President Biden’s disdain for Prime Minister Netanyahu is often made public, as is his attack on Jerusalem’s current government as too extreme, too religious, and increasingly undemocratic. How, though, can it be squared with the president’s smarmy praise of a leader who is decisively undemocratic, who dreams of reviving his country’s past religious empire, and who often attacks America in the harshest terms? 

“Thank you for your leadership,” Mr. Biden burbled to President Erdogan on Tuesday. The Turkish strongman in turn lauded his American “friend” for congratulating his election victory back in May and wished Mr. Biden “best of luck” in next year’s presidential election. Yet Mr. Netanyahu can only dream of such a friendly exchange, as Mr. Biden has made a point of showing his back to the Israeli premier and pointedly not inviting him to the White House.

Even receiving President Herzog at the White House, as Mr. Biden will do with great fanfare this week, is part of the campaign to spotlight the refusal to host Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Biden’s snub is political, designed to acknowledge and energize Israelis who are opposed to Mr. Netanyahu and who, by hundreds of thousands, have flooded city streets for weeks, protesting proposals to curb a runaway Israeli judiciary.

Why is our president so eager to defend the sanctity of the Israeli Supreme Court at the same time that he mercilessly attacks our own high bench, claiming that “this is not a normal court”? It can only be that his critique of Mr. Netanyahu’s government has helped embolden Israel’s political animosities. “We urge authorities in Israel to protect and respect the right of peaceful assembly,” a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s national security council sneers.

What an irony. Had Mr. Biden or members of his administration bothered to attend an Israeli protest, they might have heard the chant: “This isn’t Turkey.” That’s because Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic opponents often liken the premier to Mr. Erdogan, even if the comparison doesn’t quite compute. Much of the Israeli press are against Bibi, after all, yet Turkish journalists rarely dare to criticize their leader.

For years, Turkey topped global lists of imprisoned newsmen. While Mr. Netanyahu struggles to advance his reform legislation in the Knesset, Mr. Erdogan has single-handedly demolished any semblance of judicial independence. Before Mr. Erdogan’s recent election victory, a Turkish court sent the president’s most formidable opponent, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Istanbul, to prison on trumped-up charges and without due process.

Despite Mr. Erodgan’s aversion to Israeli-style adversarial politics, Mr. Biden endlessly praises him. Following their Vilnius meeting, Mr. Biden marveled on Wednesday about how “great” his parley with the Turk has been. Also on Wednesday, one of Mr. Biden’s cheerleaders, Thomas Friedman, writes that “when the interests and values of a U.S. government and an Israeli government diverge this much, a reassessment of the relationship is inevitable.”

Mr. Biden “believes he has the support not only of most Americans for this but of most American Jews and even most Israeli Jews,” Mr. Friedman contends. We doubt it. Mr. Friedman wasn’t at a closed-door meeting that Mr. Biden’s top Republican contender, President Trump, conducted with Jewish supporters at Bedminster, New Jersey, on Monday, where a crowd was heard cheering as Mr. Trump enumerated his pro-Israel achievements.

The list included relocating our embassy to Jerusalem, a move Mr. Biden backed long ago but abandoned during the Obama administration. The list featured, too, recognizing the Golan annexation; intensifying the pressure on Iran rather than seeking to accommodate the ayatollahs; and orchestrating the most successful Middle East peace process so far, the Abraham accords. A recording of Mr. Trump’s remarks was heard by the Sun.

The 45th president noted that not long ago, if a politician uttered “one bad word about Israel, you were virtually out of politics. Today if you say one good word about Israel, you’re out of politics.” None of the pro-Israel Americans that well up around Mr. Trump get featured in the Times. Then again, too,  they indicate that Jews who support Mr. Biden turning his back on Israel’s democratically elected prime minister may not be a majority after all.

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Correction: Bedminster, New Jersey, was the site of President Trump’s meeting Monday with Jewish supporters. The location and date were given incorrectly in the bulldog edition of this editorial.