(JNS.org) The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 51 national Jewish groups, said the Obama administration’s criticism of its official who called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit” does not “undo the damage” of the remark. The insult of Netanyahu means that “every manifestation of division between these two allies is exploited by the enemies of both,” said Conference of Presidents Chairman Robert G. Sugarman and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein. Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National Security Council, had called the slur of Netanyahu “inappropriate and counter-productive.”

Meanwhile, the Ruderman Family Foundation, an organization that works on disability issues, focused on a different Obama administration comment. In the same article for The Atlantic that revealed the “chickenshit” slur, Jeffrey Goldberg also reported, “Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’”

“The term ‘Aspergery’ was used in a manner that is insulting to the millions of people around the world with Asperger Syndrome,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Foundation. “It is never OK to insult someone by referring to them by using disability in a negative manner.”