When two leaders quarrel, the world usually asks the most obvious questions: Who is right? Who is stronger? Who yielded? Who won?

Those are often the least useful questions.

A better one is: What is happening between them?

The reported tension between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump is being described as a disagreement over Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Beirut, uranium, the Strait of Hormuz, energy prices, and elections. All of that matters. But it is also the visible part of the iceberg.

Beneath the surface are fear, pressure, pride, loyalty, mistrust, and the human need not to be humiliated.

In a CNBC interview, Netanyahu did not deny having a difficult phone call with Trump. He downplayed the idea that it amounted to a crisis. “If you think this is a crisis,” he said, “you should be in some other conversations. But we’ve always found a way.” He described the disagreements as tactical, “as in the best of families,” and added: “He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences.”

That is not a denial of strain. It is an attempt to contain it.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump and Netanyahu began the Iran war with extraordinary coordination but are now clashing over how to end it. Trump wants a diplomatic agreement that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, dispose of Iran’s enriched uranium, and end a conflict that has raised energy prices and divided his political base. Netanyahu, meanwhile, faces pressure at home to act more forcefully against Hezbollah after deadly drone attacks and repeated threats to........

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