There is something to be said with SamurAchzur post WW2 point of, "I'm with you on this. If I was a Jew in Germany back in 1945 and had to immigrate somewhere, I doubt I'd pick the ME over US.
Having the occasional chat with elderly Jews, I understood that post Holocaust, where they were betrayed by their own nations, they trusted no country to protect them. This is what led many of them - middle-upper class, educated, white collar workers or traders - to come and settle in the middle of fucking nowhere, with hundreds of thousands of hostiles around, instead of just immigrating to US or Britain like others did.
Very little of them were really religious in any way, and I doubt many supported the Zionist movement before the WWII. "
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But some of the flaws in the logic are that few of those post WW2 homeless Jewish refugees could pick and choose where to immigrate to. Both the US and England set up
quota systems, and could cherry pick and choose only the best and brightest few to take in before the quota was exceeded. With the rest of the world by in large behaving the same.
An other myth to point out is that the land of Israel formerly called the British Palestinian mandate was hardly the middle of no where, and had been the spiritual homeland for Jews throughout their long post second diaspora history. And about a century before Hitler, a mainly Russian Jews back to Israel movement had already started and was already creating tensions and violence between native Palestinians and Arabs, and Russian Jewish immigrants. But to characterize that already well established back to Israel movement as having a history of only violence and newly inflamed ethnic hatreds would also be wrong. Because many parts of the former British mandate had experienced a cultural rebirth benefiting all as Jews, Arabs, and Palestinians found tolerance and co-operation worked better.
Another point to make is the Judaism is a remarkably resilient religion that has maintained its cultural identity for basically thousands of years. Almost without exception, the religion of a conquered people can't be maintained for even a few centuries before being totally forgotten by its original adherents. I do not make that statement lightly or claim its a totally good or a totally bad thing, I just point out it has its up sides and problematical down sides. But post WW2, it made Israel the logical place
to put all those homeless Jewish refugees. And IMHO, I still support the UN decision to create the State of Israel.
The problems came thereafter, bad behavior initially on the Arab side, caused bad Behavior on the Israeli side, and now we have an apartheid Jewish State as a small Island surrounded by people who hate Israel. And we can also say that the UN solved the Jewish refugee problem only to create another Palestinian refugee problem of equal size.
It did not have to end up like this, the UN creation of Israel could have turned out to be a win win win for everyone if Israel, the Arabs, and Palestinians had learned to co-operate. But now that lofty co-operation goal is further off than ever, and much of the blame must transfer to Israel for being unwilling to share anything and to take as much as possible. And long after the surrounding Arab States are wiling to recognize Israel's right to exist, Israel keeps building its military hegemony, keeps taking more land it does not own, and keeps building up the hatreds of it neighbors. As the initial virtue of having a strong and unassailable military has now turned into an Israeli net liability to both Israel and any hope for a just peace in the mid-east.
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