Washington is in a tizzy. On Friday, March 21, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily briefing that the United States was “disappointed with the lack of an apology from Defense Minister [Moshe] Ya'alon” for his latest remarks. Ya’alon said on March 17 that the Obama administration’s handling of the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East signaled weakness, and expressed disrespect for US security aid to Israel. The spokeswoman stressed that Ya’alon’s words did not accurately reflect the close ties between the United States and Israel. The next day, a senior administration official said that Washington wasn't satisfied with the clarification call of Ya’alon to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The US reaction to the insults Ya’alon hurled in January at Secretary of State John Kerry, describing him as “obsessive” and “messianic,” was no less pointed. In her daily briefing at the time, Psaki’s deputy, Marie Harf, described Ya’alon’s comments as “offensive and inappropriate,” saying they were “not something we would expect from the defense minister of a close ally.” White House spokesman Jay Carney made similar comments the same day.

Ya’alon has, in fact, adopted a habit of biting over and over the hand that feeds Israel with heaped helpings of defense, economic and diplomatic nourishment. He has a thing or two to learn from his cabinet colleague, Avigdor Liberman. The foreign minister has understood that as long as a right-wing Israeli politician makes sure to lavish compliments on the United States for its friendship, he can afford to ignore such values as human rights, to spit in the face of international law and to ridicule US peace efforts. While Ya’alon’s criticism of the United States was being leaked from an off-the-record conversation with a journalist and from a closed-door academic forum, Liberman was busy showcasing his plan to deprive hundreds of thousands of Arab Israelis of their citizenship, simply because of their religious and ethnic affiliation. He announced that he would oppose a freeze on settlement construction “for even one hour,” and threatened that if the government respects its commitment to Kerry and frees Palestinian prisoners who are Israeli citizens, his party would quit the ruling coalition.

The most glaring example of the Obama administration’s value scale can be found in the reaction of the State Department’s spokeswoman to a speech given by Liberman last month at a conference of the Tel Aviv Commercial and Industrial Business Club. “The idea of swapping lands and population is part of a future arrangement,” the foreign minister said, adding, “If we want, it can be done, and we will be able to carry out swaps of lands and populations.” Psaki said the administration was aware of Liberman’s comments at that event. She noted the compliment he paid her boss, in saying Kerry was “a true friend of Israel,” and his reprimand to his government colleagues (“What’s the point of turning friends into enemies?”). Psaki noted that Liberman’s statement was important “given his history and his background on these issues and where his view was.”