If not for Israel ~
Why?
I have a difficult time understanding why people will put a foreign nation on a pedestal.
IMO (and don't shoot me for this) - if we did not support Israel, we wouldn't be having our current issues in the M.E.
Remember, Israel also attacked one of our ships and killed Americans. That would have been an act of war if any other nation had done that. The Tonkin Gulf Incident was the justification of the Vietnam War, and it was a much more tenuous reason.