On 27 December 1962, Foreign Minister Golda Meir met President John F. Kennedy in the White House. This was their first meeting, and it produced one of the more known statements made by an American president regarding Israeli–American relations: ‘The United States has special relations with Israel, as we have had and still have with Great Britain.’1 Though no student of Israeli–American relations will deny that there were and are special ties between the two nations, the debate was: Since when were Israeli–American relations special? The answers varied depending on the scholar’s approach and understanding of the causes of those relations. Some emphasize realism, while others see ideals as factors that drive and underpin the relationship between the two countries.