Israeli Lobby?

I haven't paid much attention to the controversy about the influence of the Israeli Lobby on the US Government, it's discussed here, among other places, but the thought occurred to me that a major reason that the US supports Israel is that Israel had, until just recently, the only democratically elected government in the Middle East. The rest of the nations there are run by a motley collection of thugs, dictators, lunatics, and other scumbags.