It looks like the Israelis are starting to figure out Secretary of State Kerry. He is posing as one thing — in this case, a friend of Israel — when he is pursuing quite another agenda. The telltale reports emerged from the annual meeting of the Munich Security Conference, where the secretary was complaining to the Europeans about Jewish intransigence in respect of negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs. “The risks are very high for Israel,” the secretary said. “People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. Do they want a failure that then begs whatever may come in the form of a response from disappointed Palestinians and the Arab community?”

This infuriated the Israelis, who, whatever else can be said about them, understand plain English. “The attempts to boycott Israel are unethical and unjustified,” Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted by Haaretz as saying at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. His comments were the mildest of the ministers. “Insufferable” was the word used by the minister of intelligence, Yuval Steinitz. Added he: “Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a gun to its head when we are discussing the matters which are most critical to our national interests.” The industry minister, Naftali Bennett, put the hay down where the mules can get to it: “We expect of our friends in the world to stand by our side against the attempts to impose an anti-Semitic boycott on Israel, and not to be their mouthpiece.”

The State Department, as is its wont, blamed the Israelis only further. The secretary’s “only reference to a boycott was a description of actions undertaken by others that he has always opposed,” said a spokeswoman, Jennifer Psaki.“[Mr Kerry] expected opposition and difficult moments in the process, but he also expects all parties to accurately portray his record and statements.” Well, no one inaccurately portrayed Mr. Kerry’s remarks. Mr. Kerry inaccurately portrayed Israel and inaccurately sought to claim the high ground. He is a master of this. It was what he did during his years agitating for an American retreat in Vietnam, testifying to the Senate that his fellow GIs were behaving like Genghis Khan and committing war crimes. He’s now a state secretary, but his modus operandi hasn’t changed.