Barack Obama in Chicago
Barack Obama in ChicagoReuters

The White House slammed Interior Minister Silvan Shalom's wife, media personality Judy Nir Mozes Shalom, on Monday after she tweeted an offensive joke about US President Barack Obama. 

Mozes claimed the tweet, which was almost immediately deleted, was simply her repeating a joke she had heard. 

"Do you know what Obama Coffee is? Black and weak,” she wrote on Sunday evening.

Shortly after publishing the "joke," which promptly sparked a firestorm in Israel, Mozes expressed regret, writing, "I apologize, it was a stupid joke someone told me.”

Mozes then addressed President Obama personally. "I should not have published this unsuitable joke that i heard. I love people no matter their race or skin color. I apologize if I offended anyone." 

Despite the litany of apologies, the White House was not in a forgiving mood, with spokesman Josh Earnest asserting the tweet showed Mozes' true character.  

“On Twitter you’re limited to 140 characters but it still has the capacity to be quite revealing,” Earnest said, adding that it appeared to be an example of “another politician trying to sell books.”

Earnest was not so subtly referring to former Israeli ambassador to the US and current MK Michael Oren, who has attacked Obama in a number of recent articles in a lead-up to publishing his latest book, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide.