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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has left the US after a frosty reception at the White House, where the two allies locked horns over the issue of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem. Here, political analysts in the US and Israeli media weigh in on the growing spat.

Netanyahu has left the US "disgraced and isolated":

"The visit - touted as a fence-mending effort, a bid to strengthen the tenuous ties between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama - only highlighted the deep rift between the American and Israeli administrations. The prime minister leaves America disgraced, isolated, and altogether weaker than when he came... Netanyahu will need to work hard to rehabilitate his image, knowing that Obama will demand that he stop zigzagging and decide whether he stands with America or with the settlers."

Eitan Haber, writing for the Hebrew language edition of the centrist daily, Yedioth Aharonot, criticised the treatment given to PM Netanyahu at the White House, but said both sides needed to do some thinking.

"The Israeli premier, perhaps the most sought-after personage in the Oval Office in the past two decades, was received like the last of the wazirs from Lower Senegal... Obama is being excessive, is being too belligerent, insulting--but we are no saints either. Besides, Obama is entitled. He is America."

In another centrist Hebrew daily, Maariv, Ben Kaspit said it was decision time for Mr Netanyahu:

"What is clear is this, that the Americans are determined. They mean what they say. They will not allow Netanyahu to continue to wink in all directions. It is not only [East] Jerusalem, Bibi, it is all the territories. Not only Netanyahu has reached his moment of truth, the 'T' junction we have been avoiding for more than 40 years - the whole of Israel stands there. America is leaving us and is in fact becoming Europe. From now, we are all alone. The whole world talks about a Palestinian state in an area similar to 1967. Obama wants to know whether Netanyahu is there - in explicit words, in writing... A simple question demanding a simple answer."

In the US media, that President Obama had made a "mistake" by treating Mr Netanyahu as if he were an "unsavoury Third World dictator":

"Obama has added more poison to a US-Israeli relationship that already was at its lowest point in two decades... Instead of waiting for that moment and pushing Netanyahu on a point where he might be vulnerable to domestic challenge, Obama picked a fight over something that virtually all Israelis agree on, and before serious discussions have even begun."

And of the deepening chill in US-Israeli relations:

"The visible gap between the two allies has offered encouragement to those who think only intense U.S. pressure can move Israel toward a resolution with the Palestinians. But it also threatens to drive the struggling peace process into a ditch and raises questions on both sides about how exactly the two leaders plan to end their growing rift."

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