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“Gibbon says that the menorah is at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Israel should go get it.”

1. I can’t see the Romans just tossing something away that contains so much gold. They would have taken it and either melted it down, or kept it as a bargaining chip for some future Jewish state. BTW, even a modern re-creation of the Menorah that is plated 1mm thick (i.e. not solid gold) has 43kg. of gold, worth something like $2.7 million in today’s dollars. https://templeinstitute.org/history-holy-temple-menorah/ No, they didn’t just toss it into the sea - and, besides which, what’s on the Arch of Titus - among other things, Jews being paraded down the street in Rome, carrying a (the?) Menorah. THAT’S where it was taken.

2. The “bottom of the Mediterranean” is a VERY large place. Even if you can somehow specify a box that’s 5 miles x 5 miles (and I doubt that), there have been over 1,950 years of silt being built up over it, so just going to find it will be a nearly impossible task. If it was so easy, it would already have been done.

"a future Jewish state" -- there was no such consideration after around 133 AD and the utter failure of the third Jewish-Roman war.

Before the FIRST Jewish-Roman war, the Romans had a problem that people were converting to Judaism (as we read in the first chapters of Acts) -- note that even the nephew and the daughter-in-law of the Emperor Vespasian were converts to Judaism (or more likely acolytes).

The Jews and Greeks were fighting each other in Caeasarea Maritime (Tel Aviv), the Decapolis (north-western Jordan today) and in Egyptian Alexandria as well as in Anatolia. The Jews were arguing with Nabateans and Samaritans.

Anyway, you can read in Josephus how Agrippa II who was Herod the Great's grandson and ruled over most of Judea and Galilee told the zealots etc. NOT to revolt as it would hurt the entire Jewish diaspora

There were 2 Jewish kingdoms (or 3 Jewish ruled areas) in 67 AD:

The rebel held Jerusalem
Adiabene - the area of Assyria which was in the Iranian Parthian empire who had converted to Judaism
A Jewish ruled area in southern Iraq

During the first Jewish-Roman war, there were uprisings in Gaul etc. who saw "hey, the Judeans are revolting, now is the time to break off the Roman empire" so the Roman empire crushed it

After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Judean kingdom remained under the Herodians - Jews were still allowed to live in Judea, but Jerusalem was a smouldering ruin

then the Jews committed genocide against the pagans in Cyrene and Cyprus during the SECOND Jewish-Roman war (called the Kitos war) = note that this genocidal activity is also noted in the Jewish encyclopedia as well as numerous Roman era works) and finally the Jews rose up again in 132 under ANOTHER "Messiah" - Simon Bar Kochkba (Simon, "son of the star" i.e. "son of God") and failed

after 132 the very term "Jewish" was considered linked to a treasonous sort and they were removed from their homeland

AT the same time the "Jesus-movement Jews" started jettisoning the "Jews" part of it, takin on the exonym "Christian" (or Nasrene in the east)

There was NOT a chance that there would be any "Jewish" kingdom as long as the eternal empire stood - so no question of a bargaining chip

When the Romans became Christian in 378 AD under Emperor Theodosius II, then this was just reinforced

There was a brief "Jewish" state in 614 AD when the Iranians conquered much of the Roman east and were aided by Jews in both Judea and in Egypt and rewarded them with positions of Authority

The Roman (whether headquartered in Rome, Milan or in Constantinople) would not envisage a Jewish (or Athenian or Gaulish) state unless the empire fell