.

In a telephone call with The Algemeiner from his Los Angeles office, an incensed Rabbi Hier declared: "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."

Jeffrey Goldberg's piece in The Atlantic extensively quoted an anonymous "senior Obama administration official" who showered Netanyahu with invective, saying, "The thing about Bibi is, he's a chickenshit."

Goldberg then observed: "Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and 'Aspergery.' (These are verbatim descriptions; I keep a running list.)"

The word "Aspergery" is a derogatory term for individuals with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism that affects the part of the brain that processes emotions.

The same official is quoted as saying: "The good thing about Netanyahu is that he's scared to launch wars. The bad thing about him is that he won't do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he's interested in is protecting himself from political defeat."

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