Judy Mozes, the wife of senior Likud official Silvan Shalom, apologized Sunday after calling President Barack Obama “black and weak” on Twitter.
Mozes said she was repeating a joke. But soon after tweeting, “Do u know what Obama coffee is? Black and weak,” she deleted the message.
Mozes’s tweet immediately made headlines in Israel, where politics is always big news. Mozes later tweeted: “I apologize, that was a stupid joke somebody told me.”
But that wasn’t the end of it: Mozes kept the statements of regret coming.
“President Obama I shouldn’t have written the inappropriate joke I heard. I like people no matter about their race and religion,” she wrote.
The tweets come at time when relations between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are strained, particularly over the upcoming nuclear deal with Iran.
Both leaders have stressed that strategic and military cooperation remain strong.
Mozes is an occasional newspaper columnist for Yediot Ahronot and a TV host. Her husband is Likud MK Silvan Shalom, Israel’s Minister of the Interior.
Netanyahu appointed Shalom to head the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians.