All of this is way better than being dispersed and hated throughout the nations, kicked out from place to place every century or so, outlawed and looked down upon and treated as fourth-class citizens (and in some cases, perhaps not even citizens), stuck with the most hated of gentile work fields (like the horrible "money-lending").
It took nearly 2000 years for us to start returning to Israel. Things take time. In less than 80 years, we jumped from 600,000 Jews to 6,000,000 Jews. We started as a poor country that had to ration food for the first couple of decades - something out of the Great Depression. We were attacked multiple times and managed to come out on top every time. We've seen impressive successes in many fields: science, warfare, intelligence, economics, health, literature, art, sports, etc. Even as Jews worldwide are still being attacked - the governments of the world are attempting to protect them - at least partially because someone finally has their backs. Israel.
For the first 19 years of the State of Israel, we had no access to our holy places, while every other person - Christian, Muslim, etc - did. And then we turned things around, and we can go to our holy sites: The graves of our forefathers, the Western Wall, West Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, etc. I can certainly call that progress.
So is everything perfect? Not at all. Do we have much to be thankful for? Yes indeed.
As Zechariah said millennia ago:
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women sit in the broad places of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the broad places of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the broad places thereof." (Zech. 8:4-5)