The History of Jewish Settlement in Israel

It has been more than 3,800 years since God promised Abraham that his children would inherit the Land of Israel, then called Canaan. Ever since that fateful declaration the Land of Israel has not departed the hearts, minds and consciousnesses of Jews worldwide. We have settled, been expelled and resettled the Land multiple times. What is at the core of the Jewish obsession with the ostensibly insignificant sliver of land and what is the fundamental underpinning of why we have historically had trouble maintaining stability, peace and sovereignty over our ancestral homeland?