[SwellJoe]

I'm pretty sure that's looking through a modern lens at a much older situation. The religious right were not in power (or even really existent as a political force) through the entire history of Israel, and yet, Israel has always had US support.

I'll buy that the religious right consider Israel a useful political tool, and that it fits the worldview of the people the religious right are trying to herd (I'm pretty confident most of the people calling the shots in the religious right are not particularly religious; it's just useful to them). But, I can't buy a Tea Party conspiracy that goes back 60+ years.

[tokenadult]

Israel has always had US support.

No. The comment above that the Cold War set the context for United States friendship with Israel has it right. When the Arab countries weren't as strongly aligned with the Soviet Union, United States policy didn't tilt nearly as much as it later did toward Israel. The 1956 Suez crisis is an instructive example.

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/projects/suez/suez.ht...

The United States urged Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw from their military intervention in Egypt to ensure international control of the Suez canal. In that era, the United States was nearer to a middle position regarding Arab-Israeli conflict than several of the European powers.

The Six-Day War (which I remember from childhood) was probably the high water mark of United States support for Israel, as it appeared that a badly outnumbered, and uniquely democratic, Israel was able to overcome surrounding hostile countries through valor and strategic brilliance. Since the 1980s, the United States relationship with Israel has had bipartisan support at the federal government level, but I think the American Baby Boom's visceral identification with Israel as a fellow democratic country has diminished considerably since then. The aftermath of the Arab Spring may be an increased balance in United States attitudes toward Israel and the Arab states.

[SwellJoe]

I was making no argument about why the US has historically supported Israel, to a lesser or greater degree, as you note.

I was merely pointing out that saying that the religious right are the cause of US support of Israel is obviously wrong. Your assertions about when US/Israel relations were at their peak are in agreement with my statements, since the religious right has only become a political force at the national level in the last 20 years or so, and your water mark events preceded that rise to power.

I was just pointing out the obvious wrongness of the comment above mine, not making any sort of political argument about US/Israel relations.