Popular American television shows are presenting Israel in a highly critical manner, sources in Israeli Embassy in Washington say, expressing their concern that the negative characterization will badly affect the Jewish state's image among viewers.

One of the recent episodes of HBO comedy series "Veep," starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, focused on the Middle East conflict: The US vice president's daughter, a college student who has a boyfriend of Iranian descent, slams Israel in an essay based on Oscar-nominated film "5 Broken Cameras."

Global Success Israeli novel to become US TV series Ashley Baylen New Regency plans to adapt Yoram Kanuik’s popular 1994 book, 'Magic on Lake Kinneret,' into half-hour satirical black comedy Israeli novel to become US TV series

An episode in American political drama series "House of Cards" is also said to have presented Israel in a critical manner: In order to thwart the president's choice for secretary of state, Representative Francis Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey) uses an editorial published by the candidate 30 years earlier in his college student newspaper, in which he criticized Israel's "illegal occupation" of Palestinian land.

Jewish organizations rush to accuse the candidate of being anti-Semitic, and although he repeatedly claims that he did not write the article, the president is forced to withdraw the nomination.

"These series present Israel as a country which one should be very careful not to offend, and that anyone daring to criticize it is reprimanded by the Jewish lobby," a senior state official says. "This justifies all conspiracy theories about the Israeli and Jewish control of American politics."