Seven hours were set aside for talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The talks were supposed to be about the Israel-Palestine peace process, but quickly and predictably became about the Iran.

Which meant hours of Netanyahu rehashing his opposition to a deal with Iran, demanding that Iran be made to scrap its civilian nuclear enrichment program and all other aspects of its civilian program, saying anything short of that owuld lleave Iran with “capabilities” that Israel finds unacceptable.

Kerry, ever eager to placate Netanyahu, downplayed the chances of a deal, saying that he believes “no deal is better than a bad deal” and that the US remains distrustful of Iran.

The bottom-line of the exchange is that there remains a wide gap between the US and Israel on the question of Iran, and that the US has hinted at a willingness to allow Iran some civilian program, so long as it limited far more than required under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Israel, by contrast, has a shifting sands approach to its position on Iran, staking out whatever position is more than Iran is willing to offer and arguing anything short of that is unacceptable.