The United States and Israel share common interests, but not identical ones. That reminder was brought home last week by Israel's stunning announcement of expanded East Jerusalem settlements even as Vice President Joe Biden arrived to reaffirm the American commitment to both Israel and the Palestinian peace process. But while a stunned and angry Biden echoed General David Petraeus in warning that "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan," a leading Likud spokesman responded by dismissing American "chutzpah."
In the wake of the slap in the face that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off as accidental and "regrettable," his ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren told diplomats that the relations between the countries faced their worst crisis in 35 years. And while Netanyahu suggested "that we not get carried away and that we calm down, his Likud ally and deputy speaker of the Knesset Danny Dadon slammed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's stern response as "uninvited and unhelpful." Of her "meddling in internal Israeli decisions regarding the development" of Jerusalem, Dadon said:

"In fact it is sheer chutzpah. I cannot remember another time that a senior American official deemed it 'insulting' when a sovereign nation announced urban zoning decisions regarding its primary city."

On Friday, the CBC among others refreshed Dadon's memory:

In the early 1990s, when then president George H.W. Bush became annoyed at Shamir's refusal to stop building settlements, he cut off $10 billion in loan guarantees, which Israel needed to resettle Russian Jewish immigrants.
At the time, James Baker, Bush's secretary of state, publicly recited the White House switchboard's phone number, declaring to Israel: "When you are serious about peace, call us!"
(He also, notoriously, told a friend, "F**k the Jews, they don't vote for us [Republicans] anyway.")

But Baker's famous f-bomb is beside the point.
The United States has for decades guaranteed and underwritten Israeli security - and national survival. But the mutual interest of the allied democracies in halting Soviet expansion and curbing Iranian influence does not mean their objectives always overlap.
As Foreign Policy detailed this weekend, CENTCOM commander and conservative idol General David Petraeus made stressed that very point to the U.S. Joint Chiefs. Chairman Michael Mullen was apparently stunned by what he heard:

The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, [and] that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.

That's not all. Petraeus requested, though was later denied, the addition of the West Bank and Gaza into his theater of command. As FP reported, "Petraeus's reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict."
That is part of the back-story to the stark warning Vice President Biden delivered to the Israelis after their public humiliation of him:

People who heard what Biden said were stunned. "This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden castigated his interlocutors. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace."
The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel's actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.

And to be sure, it is not in the national security interest of the United States to support those seeking the fulfillment of biblical prophecy by cementing the occupation of what some Israelis (and some Americans) call Judea and Samaria.
As ThinkProgress noted, just the day before Biden's arrival in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared onstage with Texas Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem. Hagee doesn't merely oppose a two-state solution with the Palestinians ("If America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness," Hagee has said. "Amos 3:2 states that any nation that divides the Land of Israel will come under the severe judgment of God."). As he made clear in 2006, Hagee literally believes in Armageddon as foreign policy:

"The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

For its part, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) responded to the controversy by blasting not the Netanyahu government, but the Obama White House. As Steve Clemons suggested, AIPAC in its statement below got the story exactly backwards:

The Obama Administration's recent statements regarding the U.S. relationship with Israel are a matter of serious concern. AIPAC calls on the Administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State. The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel, with whom the United States shares basic, fundamental, and strategic interests.

As Tom Friedman wrote yesterday, friends can speak the truth to each other. As Friedman argues, the message the Obama administration should send Tel Aviv is "Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness." Put another way:

Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don't let friends drive drunk. And right now, you're driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you're serious.

What the Israeli government did last week was chutzpah. What the Obama administration is doing now is simply calling them on it.
UPDATE: While the number two House Republican Eric Cantor called the Obama administration's response to last week's outrage "iresponsible," Kansas Senator Sam Brownback parroted the Likud Party's talking point. "'It's hard to see," Brownback said, 'how spending a weekend condemning Israel for a zoning decision in its capital city amounts to a positive step towards peace."