The reason is not the so-called "Jewish lobby" here in the U.S., but because a clear majority of non-Jews supported Israel. They saw that in a sea of autocracy, Israel is a democracy and a free and open society, one quite different from its neighbors.
I suspect that when there is a final two-state settlement, Arabs wishing to remain inside Israel will be treated far more humanely as citizens than any Jews who stay on the West Bank and take their chances as residents of the new Palestinian state. We suspect that when Israel pulls back from lands occupied after the 1967 war, there will remain prominent calls in the Arab world to continue the withdrawal -- and finish Israel altogether.
Holocaust denial is still a staple in intellectual circles of the Middle East, and serially embraced by the Iranian government.
Fashionable anti-Israeli sentiment is de rigueur in European elite society. Nearly a third of all country-specific resolutions passed by United Nations Commission on Human Rights have damned Israel -- far more than anything directed at the mass-murdering regimes of Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or the Taliban.
In contrast, America's traditional bipartisan support for Israel put the world on notice that the United States would never allow another Holocaust -- or the destruction of Israel, or even serial attacks against it.
Yet if we are seen as neutral, just watch the rest of the world get the message and start piling on. Anti-Jewish terrorism will gear up again. Frontline entities like Hezbollah, Syria and Iran will ready their missiles without worry of American anger. Iran will assume we are resigned to its acquisition of the bomb. And the UN will again begin providing cover by issuing its pro forma denunciations of Israel, counting on a newly diffident United States to vote "present."
Perhaps the Obama administration genuinely believes that by pressuring Israel and reaching out to its enemies, it can at last achieve peace. Perhaps a few key figures in this administration simply do not like or trust the Jewish state -- support for which now polls only 48 percent among Democratic voters (versus 85 percent among Republicans).
No matter. This administration should take a deep breath and review history. It would learn that when Israel is alone, its opportunistic enemies pile on. And then war becomes more, not less, likely.