The White House on Monday dismissed a critique of President Obama from a former Israeli diplomat as a cheap attempt to sell a new book written by that diplomat.
Michael Oren, who serves in the Knesset in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week that said Obama is “deliberately” making mistakes and damaging the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. He is also set to release his newest book about American-Israeli relations next week.
“It’s just another case of another politician trying to sell books,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Monday at his daily briefing.
In the op-ed, Oren accused the Obama administration of violating the U.S.-Israeli relationship and its principle of not exposing any “daylight,” such as open disagreement between both countries’ leaders or springing news on the other country, without warning diplomats first.
The White House dismissal of Oren’s comments echoed reaction from Dan Shapiro, the current U.S. ambassador to Israel, in a Hebrew interview with Army Radio that the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported and translated.
“He was an ambassador in the past, but he is now a politician and an author who wants to sell books,” Shapiro said last week. “Sometimes an ambassador has a limited point of view into ongoing efforts. What he wrote does not reflect the truth.
Earnest made a similarly searing comment about an offensive joke the wife of Israeli Interior Minister Silvan Shalom tweeted on Saturday about Obama.
“Do u know what Obama Coffee is? Black and weak,” Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes tweeted to her 74,400 followers. After Twitter reacted with accusations of racism, she deleted the tweet and issued an apology.
“I apologize, that was a stupid joke somebody told me,” she wrote.
Asked to react to the comments Monday, Earnest didn’t mince words. “On Twitter, you’re limited to 140 characters but it still has the capacity to be very revealing,” he said.
