Is Israel viewed favorably in the US because of a Jewish lobby?
There is nothing more genuine than the formation of close ties between two states that believe wholeheartedly in democracy, freedom and tolerance. Shared values include a reverence for democracy, respect for individual rights and the belief that governance should only be by the rule of law.
Is the conflict linked to all the problems of the Middle East?
The linkage myth began in the 1920s during the Mandate period, created by Arab elites for reasons connected to intra-Arab politics. Even when the Arab states actually took actions to help the Palestinians, they were acting for their own benefit: the Arab invasion of the newly-established state of Israel in 1948 was actually a land grab, while the Egyptians and Jordanians, who ruled Gaza and the West Bank until the 1967 Six-Day War, did nothing to promote Palestinian statehood. Time after time, the PLO was expelled from Arab countries when it threatened to destabilize the local regime.
The full text in German is on my Website and the English original on the site of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.