A senior US government official has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “chickenshit”, while another has accused him of being a “coward.”

In an interview with The Atlantic, unnamed figures in the Obama administration said that fear and political self-interest was preventing the prime minister from making peace.

The first official said: “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit.”

He added that the prime minister “won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat.

“He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”

A different official accused Israel’s leader of being a “coward” over his failure to attack Iran, saying: “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility.

“But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

In response to these comments, Mr Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister will "continue to uphold the security interests of Israel and the historical rights of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, and no amount of pressure will change that."

Economics Minister Naftali Bennett asked the US government to “reject these gross comments” which he said show that “the current US administration is throwing Israel under the bus.”

He went on to condemn Obama’s administration for not calling the leaders of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran “chickenshit,” saying that insulting Mr Netanyahu in that way amounts to antisemitism.

“Cursing the prime minister and calling him names is an insult not just to him but to the millions of Israeli citizens and Jews across the globe.”