“Chickensh–t” is the word an aide at the State Department is using to describe Prime Minister Netanyahu, according to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. Another Obama administration official calls the Israeli premier a “coward.” The officials lacked the courage to speak on the record, but if Mr. Goldberg reported they said it, you can take it to the bank. Another adjective the Atlantic legman says he’s heard used about Mr. Netanyahu is “aspergery,” meaning having difficulties with social intercourse. This about a leader who, in Mr. Netanyahu, has kept together a long-term coalition government in the planet’s liveliest parliamentary democracy. At least Secretary of State Kerry hasn’t likened Mr. Netanyahu to Genghis Khan.

The fault for “this breakdown in relations” lies, Mr. Goldberg reckons, with Mr. Netanyahu, who, the reporter’s sources tell him, has “written off” the Obama administration and “plans to speak directly to Congress and the American people should an Iran nuclear deal be reached.” It seems that Mr. Netanyahu intends to fight on what the Sun has called the most dangerous ground in the Middle East, namely the no-man’s-land between the White House and the Congress. Mr. Netanyahu has entered this minefield before, addressing Joint Meetings of Congress in 1996 after the Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and in 2011 after John Boehner did the same.

We’re tempted chalk this up as yet more evidence that the Republicans are the more logical partner for Israel. This goes back as far as 1972, when Yitzhak Rabin was Israel’s ambassador in Washington and conceived that President Nixon was a more realistic global thinker than the Democrats. We’re not convinced, though, that the issue is or ought to be partisan. It’s not only Mr. Netanyahu, after all, who distrusts President Obama to make a deal with the mullahs. The United States Senate doesn’t trust him, either. That’s the far more serious problem for Mr. Obama, and one that could well get worse in less than a week.

Feature Menendez-Kirk. That is the bill that the Senate is readying to guard against Mr. Obama’s appeasement. It would mandate a restoration — or even a strengthening — of sanctions should the mullahs reneg on any part of a pact with Mr. Obama. Senator Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is a Democrat, as are 18 or so of the 59 or more cosponsors of the measure. Congress flinched the last time this came to a head, and the bill was never passed. But neither is it dead, and we’d like to think that a version of it would fare better were the Republicans to gain control of the Senate.

This is a time to remember that Mr. Obama isn’t the only president who was tested by Israel. President George H.W. Bush went through it during the fight in 1991 over loan guarantees for settlements. He complained of being up against 1,000 lobbyists on Capitol Hill, while “We’ve got one lonely little guy down here doing it.” The Washington Post called it a “joking reference to himself,” though it’s no so clear Mr. Bush was laughing. President Clinton’s state secretary, Madeleine Albright, was particularly nasty and condescending to Mr. Netanyahu.

Even George W. Bush, one of the staunchest pro-Israel presidents, tangled with Israel less than a year into his presidency. Prime Minister Sharon, in one of his memorable moments, warned that Israel would not play the role of Czechoslovakia to Mr. Bush’s Neville Chamberlain. Mr. Bush sent Ari Fleischer out to say Mr. Sharon’s remarks were “unacceptable,” but Mr. Sharon refused to back down. What saved the day then is that the two leaders proved to be mature enough to let it go and focus on the bigger, shared goal — of winning the war against Islamist terror that had been brought to American shores but five weeks earlier.

President Obama likes to insist, at least publicly, that he’s supportive of Israel, but it’s hard to see how he can do that by deriding its democratically elected leader. His aides mock Mr. Netanyahu as acting like a “mayor,” as Mr. Goldberg put it, for concerning himself with housing in Jerusalem, even while Mr. Obama — theoretically leader of the free world — does the same thing. His aides sneer that the Israeli premier is a “coward” for failing to attack an Iranian nuclear program that Mr. Obama has been trying for six years to keep Mr. Netanyahu from attacking. Mr. Netanyahu is completely within his rights and competency on both issues. Mr. Obama will get nowhere pretending he’s more pro-Israel than he is. There’s a word for that, but it’s not fit for a family newspaper.