In some ways, Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled speech to Congress, bypassing the normal protocol of co-ordinating head of state visits through the White House and State Department, is testimony to the strength of those ties.

What other world leader could imagine organising such a trip with the House Speaker while keeping the President out of the loop? On the other hand, would anyone else feel he had to visit behind Obama's back and to petition Congress?

In six years the two men have failed to overcome the deep suspicion and contempt in which they hold each other. The suspicion is partly borne out by action. Mr Netanyahu is convinced that President Obama's administration is hopelessly naive and will go to dangerous lengths to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, in the mistaken belief that would create a once-in-a-generation geopolitical breakthrough.

Mr Obama believes his Israeli counterpart thinks he can challenge the White House on its home turf and work through the Republican Party to achieve political goals.

One would expect Mr Obama to have the upper hand, as president of a super-power which contributes over three billion dollars annually to Israel's security. But it's not so clear-cut.

While he has been in frontline national politics for less than a decade, Mr Netanyahu was well on his way to becoming a Washington insider in the early 1980s.

It's not just his long experience of the Capitol's back-alleys. The Israeli PM sincerely believes he has a better understanding of America, at least his part of America, than Obama. Along with that familiarity comes the propensity when things don't go his way, to not play by the rules.

Now that at least half the political establishment in both countries are scandalised by the way Speaker John Boehner and Ambassador Ron Dermer cooked up the address to Congress, it remains to be seen whether the speech will have any lasting effect.

The battle lines are long drawn over the Iranian negotiations and it is hard to see how one speech will shift votes either way. There is of course another vote; Israel's elections two weeks later.

The prime minister is banking on there being more Israeli voters who will admire his ability to break the rules and get away with it than those who will punish him for wreaking havoc on the crucial relationship.