Two news stories in the headlines Wednesday point to a dangerous and growing gap between the leaders of the US and Israel in analyzing the changing realities of the region and how to deal with them.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was issuing what sounded like an ultimatum to US President Barack Obama on Iran — demanding that the US openly announce its “red lines” for Iranian nuclear development — young Islamic fundamentalists apparently enraged by a racist American movie about the Prophet Mohammed attacked US diplomatic outposts in Egypt and Libya, killing US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

At a time when populist Islamist movements are on the rise throughout the Arab world, constraining Israel’s freedom of action against its traditional adversaries — the Palestinians and Hezbollah in Lebanon — Netanyahu should not let his fear of Iran drag the US into a third war in the region in a decade.

Pro-Western, secular forces in the Middle East are already in peril, and fragile new democratic governments cannot adequately police their frustrated and angry young constituents. A US attack on Iran would pour gasoline on the flames and regain for Iran the Arab street support that Tehran has lost through its support for the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.