In the many debates over the language surrounding the war in Gaza, few words are as controversial as “Zionism.”
Its original and most basic definition is Jewish nationalism.
For many, that equates to the right of the Jewish people to have their own state and self-determination in an ancestral homeland after centuries of oppression and ostracism in much of the world. They see anti-Zionism as a fig leaf for intolerance and anti-Semitism.
For others, Zionism is a form of modern colonialism or racist manifest destiny: the attempt to justify the confiscation of disputed lands in the name of God.
Here's a look at the history of the word and how competing definitions are inflaming the debate over the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Where does the term come from?
The term “Zionism” was first used in the late 19th century. It was built on “Zion,” a biblical term for Israel and Jerusalem, and the name of a site in Jerusalem where the most historically revered temple in Judaism was built millennia ago.
Its use was advocated by an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, in the early 19th century. He made it the label for a movement to send European Jews to an area eventually known as British Mandatory Palestine so they could begin to form a Jewish homeland.
Outraged by what he considered the dangerous and harmful treatment of his fellow Jews in Vienna in the late 19th century, Herzl, a trained lawyer and prolific writer, founded the Zionist Organization, which explored the mission of creating a Jewish state. The organization eventually had branches in several European cities and attempted to pressure the mostly royal rulers of the time to make the dream of statehood a reality.
“Perhaps our ambitious young people, to whom every path of advancement is now closed and to whom the Jewish State opens a bright prospect of freedom, happiness and honor, will perhaps see to it that this idea spreads,” Herzl wrote in a pamphlet called “Der Judenstaat” (the Jewish State) that outlined his vision and led to his Zionist movement. It was published in 1896.
Considered the father of political Zionism, Herzl did not live to see a Jewish state. He died of heart disease in 1904.
Did Zionism always envision statehood for Jews in what is now Israel?
At the heart of most early Zionists like Herzl, the ideal was to create their Jewish state on the land between what is now Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. However, there were other ideas.
In 1903, British colonial rulers in Africa launched the so-called Uganda plan, which would offer a section of the East African Protectorate as a homeland for Jews. (The land would eventually become part of present-day Kenya.) Some of Herzl's followers were willing to consider this, but a visit to inspect the land found it to be inhospitable.
The Soviet Union proposed a Soviet Jewish Republic in Crimea, Ukraine; The Italian fascists proposed a settlement in Italian East Africa. At one point, the Nazis proposed sending Jews to Madagascar. All of these plans were based more on ridding the continent of Jews than on giving them a homeland.
In 1947, after World War II, the United Nations General Assembly officially divided British Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state; the latter was never established. The Arab powers in the region rejected the decision and soon after were at war with the new State of Israel.
How did the concept of anti-Zionism evolve in Soviet Russia?
In the years following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, many Russian Jews supported and participated in the country that became known as the Soviet Union. Initially, the Soviet Union was favorable to Zionism and the creation of an Israeli State.
But the tensions of anti-Jewish hatred that had long raged in imperial Russia and led to waves of pogroms in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as discriminatory residency and employment laws from Moscow to St. Petersburg, continued to permeate sectors of Soviet society. .
As the years passed, and after World War II it became clear that the emerging Israel was going to join the United States and the West, anti-Zionism became a more formal policy in the Soviet Union.
(The United States, under President Truman, was the first great power to recognize Israel, in 1948; Russia followed suit, but Stalin reversed the decision after a year.)
Russia was home to tens of thousands of Jews and for decades Soviet authorities refused to allow them to immigrate to Israel.
What were the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'?
One of the most notorious writings aimed at spreading hatred and fear of Jews, “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” was published in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
It was a false document that purported to show that Jews were a cabal sneakily trying to control the world through financial institutions, media, and other centers of power. Although the text has been solidly and repeatedly debunked, copies still exist, and some of its depictions of Jews remain common anti-Semitic tropes today.
What did Zionism come to mean to the Jewish people, then and now?
For many Jews, Zionism essentially means patriotism: a political ideology rooted in establishing (and later promoting) a refuge for Jews who throughout history had to escape pogroms and then a Holocaust designed to eliminate them.
The Anti-Defamation League defines the concept this way: “Zionism is the movement for self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. “The vast majority of Jews around the world feel a connection or kinship with Israel, whether or not they explicitly identify as Zionists, and regardless of their opinions on the policies of the Israeli government.”
However, today there is no consensus among Jews on the precise definition of Zionism.
For many, it underpins Israel's right to exist. For the most extreme, such as the settlers occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem, lands claimed by the Palestinians, it is used to justify Jewish control of all land, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
How do others view Zionism?
Over time, the definition and use of the word evolved and took on negative tones among critics of Israel. The UN formally declared Zionism a form of racism in a 1975 resolution, which it repealed 16 years later.
For Palestinians displaced by an emerging Israel, Zionism came to symbolize racism and exclusion from what they considered their homeland.
Is being anti-Zionist anti-Semitic?
There is abundant disagreement on this issue.
Many critics of Israel or Israeli government policy say that opposing the country's expansion of control over lands claimed by Palestinians is not an anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic position but one of justice.
However, many Jews would say that denying their right to an unrestricted homeland is effectively anti-Semitic. They say it is clear that the term “anti-Zionist” is being adopted by some anti-Israel protesters on American college campuses as a politically correct cover for anti-Semitic intentions.
How has the term been used in university protests?
At hundreds of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in recent weeks, the terms “Zionism” or “Zionist” have been disparagingly hurled at Jewish students and pro-Israel protesters.
This month at UCLA, protesters stopped Jewish students at checkpoints and menacingly asked them, “Are you a Zionist?” Some said protesters of any faith were welcome, but not “Zionists”; one told the Times that the word refers to those who adhere to “a very violent, genocidal political ideology that is actively endangering the people of Gaza.”
A group of Jewish students at Columbia University, where protests were intense and led to police being called to the Manhattan campus to break up pro-Palestinian camps, wrote an open letter this month expressing dismay at the way was spreading the term.
“We proudly believe in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental principle of our Jewish identity,” said the letter, signed by several hundred students. “Contrary to what many have tried to sell you, no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, in a nutshell, the manifestation of that belief.
“We are proud to be Jews and we are proud to be Zionists,” the students wrote.
In many cases, it appears that competing definitions have made the use of such a poorly understood word problematic.
Ned Lazarus, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, said both sides are now using “Zionism” as a litmus test with a series of sometimes contradictory criteria and components, which explodes into a war of narratives and becomes in weapon.
“It should be a question to start a conversation,” Lazarus said, “not to close it.”
