US Secretary Marco Rubio’s first engagement after arriving in Israel this weekend to discuss the Gaza war and the fallout of Israel’s strike in Qatar sent a dangerous signal.

By visiting Jerusalem’s Western Wall, a Jewish place of prayer and pilgrimage together with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the United States’ Christian Zionist ambassador to the Jewish state, Mike Huckabee, Mr. Rubio was implicitly framing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a religious and civilisational rather than a national dispute.