For more than a year, ever since the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 240 as hostages, relations between the United States and its strongest ally in the Middle East have been on diplomatic tenterhooks.

In the immediate aftermath of the horrific attack, the deadliest in Jewish history since the Holocaust, President Joe Biden declared his unqualified support for Israel and, by implication, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.