In the novel, the State of Israel is founded in 1948, but is destroyed after only three months in an alternative version of the Arab-Israeli War. Without Israel, Palestine is described as a mosaic of contending religious and secular nationalist groups locked in internecine conflict; Jerusalem is described as "a city of blood and slogans painted on the wall, severed heads on telephone poles". The United States president believes in "divine sanction" for neo-Zionism, a movement seeking for Jews to reclaim Israel once again.