Competing religions are only a part of this story. For me – a hardcore atheist Jew – only a small and irrelevant part. I don’t believe “God bequeathed the land of Israel to the Jews.” On the contrary, after centuries of expulsion, dispossession, and slaughter, a remnant found itself (1948) with political sovereignty in a small piece of “Palestine.” The day after the British (who had controlled the area after winning it from the Ottoman Turks in WWI) left, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan invaded. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Morocco also sent fighters. They all intended to drive the Jews into the sea. To the world’s astonishment, they failed. Several similar effort followed over the years. Iran is currently prosecuting another – the Gaza attack being part of a much wider effort that includes working actively to acquire nuclear weapons and disrupting trade, diplomatic, and security ties that are being formed with several of the Sunni Arab states (who now view Iran as their most serious enemy).

Israel exists as a Jewish state, not because of an imaginary supernatural bequest by God, but because Jews realized that having their own state was necessary to protect and defend Jewish lives whether religious or not.