To understand the roots of secular Zionism and the wish to be a nation like all others you have to remember where they came from. They came from the ghetto and the shtetl, from the Pale of Settlement and small villages in Poland and Lithuania. They wanted to be like all other nations because they had never had the opportunity for that before. They had never had the opportunity to belong to a nation before. Many Israelis still carry that sentiment, all these years of war and standing out among your neighbours, its understandable to just want to be normal. As for non-religious Zionists, isn't it possible to just love a country and want to be part of it?