Americans‘ tendency to sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians in their regional conflict also peaked in 1991 during the Gulf War, then fell in 1993 as President Bill Clinton led intense Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and more Americans favored both sides or neither side. Americans remained largely neutral through 2001, spanning several more peace initiatives, when the 9/11 attacks — as well as years of failed peace talks that yielded to heightened Palestinian-Israeli violence — may have fundamentally changed their outlook toward the Middle East.