JFem (and others)
Regarding your claim that “I don’t think there are any social circles that literally conceive of “Ahavas Eretz Yisroel” as a mitzvah in and of itself”, that might or might not be true but, either way, they certainly come awfully close.
With a mantra like “Ahavat Yisrael, Torat Yisrael and E”Y”, which should be very familiar to those circles and with the mission statements of their schools clearly stating things like this, it is clearly a very high priority in their theology, if not an outright “mitzva”.
The alleged poster currently in Seminary earlier mentioned that she is working on her “Ahavat E”Y””. Others use the same term, too.
Given that no such term seems to exist in Chazal, unlike, say, “Ahavas Hashem” or “Ahavas Yisrael” (as in Jews, not the land), from where did this catch-phrase and hashkafa come, which seems to have no parallel for any mitzva, as I mentioned with Shabbos and Tefillin as examples?
Nobody wants to admit the obvious answer, I guess.