It is almost unheard of for American and Israeli leaders to have serious misgivings about one another in public, yet in recent weeks, that is exactly what has happened.
Although US President Joe Biden has spent his career nurturing relations in Israel, it seems that his administration has lost patience with the governing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
In particular, Washington has been exasperated by Tel Aviv’s failure to adequately distinguish between civilians and combatants during its military operations in the Strip, with a staggering 35,000 Palestinians now killed.
The US has also felt the need to distance itself from Israel’s role in creating what could become one of this century’s worst humanitarian crises, with hundreds of thousands of Gazans now facing famine as a result of Israel’s siege.
The world noticed when the US chose not to veto UN Security Council Resolution 2728, calling for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza—something Israel strongly opposes.
For decades, the US has shielded Israel, time and again using its veto as a permanent Security Council member to block criticism of the Jewish state or calls to remedy its perceived wrongs.
Therefore, the recent public chastisement, in strikingly critical comments from the White House, challenges the prevailing view in Arab capitals about Israeli influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East.
However, many of these views are based on misunderstandings or, in some cases, on conspiratorial and misplaced assumptions about lobby groups' power.
Read more: AIPAC contends with an increasingly critical American left
Truman’s true love
The US has held a deep interest in Israel for decades. This is primarily rooted in politics, culture, and the personal views and beliefs of individual politicians.
It took US President Harry Truman 11 minutes to recognise the State of Israel on behalf of the United States after David Ben-Gurion declared independence on 14 May 1948, the day the British Mandate ended.
Following his own personal convictions, Truman drafted the recognition in his own handwriting, without the knowledge of the State Department, much to its dismay.
Many in his administration (including his Secretary of State, George Marshall) had argued against US recognition of Israel, warning that it could damage relations with Arab states and potentially impact US access to oil.
Some later said Truman's decision was politically expedient, designed to win Jewish votes in the 1948 presidential election, and that he was then trailing in the polls to his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey.
In fact, it came down to Truman's strong Christian faith and his interpretation of the biblical texts he studied as a child, which spoke of Jews' liberation from Pharaoh's oppression and of their return to the 'Promised Land' of Palestine.
Seeing parallels between the biblical narrative and the Nazis' recent persecution of Jews, Truman was pleased to be likened to Cyrus the Great.
Cyrus was the king who supposedly conquered Babylon in 538 BC. He allowed the Jews to return to Palestine after their exile by Nebuchadnezzar and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem that had been destroyed nearly 50 years earlier.
Yet Truman's support was personal, and contrary to the popular Arab perception, the history of US-Israel relations is not one of uniform harmony.
Read more: Examining the evolution of US-Israeli relations
Eisenhower's anger
The alliance is complex and prone to strains, with several significant points of disagreement along the way, including the Suez Crisis in late October 1956.
In the Arab world, this is referred to as the tripartite aggression, when France, Britain, and Israel attacked Egypt after it had nationalised the Suez Canal.
