(JTA) — A former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro as a “little Jew boy” on national television.
In a debate on Channel 2 Wednesday, Aviv Bushinsky, according to the Jerusalem Post, said of Shapiro’s recent criticism of Israel: “To put it bluntly, it was a statement typical of a little Jew boy.” Speaking in Hebrew, Bushinsky used the derogatory Hebrew term “yehudoni.”
The U.S. Embassy declined to respond, according to the Post.
Bushinsky served as Netanyahu’s spokesperson from 1998 to 1999 and as his chief of staff from 2003-2004.
READ: US ambassador to Israel blasts ‘2 standards’ of law in West Bank
Bushinsky’s comments were a direct response to Shapiro’s statement Monday accusing Israel of having “two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank — one for Jews and one for Palestinians.”
In 2002, Knesset Member Zvi Hendel created a stir when he called then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer a “Jew-boy.” Hendel, a member of the National Union party, a coalition of several right-wing parties, initially refused to apologize, but eventually did so at a special meeting between him and Kurtzer at the home of Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.
In 2004, Kurtzer was again called a “Jew-boy,” this time by Israeli settler leader Adi Mintz.
