The thread question is why is Israel such a big deal to US politicians is indeed a good question. But somewhat hats off to Israel for conducting such a good public realtions campaign dating from the days prior to the formal recognition of the State of Israel in 1948. And the Israeli lobby called AIPAC flies under the lobbying ruler for other foreign governments because it does not directly distribute money to US politicians, and instead acts as a clearing house for other entities that do. Another stroke of PR brillance.
But still IMHO, Israel has two very good causes to worry.
1. Israel PR is entirely has invested everything in the USA. As the rest of the world has no equivalents of AIPAC as their governments and their people more clearly see the phony in Israeli foreign policy. Which extends especially two the 2/3 majority of non-allaigned nations in the UN general assembly. But as long as the USA is the so called leader of the free world and has such economic trading power, most alpha nations will follow the US lead as long as UNCLE SUCKER foots the bill and is the only nation that spends itself into poverty to side with only Israel. At the cost of alienating 300+ million Arabs who have a strangle hold on the supply, transport, and price of oil as a world commidity. Which IMHO, gets to the crux of it. Other than the USA blowing
over 3 trillion dollars+++, in two fruitless quagmires, and over 6000 lives, the Arabs and other nations have yet to say, Israeli government policy is grossly unfair, and used the economic power to make sure US government policy is more fair and even handed rather than siding only with Israel for no rational reason. Twenty years ago, the Arab nations looked to the United States to try to resolve and end the Israeli occupation of disputed territories dating back to 1967, and now USA cred in the mid-east is at zero. As the events of the Arab spring now make the entire mid-east more volitile than 1948. And if wars are started in the mid-east oil patch, due to anyone's fault, its certain to result in a world wide deprecession in evey oil dependent economy in the world. As it will also become very likely the USA and Israel will share the lions share of the blame. In short, Israeli PR support may stay the same until it starts costing the American consumer in the pocketbook which may start happening very soon.
2. Positive PR is something to be cultivated and not wisely squandered, look at how fast Pee Wee Herman went from a positive American parents role model to the hated phony he is now. Maybe the Pee Herman example may not sound as all too typical, but in foreign policy such shifts can happen at the speed of light.