As the lobbying intensifies over the upcoming vote in Congress on the nuclear deal with Iran, both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been making their opposing cases to the American Jewish community.
Speaking via a special web-video feed viewed by around 100 Jewish communities across the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to downplay the fact that most of the opposition to the deal is coming from the Republican Party.
"This is simply not a partisan issue in Israel," he stressed, adding that his own domestic rival, Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog, was also against the deal. "It shouldn't be a partisan issue in the United States either."
Mr Netanyahu accepted that the deal could make it more difficult for Iran to build a nuclear weapon in the short term, but at a "terrible price". Ultimately, he argued, "it actually paves Iran's path to the bomb".
Shortly after the Netanyahu webcast, Mr Obama met more than 20 leaders of US Jewish organisations in the White House. The group included both Aipac, which is lobbying against the Iran deal, and J Street, which is in favour.
The closed briefing, which lasted more than two hours, was off the record. According to reports from participants, the atmosphere was at times contentious, with Mr Obama refusing to retreat from the assessment he has made in recent weeks that the alternative to the Iran deal would likely be war.
Vice-President Joe Biden, who has been energetically engaging with Jewish leaders on the president's behalf since the deal was reached in Vienna, was also at the meeting.
Come the crucial votes next month in Senate and Congress, the administration is still expected to gain a majority that will allow the removal of American sanctions on Iran and the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - even though a small number of Democratic lawmakers have indicated they plan to vote against and others have yet to make public their positions.
By that point, it will be too late to derail the deal and Israel will have to begin to find a way to mend its relations with the White House in President Obama's final year in office.
Some Israeli diplomats fear that the damage caused by the intensely personal aspects of this dispute will poison not only the last months of the current presidency, but could affect the next administration should the Democratic Party win another election. The concern is that both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden - who may be about to throw his hat into the ring - have inherited Mr Obama's bad blood with Israel.
It is impossible now to disconnect the already intense US election campaign, with Republican candidates all speaking out against to the Iran deal, from Israel's relations with the US.
Assuming that, as in previous decades, American Jews will continue overwhelmingly to vote Democrat, this spells a deterioration in the relationship between Israel and the largest Jewish community in the diaspora.
● Israeli television reported this week that Mr Netanyahu will visit London in September for a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The two are expected to discuss the Iran nuclear deal and the Israel-Palestinian peace process, as well as the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Syrian civil war, according to the Israeli television station, Channel 2.
It is understood that Israel's prime minister will then fly to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.
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