The Israelis are getting nervous. With 65 years of war crimes, violations of international law and general contempt for the international community under their belt, they are beginning to feel that they are close to burning their bridges with the only country that matters to them: the United States.

A recent commentary in the Israeli news website Ynet warns Israelis that Washington’s “unbreakable bond” with the Zionist state could snap after all.

The nature of relations with America is in the essentiality of the interests, reality and of course a bit more. And when reality changes before our eyes on a daily basis, even the most “Zionist” American president starts thinking, first and foremost, about the welfare of his nation and country in the Middle East, and only later about the Bible and the people of the Book and the ethics of the prophets. In recent years, the US map of interests in the Middle East is changing… We are losing the special status of the eldest and spoilt child in the eyes of the White House. To put it explicitly, the current president (and the next president, whoever that may be) no longer “works for us” and is increasingly returning to the format of the “problem child” [as President Harry S. Truman reputedly once described Israel]. To put it in our words, it seems that we have burnt our dish in the kitchens of the White House and Capitol Hill. They are getting increasingly tired of our conduct.

According to the commentary, while on the surface all may seem hunky-dory between Israel and the US, there are already telling signs of a change in the nature of the relationship.

…we receive the small answers from Washington both in leaks from the White House, including the president’s statements, and in appointments of senior officials who directly influence the US policy. Many of those recent appointments are not fond of us, to put it mildly. Even US Jews, especially the young ones, no longer obey every single command coming from Jerusalem… That may not be so crucial at the moment, but if and when it becomes crucial, it will be too late to wake up.

The commentary warns that it hasn’t always been milk and honey when it comes to relations with the US.

The veterans among us remember difficult years in our relationship with America. We were not always popular in the White House. America was the country which threw us out of Sinai (together with the Russians) in 1956. America did not send us weapons, and when it did – it stopped the shipments once we refused to accept its stance.

Whether or not history will repeat itself and Israel finds that it has overstepped the mark will depend at least in part on its own conduct.

In 2012 an Israeli think-tank, Molad: the Centre for the Renewal of Democracy, published a study which attributed Israel’s growing isolation in the world to the Israeli government’s policies.

Those policies, marked by expansionism, land theft, ethnic cleansing, racism, arrogance and disdain for the rest of humanity, including Israel’s own patron, may change in degree and nuance from one government to the next but the trend is unmistakably getting worse.