Abraham was their father

the long version

Whether the inhabitants of all sides like it or not, the Near East and the West are locked together in the modern political and economic world. Their mutual welfare and progress are strongly intertwined. But they have a moral, natural, historical bond, in that they are children in faith of a common father. They have deep-seated sibling rivalry. But their "genes of faith" make them closer to each other than they are to peoples of Marxism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Shinto, or any of the native religions of Africa or South America.