Overlooked, conveniently, I might add, is the fact that Israel is largely a secular State today. Naomi asks "...If the Jews did not claim to be God's chosen but were simply the descendants of people who once inhabited the area formerly known as Palestine, would you still unswervingly support their right to be there?" Problem is the basis for the question is self-directed… that is, nothing in any of the documents (including the Balfour Declaration) that formed the basis of Israel's formation in 1948 referenced any Biblical basis.
So… simply stated, no, I (nor anyone else) support the Jews return to "Palestine" if that were the only basis for support… however, it's easily demonstrated to all but the highly biased that the '[i]Raison d'être[i]' re: Israel's existence has little to do with religion, but everything to do with nearly universal persecution.
Jomfil's twisted logic only reveals his ignorance of Old Testament Scripture concerning the history of the Hebrew people prior to their return from Egypt, after one of the many exiles they experienced.
Apologies for referencing Balfour as an 'Englishman'… fact is he headed a "British" delegation to the League of Nations as Foreign Secretary having previously been Prime Minister. Equally coincidental though, is the fact he previously knew Chaim Weizmann, who literally saved the U.K.'s bacon in the First World War… "During World War I, Great Britain needed help. Since Germany (Britain's enemy during WWI) had cornered the production of acetone -- an important ingredient for arms production -- Great Britain may have lost the war if Chaim Weizmann had not invented a fermentation process that allowed the British to manufacture their own liquid acetone.
It was this fermentation process that brought Weizmann to the attention of David Lloyd George (minister of ammunitions) and Arthur James Balfour (previously the British prime minister but at this time the first lord of the admiralty). Chaim Weizmann was not just a scientist; he was also the leader of the Zionist movement…".
Tragically, as history concedes, Britain changed their mind on their previous position of support for the return of the Jews…"In 1939, Great Britain reneged on the Balfour Declaration by issuing the White Paper, which stated that creating a Jewish state was no longer a British policy. It was also Great Britain's change in policy toward Palestine, especially the White Paper, that prevented millions of European Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine." (Source: 20th Century History; Jennifer Rosenberg).
Other such documentary evidence concerning the actual history of the subject is available, but few choose to pursue facts alien to their own biased positions… in my humble opinion.