Notwithstanding that this would make the "North Atlantic" part of NATO more superfluous than ever, I question your logic; some could make the argument that the Greeks and the Romans had a greater influence on Western Civilization than Israel did, especially seeing as how it ceased to exist as a political entity in 70 A.D. (After all, the various European countries made a humongous deal out of being the successor to the Roman Empire; the successor to Israel? Not so much, unless you were the Catholic Church, which always styled itself as the successor to Israel.)
And if you're referring to Jesus Christ specifically, citing Israel makes even less sense, seeing as how the current nation-state of Israel (not to be confused with the Biblical Kingdom of Israel), and the religion of Judaism in particular, don't recognize Jesus as the prophesied Messiah.
When I first saw this headline on FR, I thought the idea was so ludicrous that I didn’t even bother reading the article. LOL.
Any notion of Israel as “the root of the west” should have gone out the window when they held the first “gay pride” parade in Jerusalem.