Once again, this clashes with the constant "liberty, liberty, liberty" cry of palaeoright libertarians, as you yourself recognize. As to being a specific nation of a specific people, I have no objection. The only things are that this kind of got knocked in the head in the 17th Century when the first Africans were brought here, and that we ourselves are recent arrivals. This does not make our place here illigitimate, as everyone comes from somewhere else (even the Irish had to come to Ireland and the Japanese displaced the Ainu), but even Francis Parker Yockey in his national socialist "classic" Imperium noted that North America is not the natural home of Europeans, and that by coming here they cut themselves off from their roots.
As to why some paleos are critical of Zionism, one obvious place to start is that they feel that the conservative establishment has distorted the situation to lead the following around by the nose. Another is that they don't feel that that area is any business of ours.
As you well know, this is not the true reason, otherwise the palaeos would be opposed to intervention anywhere or alliances with anyone. Only Israel is deemed by them as contrary to American interests and "none of our business." (Where is your Biblical sentimentalism, btw? Did you trade it for a sentimentalism for medieval Europe or early federal America?)
And this brings us again to an interesting contradiction. Often the very palaeos who oppose universalism and egalitarianism, and who scream their lungs out for particularity and hierarchy, are the very ones who scream about "Jewish supremacy" and "apartheid" in Israel. Now I wonder where all that partucularity and hiearchialism goes to when Jews come into the picture? Whence comes this dedication to Jacobinism when Jewish nationalism is the object in view? I don't get it. Unless . . . there are some paleaos who are actually so screwed up in their thinking that they believe Jewish supremacy and egalitarianism among everyone else is actually linked. Garm! That would make the destruction of Jewish supremacy and nationalism (such as by supporting egalitarian Arab and Jewish leftists in Israel) a paramount measure to restore hiearchy and particularity to the rest of the world.
Anyone out there honest enough to admit he believes that?
Hmmm. One G-d creates all people from one original man and woman. This G-d then sovereignly chooses one particular people from this family.
That would never happen . . . would it??? [/Sarcasm]
"Paleoconservatism" can be given any of at least three meanings. The first refers to that European conservatism along the "throne and altar" lines outlined by de Maistre. Since Frederick Wilhelmsen and the elder Brent Bozell died, I don't know of anyone who supports this view. Conservative Catholics are in the main not at all of this stripe. They respect the American culture and polity which raised them, though they take issue with some of the Supreme Court's usurpations in recent years. This is hardly a "protective coloration" for some other ideology, as has been said here by some. The second meaning is the one I mentioned and that has to do with going back to the founders. One may differ on just how one interprets the founders. The third meaning is more specialized and has to do with getting back to a "libertarian" and non-interventionist right that was presumed to have existed before William F. Buckley put the conservative movement on more Anti-communist and ultimately statist lines. If you want to talk intelligently about "paleoconservatism" you should not willfully mix up the three strains.
There are real differences between, say Samuel Francis, Lew Rockwell and the late M.E. Bradford. None of them would count as an admirer of Ayn Rand -- though Rockwell might flirt with Randians. None of them would advocate Franco as a serious model for American conservatives -- though given a choice in 1930s Spain between Franco and Stalinism some may have chosen the former, just as the New York Times would have chosen the latter.
To my way of thinking, Rockwellism is a pretty unstable mix of contradictory elements, but the disagreements between various paleo groups are simply a continuation of the disagreements which the previous generation of conservatives had amongst themselves. If you are really interested in answering this question you might look at the histories of the conservative movement, rather than presume that you have discovered something new and damning.
Most of the paleos are as critical of interventions elsewhere as they are in the Middle East. Look, for example, at some of the responses to the Serbian adventure. But they do recognize that we are disengaging from some areas of the world, such as Central America or the Far East, and becoming ever more involved in the Middle East. Also, I suspect that too much talk of "Amalek" and "Esau" turns people off. If you want to create your radically particularist Jewish state, fine, but don't expect Americans to follow you as you become ever more extreme. That is inherent in such radical particularism. Pursue it far enough and those who don't belong to the group can't follow you. Saying that America is a particular state or nation for a particular people doesn't necessarily imply racial or religious homogeneity. It means that one shouldn't overload assimilative processes or force things to the breaking point.
Now perhaps you can explain the bizarre combination under the Zionist banner of people like the Randian Peikoff, the liberal Martin Peretz, and the extremist Kahane. So many groups from socialists, anarchists and communists to fascists and religious totalitarians have gathered under that flag as well. You have some explaining of your own to do. You see, that's a game that any number can play.