So the Jews are God's "Chosen People"?  Is God some kind of a racist?   Or does He just have an odd sense of humor?  In fact, I think the Book you're reading says "In Christ there is no Greek or Jew." But even if the Jews were God's favorite at one time, who is to say that this Nation of Israel is God's work?  Or that the Jews living there are THE very same Jews God picked?  And so what if God picked them?  Does that give them the right to bully their neighbors, and mooch off the United States?  The Zionist attitude and the attitude of the "Christians" who support it seems to me to be, "We're God's people, so we'll just take whatever we want.  Oh, you were living there?  Too bad.  Tell God."

This is exactly the same bad theology and bad attitude that lead to the horrors and slaughterhouse of Western colonialism.  In fact, would someone kindly tell me the practical difference between Israel and any other European colony? The Israeli government needs to stop using Zionism as an excuse for butchery.  The Israeli citizens need to replace their war-hawk, land grabbing representatives with people who actually care about peace and justice and instead view us all as humans.  Arabs included.  And the evangelical Christians in this country who allow the US government to arm this band of self-righteous killers running Israel need to wake up to the facts that we are all God's Children, and that Zionism is racism.

Who is Israel, and why are they important to Americans in general?

Many Americans think that Israel is the nation that God has chosen. And they are right. But how else would we describe Israel? Saint Paul says it this way in Philippians 3, verses 2 and 3:
"2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
"3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—"

How many of the people of today's Israel understand and believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ? Not many, I would guess.

Very many people in America believe it. Even quite a few in the United States believe it. So, as Saint Paul says, it is we of America who are the true Israel.

The unbelievers in the formal nation of Israel are encroachers on land that was formerly ours by promise of God, as the people of Israel. We, the believers, are the Israel of God... not those unbelievers in that land at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.