There's two perspectives I can give you: that of Dore Gold (former UN ambassador from Israel), published in his Regnery Press book "The Battle for Jerusalem" and Reza Aslan's, published in his Random House book "How To Win A Cosmic War."

Dore Gold's perspective is that a return to Israel is so inherent in Jewish culture that even if it took another two thousand years, Judaism would eventually return to the Holy Land.

Reza Aslan's perspective is that due to Europe's transition from aligning by region to aligning by nation, the nationless peoples of Europe were going to be wiped out if they stuck around and Palestine was not only one of the best places for Zionists to make a claim, the whole region was decades behind the nationalism of Europe and in shambles from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Zionist movement didn't have a lot of support if I understand the politics correctly. Indeed, early operations by Zionists within Palestine were recognized as terrorism. However, Israel ended up winning a lot, and as most of them were educated Jews from Europe as opposed to West Bank villagers that were illiterate, likely as not, they ended up making it stick.

"Average Americans" are tricky. The entire eschatological movement requires some very specific and very peculiar things to happen in a Jewish Israel in order for baby Jesus to come back. The intelligence arm of the government is wholly dependent on Israel for HUMINT. The entertainment and banking industries really and truly do tend to run more Jewish than, say, professional sports AND we're just now getting to the point where Islamic America is starting to have a shy, quavering voice.

Like I said, it's an ugly problem.