U.S.–Israel relations have hit an all-time low, and the main cause is the refusal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to modify his stance on the war in Gaza even slightly or just rhetorically. This, in turn, stems from his dependence on a handful of Israel’s most far-right politicians, without whose support his government would collapse. The collapse would result in new elections, which Netanyahu’s Likud party would almost certainly lose, thus ousting him from the post he has held for 17 of the past 23 years.

In short, Netanyahu is placing his own political survival over the health of Israel’s ties to its most important ally—as well as its reputation in the world and the once-blooming prospects for normal relations with its Sunni Arab neighbors, which would thus greatly enhance Israel’s security in a dangerous region and an increasingly anarchic world.

Two dramatic things happened on Monday, neither quite unprecedented by itself but uniquely striking in their back-to-back timing.

First, the United States did not veto but rather abstained from—and thus allowed to pass—a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the war on Gaza.

It wasn’t the first time the United States has turned away from its usual practice of protecting Israel by vetoing resolutions that criticized the country. In fact, every president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama abstained at least once on resolutions condemning Israel—Ronald Reagan did so seven times—for expanding settlements, invading Lebanon, permitting the murder of Palestinians, or other crimes and malfeasances.

Still, the abstention on Monday was unusual, given the war that Israel is waging and the fact that President Joe Biden had instructed his ambassador to veto similar resolutions three times in recent months.

The second dramatic thing that happened was that, in response to the vote, Netanyahu canceled a trip to Washington, where five of his top advisers were going to discuss possible ways to eradicate the remaining Hamas leaders in the southern Gaza town of Rafah without mounting a massive ground assault, a move that would likely kill thousands more civilians. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had called for the meeting, saying he had less destructive ideas for how to accomplish Israel’s strategic goal of rooting out Hamas—with which he said he agreed.

In other words, Netanyahu dissed Biden and his national security adviser in a way that few U.S. allies had ever........

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