The bizarre result of being an Israelite was that the only remnant of their history was some of their written works. Because these written works survived and because in them they claimed to be God's ONLY people, other people chose to believe this and to believe that their Messiah came and why, simply because it was written on old scrolls.
The Israelite nation were self recording of their abuses against peoples in their surrounding areas and the abuses against themselves. As with superstitious peoples of the SE Asia area after the Tsunami, they blamed their problems on God 'punishing them' for being bad. They accredited any 'blessings' they might have had to God blessing them.
But basically, while other peoples lived in cities with walls, and sewerage etc, they lived as superstitous backwards nomads who CLAIMED over and over again that everything they did that was BAD was ordered by God and everything that they did that was good was ordered by God! What supreme arrogance!
And so, while the Babylonians had sewers, the Israelites had to did a hole and poop outside their camps. Far from being hygienic, this led to the spreading of dangerous anaerobic bacteria! Not a very clever God!
There beliefs of being 'special' has led to their persecution throughout history, because basically not everyone likes arrogance and sadly these people suffered greatly.
It still amazes me that even today, Israel is starving and destroying the Palestinians, but no one is able to stop them, perhaps because of an ancient superstition that these are God's only people on Earth. What if they are? What if they're not? Who wants to risk their afterlife?
And yet, they continue to suffer and cause suffering themselves.
Any benefit to being and Israelite in the past, the present or even the future? I can't think of any!