For several years, numerous newspaper and magazine articles and even entire books have been devoted to the theme of a growing divide between Israel and American Jewry. Yet U.S. Jews overwhelmingly tell pollsters that they support the Jewish state. Frank Newport takes a close look at the results of several different surveys:

My recent review of the available data shows that about nine in ten American Jews are more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinians, compared with about six in ten of all Americans. Additionally, 95 percent of Jews have favorable views of Israel, while 10 percent have favorable views of the Palestinian Authority—[making Jews] significantly more pro-Israel than the overall national averages of 71 percent having favorable views of Israel and 21 percent views of the Palestinian Authority.

Research conducted in 2013 by the Pew Research Center showed that 76 percent of Jews (identified by religion) said they were at least somewhat emotionally attached to Israel. In addition, almost half said that caring about Israel is an essential part of being Jewish, with most of the rest saying it is important although not essential, and nearly half reporting that they had personally traveled to Israel.

Nonetheless, Jews’ longstanding loyalty to the Democratic party remains unchanged:

The clear majority of Jewish Americans identify with or lean toward the Democratic party, and we find no evidence that this has changed significantly during the Trump administration so far. Donald Trump took office in January 2017, and Gallup’s aggregated surveys conducted from February through December of that year show that 68 percent of Jews identified as Democratic or as independents who leaned toward the Democratic party, while 28 percent identified as or leaned Republican.

So far this year, using an aggregated sample of Gallup polls conducted from January through August, 65 percent of Jews identify with or lean toward the Democratic party, with 30 percent identifying with or leaning toward the Republican party. In terms of ideology, 44 percent of American Jews are liberal, much higher than the overall 25 percent among the total population, making Jews the most liberal of any major religious group.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.