Grateful Israelis Welcome GIs From Patriot Missile Batteries : Air defense: The warmth of their reception reflects a broader pro-American sentiment in the country.

Treated to giant bottles of whiskey and vodka, fawned on by stylish Israeli women and toasted by the men, the American soldiers who operate the Patriot missile batteries here had clearly stumbled into heaven in a little Tel Aviv bar.

“This is great,” one said. “I’ve been in the Army a long time, and this is the first time I’ve ever been thanked for doing my job.”

The Israelis who invite Patriot crews for home-cooked meals, send champagne to the missile sites and arrange free satellite television and international phone lines for them are saying ‘Thank you’ for concrete help: the approximately 20 times that Patriots have hit incoming Iraqi Scud missiles, preventing or lessening the damage and injuries they cause.

But the personal adoration that the Patriot crews are enjoying also reflects a broader recent trend in Israeli society: a new high on America that mirrors heightened pro-Israeli sympathies in the United States.

Israelis never stopped feeling a special emotional bond with the United States, government spokesman Yossi Olmert said, “but now the situation has created the need to demonstrate relations.”

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, Israeli-American relations were actually at a low point, with clear friction between President Bush and Israeli President Yitzhak Shamir and prospects exceedingly dim that they would reach agreement over a peace settlement for the Middle East.

During that period, Olmert said, Israel’s special affinity for the United States also made Israelis “feel special indignation at American rebukes.”

For now, however, with the tangled questions of a Mideast settlement overshadowed by the war in the Persian Gulf, the Israeli-American relationship is dominated instead by waves of appreciation from both sides.

The United States is grateful for Israel’s restraint in not striking back at Iraq, since such involvement in the conflict might cause divisions among the Arab nations allied against Saddam Hussein. From Israel, there is gratitude for America’s extensive bombing raids on missile launchers in western Iraq and its quick, successful installation of six Patriot batteries operated in part by American troops.

According to a poll taken in Israel this week, 33% of 593 people interviewed said the crisis in the Persian Gulf had led them to trust America more, and 75% said they were confident now that America could act as a mediator in Arab-Israeli peace talks.

The poll, commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish organization, also found that the majority of Israelis believe that the anti-Iraq coalition is doing “all that could be done” to remove the threat of more Iraqi missiles falling on Israel.

For all the renewed affection, however, Olmert acknowledged that it is doubtful that the current pro-American sentiment would affect Israeli government policy when the time comes again for difficult talks on the Middle East.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to rehabilitate and reconstruct our relations,” he said. “But that does not mean that we are going to change any fundamental principles only to preserve this relationship.”

Politics aside, an outpouring of gratitude and affection for America and its Patriots permeates Israeli popular culture these days. Signs plastered across Tel Aviv buses since last week proclaimed, “Yankee! Welcome Home to Israel. January, 1991.”

The Israeli Discount Bank announced a new slogan, “We’re all Patriots,” and T-shirts and bumper stickers carry similar messages.

An Israeli woman published a long article last week in one of Israel’s top newspapers describing how she used to feel somewhat ashamed that her nephews in America went to West Point, but now she feels proud of them.

A free Hebrew songbook being circulated around the country to help nervous people sing away their time in the rooms sealed against possible gas attack during missile alerts includes a virtual ode to the Patriots, to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’:

Patriot, Patriot, the bomb that’s made for missiles, it gets shot, and it hits, and it never misses . . . .

The parade of American celebrities now passing through Israel to show their solidarity, from comedian Jackie Mason to actor Mike Burstyn, have also been given warm welcomes by Israelis, but it is still the Patriot crews who are the real celebrities.

In the Eshel Lot bar on Tel Aviv’s Arlozorov Street, nine crew members showed up in response to the owner’s offer of free drinks, expecting to get one beer and pay for the rest. Instead, they got mammoth bottles of J&B; Scotch and Finlandia vodka, all the bar food they could eat and a dose of Madonna and “thirtysomething” on cable television.

Officially, they were not supposed to reveal their identities to other guests.

“I could tell you what I do, but then I’d have to kill you,” one crew member joked.

But the Scotch was flowing and the atmosphere of goodwill was even headier.

“In the States, sometimes they tell us not to wear our uniforms downtown,” one crew member said, still marveling at his jubilant reception here.

For all the veneer of secrecy, one American soldier gave the game away by putting a bumper-sticker on his forehead announcing, “I’m a Patriot of Tel Aviv.” Another talked in general terms of how his crewmen had arrived in Israel soon after the first Scud hit and worked as hard as they could to get defenses ready.

“We just had to get the job done,” he said.

Now that the Patriots are operational, he said, he is back to doing a job that brings its own kind of high.

When the missiles go off, he said, “It’s better than sex. . . . Whoosh!”