You are imagining propaganda but are spreading much of it yourself in my opinion. Israel exists because Jews were prosecuted. If there were reparations, it would be quite the sum going to Israel or Jews living in other countries.
Israel exists because the West wanted a seat of military power in the Middle East. Just like America exists because various European powers wanted to exploit the Americas, until American leadership wanted to stop cutting them a slice. Just like Peurto Rico is directly under America's authority yet remains entirely unrepresented in it's government. Colonies all, of various justifications.
We exist in a world built by colonialism, by exploitation, who's foundations are lousy with the bones of cultures we dominated, some to extinction.
The idea that Jews needed a nation of their own after the Holocaust was debated at the time and remains so to this day, especially since the nation that was created is now engaged in it's own genocide. However there was no reason at all Israel HAD to be in the Middle East, apart from the fact that none of the colonial powers that worked to create it felt the urge to carve away their own land from themselves, and felt quite comfortable taking it from a bunch of nations who had zero say in the process.
I don't know if a Jewish state was needed or not, I'm not educated enough on the subject to have an opinion, but I know it was far from a consensus, and irrespective of how you want to slice that particular issue, the fact remains the powers that be at the time who were responsible for Israel's creation did not do it on land that was there's to give, but instead on other's. And said other's have had pretty understandable tension with Israel ever since.
Your tensions with Israel might indeed be understandable, meaning the prevalence of such animosity isn't really something new. In that regard I indeed believe that Israel needs to exist.
I also disagree that this was a plot by the west. Of course some pretty smart political moves enabled the foundation of Israel. But that was a special interest group. There were strategic considerations by nations involved, but there is much more to it.
If you want to get rid of your bad conscience of your colonial part, pointing your fingers at Israel surely is the wrong thing to do.
I'd say the connection of Israeli Jews to the land is stronger than the connection of most citizens of most countries to their land. To descibe that as "tenuous" is at best unfair.
[EDIT: erased a bit of not so nice retort]
Israel's right wing isn't very different than right wing parties in other parts of the western world. I'm not a fan of Israel's extreme right but conflating the violence between Israelis and Palestinians with either the rise of fascism or South Africa is just again yield to propaganda. The various governments of the Palestinians, the PA or the Hamas, make the Israeli right wing look centric. Put aside the various labels that are intended to dehumanize the Israelis, after Israel tried in earnest to make peace roughly around the proposed two state solution and was met by a wave of Hamas suicide bombers that impacted at some level every single Israeli, what do you think is an actual solution here?
That said, my education strongly tells me that there is indeed something reflecting fascism coming alive and I don't look at Israel here.
The self reflection about innocents being harmed is something that you can see exclusively in Israel with very few exceptions. That is not an indignation of Palestinian children that have constantly exposed to severe propaganda, but at least have the decency to not blame Israel for that.
The parent comment also was wrong with his analysis of Israel being a result of western powers wanting some form of outpost. This is just bad history.
I don't think people outside Israel think that Israelis are engaged in self reflection. That aspect isn't something that's reported on. There are some Israelis that don't care about innocents in Gaza, and it's easy to just pick up that story if it furthers the reality that you believe in. Reality isn't one, or two, or one hundred stories. It is a continuum.
Israel being a "western colonial enterprise" is not an analysis. It is a talking point. I've seen it hundreds if not thousands of times in online discourse on this topic. It's something that has been pushed for some time (a decade or two?) in various circles. The history of Israel can be studied superficially in one semester in University. To really understand the period and all the nuances, and the related historical processes, get a PhD. There are good lectures on YouTube by historians and good resources on the Internet that give you a taste but you need to put in time.
It's also about the semantics, what exactly do these terms mean, a common theme in the information war arena is to use words in unusual ways or to redefine them in a way more convenient to your cause.
I think this is mixing up time periods. This doesn't make sense in the context of the 1940's/early 1950s.
Later on, sure. USA wanted a military base to counter soviets becoming buddy buddy with several of the Arab countries... typical cold war stuff. But i don't think that is historically accurate in the immediate post-war period. If for no other reason than at that point in time Israel would make a shitty military base.