Hugh Nibley makes an interesting statement regarding the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. He says the following:
Remember, until very recently all the Christian churches absolutely insisted that the Jews would never return to Jerusalem because the veil of the temple was rent, and the Lord said the temple was destroyed and the Jews would never go back to Jerusalem. It was like that all the time up until 1948 when Harry Truman sent an ambassador. He visited the pope on the way, and the pope said, "Absolutely nothing doing; the Jews must never go back to Jerusalem. It would frustrate all prophecy." They thought the Jews would never go back. I have an article on that in the Encyclopedia Judaica. I had to look up a lot of this stuff, and, believe me, the Christian world was against it. The only people that ever believed the Jews would go back to Jerusalem, of course, were the Mormons. We always preached that they would go back to Jerusalem, just as we would have Zion over here. (see Joseph Smith--Matthew 1:20).
[Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 1, p. 133]