President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon are due to be talking on the phone, perhaps as early as today. No doubt Mr. Sharon is going to be congratulating Mr. Bush on his electoral triumph, all within the bounds of the need to avoid taking a partisan position in American politics. No doubt Mr. Bush will be wishing Mr. Sharon well as he goes into the primary fight for the nomination to lead the Likud in the general election in January, though he, too, will need to avoid being seen, even in private, as meddling in Israel’s politics. One can imagine, too, that Mr. Sharon will congratulate Mr. Bush on his aim with the Hell Fire missile that stopped that car of Al Qaeda thugs on that road in Yemen. The pre-emptive attack on the terrorists suggests Mr. Bush has come to the same conclusion about certain aspects of military strategy as the Israelis came to a while back.

It’s a timely moment in which to reflect on the state of relations between America and Israel in the past year. The contrast with the Clinton years couldn’t be more striking. The Democratic administration — both President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright — spent its capital trying to belittle and berate Prime Minister Netanyahu. Mrs. Albright made little secret of the fact that she detested him, and Mr. Clinton never forgave him for entering an open embrace with Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican leadership of the 104th Congress. American liberals spent their time flogging polls that they claimed suggested the American Jewish community actually wanted the American president to lean on the Israeli leader in an effort to get him to be more forthcoming in negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs. America’s entente with Yasser Arafat reached its apogee, with the tragic harvest we have seen in the past year or so.

Messrs. Bush and Sharon have been remarkably adept at restoring a sense of strategic partnership between America and the only democracy in the Middle East. Mr. Bush has made some mistakes, such as endorsing a Palestinian state while a war is in progress. But he has made conceptual breakthrough with his speech establishing a precondition of Palestinian Arab democracy. Meantime Messrs. Sharon and Bush have built a remarkable rapport, with Mr. Sharon’s aides telling reporters after the premier’s recent visit to Washington that there has been no better friend of Israel in the White House since the founding of the Jewish state. There is no reason to think that this could not be sustained with a different leader in power in Jerusalem. But there is no reason not to remark on what an impressive and welcome change we have seen in American-Israel relations in the last year and a half. It is something to think about as the two countries prepare for to confront the threat from Iraq in the days and weeks ahead.