Tehran: The tensions between the United States and Israel over how to address Iran’s nuclear programme and a politically divisive speech on Tuesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to the US Congress are playing to an eager audience in Tehran.

The news media here has highlighted the division as evidence that Israel is being isolated by its otherwise steadfast ally and analysts are examining how the rift might affect the outcome of the nuclear negotiations.

“Israel’s prime minister tries to maximise the stakes and raise the expectation for the outcome of the talks,” Hamid Reza Taraghi, a political analyst close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said after Netanyahu’s speech.

“Israel is trying to pressure us, to make Iran cave in,” he added. “No way that will ever happen.”

Netanyahu’s speech was eagerly anticipated by many Iranians, not because they believed he would be able to halt the nuclear talks, but because they said they hoped the Israeli leader’s blunt approach would turn American public opinion against him.

Marzieh Afkham, a spokeswoman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called the speech a “deceitful show and part of the election campaign of Tel Aviv’s hardliners.”

“There is no doubt that the global public opinion does not respect and value a child-killing regime,” Afkham said. She echoed other Iranian officials and analysts who hope for a deal between Iran and world powers and say Netanyahu and his allies have created a “fake crisis.” Iran, Afkham added, is determined to resolve the crisis. The strains between the United States and Israel, known by some hardliners here as the “great and little Satan,” have become increasingly public as Washington and Tehran seek to conclude an agreement that would limit Iran’s ability to continue developing its nuclear capacity.

“This speech shows the deal is imminent. This is why Mr Netanyahu is desperate,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, a policy analyst in Iran who is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. “It is not important what he says in Congress. The deal is coming.”

For decades, Iran’s leaders have argued that US foreign policy has been taken hostage by Israeli interests. In speeches, they denounce what they say is the power and influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups in Washington.

“We are very happy that people are starting to understand the national security interests of the United States differ from those of Mr Netanyahu,” said Ali Khorram, a former Iranian diplomat with ties to the government. “If he continues like this, Mr Netanyahu will only lose more credibility in the eyes of the Americans.”

Iran does not recognise Israel as a country, and over the past decades some of its leaders have taken a bellicose stance toward Israel, including the former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who threatened to make Israel “vanish from the pages of time,” a statement that has also been translated as “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

Now, with the bond between the United States and Israel facing pressures from both sides, the Iranian news media is joyously reporting on protests in front of the Washington headquarters of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the main Jewish lobbying group in the United States.

“People are shouting slogans in favour of Iran,” the semiofficial news agency Tasnim reported on Tuesday, showing pictures of Jewish men belonging to a sect that opposes Zionism. In one image, a man could be seen holding up a sign saying “AIPAC violates Judaism.”

The state-owned newspaper Tehran Times featured an image of protesters wearing Netanyahu masks smeared with a blood-like colour. “Protests held in Washington against Netanyahu,” the headline read.

Conservative clerics and military commanders fiercely loyal to Ayatollah Khamenei have long opposed the United States, and they insist that American politicians will never give up their enmity against Iran because the two countries have irreconcilable ideologies. In recent years, Iran has benefited from the US pullout from the region, filling a vacuum in Iraq and supporting the overthrow of the government in Yemen by Al Houthi rebels.

With Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has been assisting Bashar Al Assad, the embattled president of Syria.

‘Good cop, bad cop’

Beyond the evident glee over the open disagreements between Washington and Tel Aviv, most Iranian analysts said they did not think that Netanyahu’s speech would really damage ties between the United States and Israel.

“This is more of a political game for Netanyahu,” said Nasser Hadian, a professor of political science at the University of Tehran. “After his elections he will start mending ties again.”

Others, however, said they thought Netanyahu’s address could affect the delicate nuclear negotiations.

“Netanyahu’s offensive may stiffen the US posture at a time when flexibility is crucial, but not for the reason most suspect,” Mohammad Ali Shabani, a political analyst, said before Netanyahu’s speech.

“If America toughens, it won’t be because Bibi has forced Obama’s hand, but because he has made the US and its demands appear more reasonable,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

“Any party that feels that it can win the blame game is less likely to adopt the flexibility necessary for a breakthrough,” he added.

Shabani said that for Iran, all politics is local. Now, he said, all leaders want a nuclear deal, “but their unity is predicated on a commitment to ensuring that the domestic blame game will be won; and so far, they have succeeded.”

Still, some in Iran had a different interpretation. “The rift between both allies is nothing more than a political trick,” said Taraghi, the Iranian political analyst. “This so-called rift is a petty game of good cop, bad cop. We will not fall for that.”