I'll draw your attention to some guarded optimism from Michael Walzer. In the second of the two videos here - in which he explains his own relationship to Israel and his hopes for liberal Zionism - Michael (from about 3 minutes in) contends with the argument that all the world is against Israel, and 'it doesn't matter what we do'.
He says (approximately): Israel is a state like other states; it has friends, it has strategic allies who aren't friends, it has countries that don't give a damn about it, it has enemies who don't matter, and enemies who are serious indeed. That's a sign of Zionist success, what we always wanted. It calls for a politics of statecraft, whereas 'everyone's against us' harks back to the politics of exile.
For those of us too much submerged from day to day within left-leaning media and academic opinion (in which Israel may be seen as a state but it's hardly a 'normal' state) that does help to widen the perspective.
