The victory of the small Jewish democracy against the Soviet-armed legions of Arab despotism convinced the United States that Israel was its special friend in the most dangerous of neighbourhoods, its ally in the struggle against Communist Russia, Nasserite radicalism and Islamicist fundamentalism. America and Israel shared more than that, for they were countries built on an ideal of freedom touched by the divine: one was the new Zion, the ‘city on a hill’, the other the old Zion restored.
