My dad read a quite interesting book about this which argued that the peculiar Jewish culture (or rather the culture that most in the West now associate with Jews) arose from being in the diaspora (being rootless cosmopolitans).
The book basically points out that the warrior tribe of the Old Testament is very different from stereotypical elderly doctors and pianists that symbolize modern Western Jewry. It then argues that the creation of Israel is getting it back to the old warrior ways. I think the theory has to do with having a land makes you less nice and more aggressive or something. 
Given the context of the Holocaust that isn't necessarily an argument against Israel though, naturally.
Beside the logic in people changing over time, we're not the raiders and marauders our ancestors were (even if ag think some of us are cannibals and barbarians).
But there's also another element, having a state come with a prize, it means that you need to use force/violence to enforce the will of the state and protect it from inner and outer foes and taking the responsibility for the violence you use to enforce this. While being "cosmopolitan" or rather a landless minority like non-Israeli Jews, Anabaptists, Christian Arabs etc often result in persecution, but it also give a degree protection from the states inquestion and especially in a modern society a freedom from responsibility (this is meant positive). The moment a Jewish state was established, that freedom was taken from the Israeli, they were a people like all others, who had to be responsible for protecting their state and do the things which was necessary for this. That doesn't mean that all the Israeli actions are necessary, but upkeeping a army and make war was clearly necessary from the start.
