In this bold, clarifying examination, Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead demolishes the myths that have misled Zionists and anti-Zionists over the years while showing just how special the connection between the United States, Israel, and the Jewish people has become. Mead shows how both mainline and Evangelical Protestant Christians maintained that Zionism was as American as apple pie. He spotlights the almost forgotten history story of left-wing support for Zionism, arguing that Eleanor Roosevelt and liberal New Dealers had more influence on President Truman's Israel policy than the American Jewish community did-and that Stalin's influence was more decisive than Truman's in Israel's struggle for independence. Mead shows how Israel's rise in the Middle East helped kindle our own modern Evangelical movement and the Sunbelt coalition that carried Ronald Reagan into the White House. And he describes the aspects of American culture that make it hostile to antisemitism while warning about the danger to that tradition of tolerance as our current culture wars heat up.