In June, after signing the Iran memorandum, the Vice President of the United States turned on America’s oldest Middle Eastern ally. He told Israel’s hardliners to “wake up and smell reality.” Trump, he warned, was the last world leader who still liked Israel; they would be fools to attack their only remaining powerful ally. A nation of nine million, he added, cannot kill its way out of every security problem.

A month later, on the country’s largest podcast, he went further. Israel was losing the American public. To those in the Israeli government manipulating U.S. opinion to prolong an aimless war, his message was blunt: “go to hell.” Israel, he concluded, is just another ally. Like France. Like Britain. No more, no less.

Asked if Jeffrey Epstein worked for the Mossad, he agreed. He claimed the dead financier was tied to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence, specifically elements of an “Israeli deep state that were left of center.” He provided no documents. There are none. Yet he fed the conspiracy to eleven million listeners.

This is not policy criticism. It is a doctrinal shift.

American presidents have clashed with Israel before. Eisenhower forced Ben-Gurion out of Sinai in 1957 under threat of sanctions. Bush and Baker froze $10 billion in loan guarantees to drag Shamir to the negotiating table. Obama and Netanyahu waged open political warfare over the Iran deal. But those fights were about conduct. The underlying premise, that the alliance was permanent, remained untouched.

Vance is not disputing conduct. He is downgrading Israel’s rank. He is dismantling the “Special........

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