Resident Fellow  David Frum

Why does the United States support Israel so strongly?

Israel's enemies think they know the answer: It is a conspiracy, the work of a sinister "lobby."

But there's a simpler and more powerful explanation: The American people favour the Jewish state over its enemies--and that support has only intensified with the passage of time.

Israel declared its independence in May, 1948. It was immediately attacked--and Americans were immediately polled on the ensuing war by the National Opinion Research Center. Thirty-four per cent of Americans said they sympathized more with the Jews of Palestine; 12% said they sympathized more with the Arabs. (Eytan Gilboa's American Public Opinion Toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict is the source of most of the numbers I'll cite here.)

This 3:1 ratio looks impressive. But still: More than half of all Americans took no view at all. In later NORC surveys, barely one-third of Americans rated the relationship with Israel as "very important."

The polls continue to show coolness to Israel through the 1950s--with more Americans blaming Israel than Egypt for the 1956 war. The great turning point comes in 1967, after the Six Day War.

June, 1967 polls showed sympathy for Israel surging above the 50% mark for the first time--and sympathy for the Arabs plunging below the 5% mark. An epoch had been turned. Over the next four decades, feelings about the Arab-Israeli dispute would settle and harden, with sympathy for Israel averaging a little above 45% and sympathy for Israel's Arab enemies averaging slightly more than 10%.

Those overall averages concealed fascinating variations. White Americans supported Israel more strongly than African Americans. Educated Americans were more pro-Israel than less educated Americans. And especially since 1982, right-of-centre Americans have tended to become more and more pro-Israel, while left-of-centre Americans have tended to become less so.

Yet underneath all these variations, here's the hard fact. The American public as a whole strongly supports the state of Israel, and this support has only intensified over time.

The so-called Israel lobby succeeds in Washington for exactly the same reason that Mothers Against Drunk Driving has succeeded in their lobbying: because it has public opinion on their side.

The next question is: Why? And to that question, the polling data suggest an answer.

The highest points in Israel's popularity (52% and better) include June, 1967, December, 1973, July-August, 1982, January, 1991, February, 2002 and almost all of the period since 2006.

Conversely, the lowest points in Arab unpopularity (8% and less) include the whole of the period from 1967 through 1973, and most of the period since September, 2001.

The American public does not like terrorism. It did not like the wave of hijackings and murders launched by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969, and it does not like the wave of suicide bombings that followed Yasser Arafat's "second intifada" in October, 2000.

The American public does not like unprovoked aggression. It did not like the Egyptian-Syrian sneak attack of October, 1973, it did not like Saddam Hussein's missile attacks on Israel during the Gulf War, and it does not like the rocket attacks on Sderot today.

The American public respects competence and professionalism. Israel's triumph in June, 1967, its come-from-behind victory in 1973, its shooting down of 86 Syrian planes without the loss of one of its own at the opening of the Lebanon war--all these won favorable responses.

Finally: The terror attacks of 9/11 have convinced many Americans that Israel and the United States stand together. Images of Palestinians dancing on 9/11, the rise of Hamas and Iran's repeated threats of genocide have shaped a new awareness that Israel's enemies are also America's, and America's are also Israel's.

It's often said that perception is reality. It's even more true, however, that reality is perception. Israel's Arab enemies are unpopular because Americans see them for what they are. And Israel is liked because Americans see it for what it is.

Which implies this lesson for those who seek to counteract the power of the "Israel lobby." If Israel's enemies would only disavow genocide, eschew religious extremism, halt terrorism, adopt democracy, practise tolerance, and offer and accept reasonable compromise--then Americans would like them a lot a lot better.

Of course, in that case, it would not matter whether Americans liked them or not--for if Israel's enemies ever did those things, the conflict would be over.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.