Summer trip

Professor Jacobson from Legal Insurrection hit the road for Israel to see the sights and learn about a great American ally.
Why are we allies?
One simple and obvious question came up toward the end and caught me off guard.  To paraphrase:

What explains Americans’ strong support for Israel, this tiny county of 8 million people so far away?

I babbled something about shared enemies and so on.  Undoubtedly the rise of radical Islam was part of it. But I struggled. The best I could come up defied data points.
At some point in the last 40 years something fundamental happened in the relationship between the American people and Israel far deeper than government policy, which fluctuates.  The friendship with and support for Israel became a part of the American psyche.