A day before a major address to America’s Jewish community, President Barack Obama’s interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg set the tone for the coming outreach effort meant to soften the impact of any Iranian nuclear deal among skeptics. After months of acrimonious back-and-forth between top officials in Washington and Jerusalem, Obama set out his parameters for US-Israel relations – retaining his right to criticize Israeli policies, but asserting that even publicly aired discord did not preclude support for Israel and the Jewish people.

he interview with Obama was published one day before the president is set to give a major speech directed at American Jews. The address will be delivered at Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue that counts among its members numerous Washington heavy-hitters, including Goldberg himself.

Although Obama’s speech is officially timed to mark Jewish American Heritage Month and is slated as a tribute to former senator and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos, Obama is expected to use the opportunity to try to calm the waters over the impending nuclear deal with Iran and his administration’s frosty relationship with the Netanyahu government.

Obama’s interview was at times defensive, arguing that criticism of Israel’s policies did not constitute a lack of support for Israel and the Jewish people as a whole — and, for that matter, that he was not “bifurcating” the American Jewish community. Obama’s opponents have pointed to his pursuit of an Iranian nuclear deal as linked to his very public run-ins with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over topics that include both Iran, the two-state solution, and the status of Israeli Arabs.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.