REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JERUSALEM - An anonymous US official's reported description of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "chickenshit", or worthless coward, drew a sharp response on Wednesday from the Israeli leader - no stranger to acrimony with the Obama administration.

The American broadside, in an interview in The Atlantic magazine, followed a month of heated exchanges between the Netanyahu government and Washington over settlement-building in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” the unidentified official was quoted as saying, using Netanyahu's nickname and a slang insult certain to redden the ears of the US-educated former commando.

"The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars," the official said, alluding to past hints of possible Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear program. "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."

Israeli leaders usually do not respond to comments by unidentified officials. But Netanyahu addressed those remarks directly in opening a memorial ceremony in parliament for an Israeli cabinet minister assassinated by a Palestinian in 2001.

"Our supreme interests, chiefly the security and unity of Jerusalem, are not the main concern of those anonymous officials who attack us and me personally, as the assault on me comes only because I defend the State of Israel," Netanyahu said.

After Netanyahu's speech, Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, dismissed the purported slur, denying that it reflected how the Obama administration felt about the Israeli leader.

"Certainly that's not the administration's view, and we think such comments are inappropriate and counter-productive," he said.

But drawing Palestinian outrage and a State Department accusation that Israel was distancing peace, Netanyahu pledged on Monday to fast-track plans for 1,000 new settler homes in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

Most countries and the World Court deem the settlements Israel has built in areas captured in a 1967 war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, and has settled 500,000 Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, among 2.4 million Palestinians.

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