The traditionally chummy relations between the United States and Israel hit a new low this week, with the White House hitting out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for leaking secrets with the intent of undermining US efforts to broker a nuclear deal with Iran.

Israel’s leaks threatened a long, touchy negotiating process involving a bunch of countries that frequently don’t see eye-to-eye.  The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China have spent more than a year trying to get Tehran to scale back its nuclear program to give up on building nuclear weapons, and accept international monitoring.  In exchange, the West would ease up on economic sanctions.

The Netanyahu government, which takes a very hard line on Iran, leaked sensitive details from classified briefings in order to publicly criticize the US position.  After earlier denials, the US issued an open rebuke of its ally.

“Not everything you are hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the talks,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.  She added that the Obama administration has begun “a selective sharing of information” with Israel as a result.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest accused Israel of “a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States.”

Netanyahu defended his position on Thursday, telling the Israeli Public Security ministry, “I think this is a bad agreement that is dangerous for the state of Israel.”

This adds to the tension ahead of Netanyahu’s controversial appearance before the US Congress on 3 March, in which he’s expected to bash the Obama administration’s Middle East policy some more.  Some Congressional Democrats say they will not attend.  Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry will by design be out of town; President Barack Obama will not welcome Netanyahu to the White House, as was usual with America’s closest Middle East ally.

Netanyahu’s original design may have been to bolster his status before the 17 March elections.  Instead, it gave his biggest rival an opening to attack.  “The US administration says he leaks, lies and distorts information from within the negotiations with Iran,” wrote Isaac Herzog on social media, “They too have lost all trust in him.”