Israel and strategic US partner fall out over Iran

JERUSALEM: Israel and its US ally have hit a troubled patch in their close relationship, caused by differences over Iran's nuclear plans and peace with the Palestinians.

In a highly public spat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are each seeking to directly address the other's public.

At the moment, Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett is campaigning in Washington, while the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, has been making his case in the Israeli media.

"I'm not telling the Americans what they should do; I just give them the information, it's for them to decide," Bennet, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party, told Israeli public radio by telephone on Friday.

"It's not really lobbying, more a dialogue between friends," he said of his meetings on Capitol Hill and a speech to the Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Meanwhile, Shapiro told public radio the high-profile war of words over a nascent deal Western powers are negotiating with Iran, which would see some easing of sanctions against the Islamic republic, was regrettable.

"It would be preferable if our differences were addressed in private, but sometimes that's not possible," he said.

In a speech to North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem this week he said Obama "has made it crystal clear that he will not permit Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, period, and is prepared to use all elements of our national power to ensure that we are successful."

Despite such reassurances, Israeli media speak of a trans-Atlantic crisis of confidence over what Israel and the US say are Iran's plans to develop a nuclear weapon. A second element involves increasingly fragile peace talks with the Palestinians amid an Israeli West Bank settlement drive, which has come in for sharp US criticism.