"Opinion polls confirm that Americans are solidly on Israel's side. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted on July 28th-30th showed that eight in ten Americans believed that Israel's action was justified—though a majority were worried about the scale of the action. A plurality (44%) thought that America was doing “about the right amount” to deal with the conflict. An earlier USA Today poll found that 53% put “a great deal” of the blame for the current crisis on Hizbullah, 39% put the blame on Iran and only 15% blamed Israel. Similarly, Americans are far more likely than Europeans to side with Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Pew Global Attitudes survey taken between March and May found that 48% of Americans said that their sympathies lay with the Israelis; only 13% were sympathetic towards the Palestinians. By contrast, in Spain for example, 9% sympathised with the Israelis and 32% with the Palestinians....Pro-Israeli forces command the intellectual high ground as well as the corridors of power. Commentators such as Charles Krauthammer issue column after column ridiculing the notion of proportionality and stressing Hizbullah's responsibility for civilian casualties. Most middle-of-the-road commentators question the effectiveness, rather than the morality, of Israel's actions. Out-and-out critics of Israel are relegated to the sidelines."