What does it mean to Love?

I was a bit taken aback by Jay Michaelson's recent essay in the Forward about losing his love for Israel:
http://www.forward.com/articles/114180/

Not, that I was surprised, just a bit saddened. Spoken like a true arm-chair pundit, Jay's conditional love for Israel is waning.
Here was my tapered response:

Dear Jay,

I am sorry to hear this heart-felt confession, and thank you for writing as my guess is that it is somewhat representative of others in your situation. And taking Robbie Gringras' advice, I'll try not "to communally crap on people who admit their heartfelt concerns about Israel." However, I would like to express my sadness to you. It seems from your essay that you actually do love Israel, but just don't like it very much right now. Yeah, you did a stint here which gives you some street cred, but at the moment it's kind of cramping your style so, in a mild eulogy you attempt to rid yourself of connection and responsibility. Sure, runaway. Go as far as Berlin (which you know evokes emotional eyebrow raising)and sit on its hip and fashionable strasses sipping espresso and being foreign. Would that we all just got up and left for the tolerant and liberal urban havens of Western Europe and NYC.

Do you think we like having to check our bags at every building? I just returned from traveling abroad and was brought back quickly to this reality. Of course we don't. Do you think that we, as soldiers, enjoy or take pleasure in standing at checkpoints, and having to deliberate the human rights vs. civil rights calculation??? Of course not, but we do so in order for people like you to come and drink limonana and picnic in hurshat hayareah, and yes, even visit the kotel - however annoying and cheesy that may be.

Some of us just don't have that luxury. Are you arguing for a full dismantling of the State of Israel? I doubt it. Israel for you is like a friend who you sometimes visit, and now you and that friend are kind of growing apart right now. You're in to different things, have come under different influences. But for others of us, we have committed ourselves to living here. Israel is family. And we don't always agree, see eye-to-eye or even like family, but we don't just write them off because they kind of rub us the wrong way or it gets tiresome defending us to the intolerant masses. Interestingly enough, I doubt you would never say such words about the USA. You survived 8 years of the Bush administration without so much as a divorce, and all your feelings of America (whether you are critical or supportive) come from a sense of belonging and even sub-conscious loyalty. It's so convenient to criticize "someone else's children" yet it is even more difficult to make change from within.

By the way, I live a stones throw away from your beloved Hurshat HaYareah. As a matter of fact, I went jogging through it this morning. Even though you might not come by for a visit it, or are exhausted by the idea of defending my right to live here, I just want to let you know that it's still here and will be waiting for you to renew your love/ignore relationship with it.

B'vracha,
Josh Weinberg
Jerusalem, Israel

I think that there are a few important questions to ask:
1. How typical are Jay's sentiments of American Jews?
My guess is yes and no. Yes, because why should people love something they have no connection to? And no, because in order to lose your love one has to have at one point loved. I don't think this is the case for too many US Jews. Some, but not really that many.
2. Should we care?
3. If so, what, if anything, should we do about it?

I welcome your comments.