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{{Short description|Movement supporting a Jewish state in Palestine}}
{{other uses}}
{{distinguish|Ziaism}}
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{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{use American English|date=January 2014}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}}
[[File:Theodor Herzl.jpg|thumb|right|[[Theodor Herzl]] was the founder of the modern Zionist movement. In his 1896 pamphlet {{Lang|de|[[Der Judenstaat]]}}, he envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century.]]

'''Zionism'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|z|aɪ|.|ə|n|ɪ|z|əm}} {{respell|ZY|ə|niz|əm}}; {{lang-he|צִיּוֹנוּת|Ṣīyyonūt}}, {{IPA|he|tsijoˈnut|IPA}}}} is an ethnic or ethno-cultural [[Nationalism|nationalist]]<ref name="Conforti-2024">{{cite journal |last=Conforti |first=Yitzhak |date=March 2024 |title=Zionism and the Hebrew Bible: from religious holiness to national sanctity |journal=[[Middle Eastern Studies (journal)|Middle Eastern Studies]] |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=483–497 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2023.2204516 |doi-access=free |issn=1743-7881 |lccn=65009869 |oclc=875122033 |s2cid=258374291}}</ref>{{refn|group=fn|Zionism has been described either as a form of [[ethnic nationalism]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Medding |first=P. Y. |year=1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=22iwFNfIWMwC&pg=PA11 |title=Studies in Contemporary Jewry: XI: Values, Interests, and Identity: Jews and Politics in a Changing World |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]/Institute of Contemporary Jewry, [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]] |isbn=978-0-19-510331-1 |access-date=March 11, 2019 |page=11}}</ref> or as a form of [[Ethnic nationalism|ethno]]-[[cultural nationalism]] with [[civic nationalist]] components.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gans |first=Chaim |year=2008 |url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001/acprof-9780195340686 |title=A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-986717-2 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001 |access-date=March 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227181827/https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001/acprof-9780195340686 |archive-date=December 27, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>}} [[Social movement|movement]] that emerged in [[History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914)|Europe]] in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a [[Jewish state]] through the [[colonization]] of a land outside of Europe,<ref>"Should the powers show themselves willing to grant us sovereignty over a neutral land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land. Here two regions come to mind: Palestine and Argentina. Significant experiments in colonization have been made in both countries, though on the mistaken principle of gradual infiltration of Jews. Infiltration is bound to end badly." [[Theodor Herzl]] quoted in [http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.2979/jewisocistud.18.1.1  “Zionism without Zion”? Territorialist Ideology and the Zionist Movement, 1882–1956,']  [[Jewish Social Studies]] , Fall 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1 pp. 1-32, p.5, p.20</ref><ref>'Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.. .Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population’. [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]] ([[Iron Wall (essay)|The Iron Wall]]  1923) cited Alan Balfour,  [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Walls_of_Jerusalem/D7p9DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 ''The Walls of Jerusalem:Preserving the Past, Controlling the Future,''] [[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] 2019 {{isbn|978-1-119-18229-0}} p.59.</ref><ref>'Dr. [[Arthur Ruppin]] was sent to Palestine for the first time in 1907 by the heads of the German [World] Zionist Organization in order to make a pilot study of the possibilities for colonization.  . . [[Franz Oppenheimer| Oppenheimer]] was a German sociologist and political economist. As a worldwide expert on colonization he became Herzl’s advisor and formulated the first program for Zionist colonization, which he presented at the 6th Zionist Congress (Basel 1903) ….. [[Daniel Boyarin]] wrote that the group of Zionists who
imagined themselves colonialists inclined to that persona “because sucha representation was pivotal to the entire project of becoming ‘white men’.” Colonization was seen as a sign of belonging to western and modern culture;' Etan Bloom, ''Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Pre-Israeli Culture,''  [[Brill Publishers|Brill]] 2011 {{isbn|978-90-04-20379-2}} pp.2,13,n.49,132.</ref><ref>"Never before has the white man undertaken colonization with that sense of justice and social progress which fills the Jew who comes to Palestine.” [[Berl Katznelson]] cited in Shira Robinson, [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Citizen_Strangers/XcM6AAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 ''Citizen Strangers:Palestinians and the Birth of Israel's Liberal Settler State,''] [[Stanford University Press]] {{isbn|978-0-804-78802-1}} 2013 p.18</ref> with an eventual focus on the establishment of a [[Homeland for the Jewish people|Jewish homeland]] in [[Mandatory Palestine|Mandatory]] [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zionism |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133512904 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240601025838/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133512904 |archive-date=2024-06-01 |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism|title=Zionism {{!}} nationalistic movement|access-date=June 30, 2016|archive-date=December 25, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225204632/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Abramson |first=Glenda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_FhfTvzjygC&pg=PA120 |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-42865-6 |page=120 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Motyl|2001|pp=604.}} a region corresponding to the [[Land of Israel]] in [[Judaism|Jewish tradition]],<ref>{{Citation |last=Safrai |first=Zeʾev |title=The Land in Rabbinic Literature |date=2018-05-02 |work=Seeking out the Land: Land of Israel Traditions in Ancient Jewish, Christian and Samaritan Literature (200 BCE – 400 CE) |pages=76–203 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004334823/BP000013.xml |access-date=2023-07-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627093521/https://brill.com/display/book/9789004334823/BP000013.xml |archive-date=June 27, 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-33482-3}} "The preoccupation of [[rabbinic literature]] in all its forms with the [[Land of Israel]] is without question intensive and constant. It is no wonder that this literature offers historians of the Land of Israel a wealth of information for the clarification of a wide variety of topics."</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Biger |first=Gideon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wUqRAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA60 |title=The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947 |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-135-76652-8 |pages=58–63 |language=en |quote=Unlike the earlier literature that dealt with Palestine's delimitation, the boundaries were not presented according to their historical traditional meaning, but according to the boundaries of the Jewish Eretz Israel that was about to be established there. This approach characterizes all the Zionist publications at the time ... when they came to indicate borders, they preferred the realistic condition and strategic economic needs over an unrealistic dream based on the historic past.' This meant that planners envisaged a future Palestine that controlled all [[River Jordan|the Jordan]]'s sources, the southern part of the [[Litani River|Litanni river]] in Lebanon, the large cultivatable area east of the Jordan, including the Houran and Gil'ad wheat zone, Mt Hermon, the [[Yarmouk River|Yarmuk]] and [[Yabbok|Yabok]] rivers, the [[Hijaz Railway]] ...}}</ref>{{sfn|Motyl|2001|p=604}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Herzl |first1=Theodor |author-link1=Theodor Herzl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3f4RFWkMeWoC |title=Der Judenstaat |publisher=[[Dover Publications|Courier Dover]] |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-486-25849-2 |edition=republication |location=New York |page=40 |translator=Sylvie d'Avigdor |trans-title=The Jewish state |chapter=Biography, by Alex Bein |access-date=September 28, 2010 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3f4RFWkMeWoC&pg=PA40 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140101195701/http://books.google.com/books?id=3f4RFWkMeWoC |archive-date=January 1, 2014 |url-status=live |orig-year=1896}}</ref> and an area of central importance in [[Jewish history]] and [[Judaism|religion]]. Following the establishment of the [[Israel|State of Israel]] in 1948, Zionism became the ideology supporting the protection and development of Israel as a Jewish state, in particular, a state with a Jewish demographic majority, and has been described as Israel's national or state ideology.<ref name="Yosef Gorni-1987" /><ref >{{cite book|author=Shlomo Ben-Ami|title=Scars of War, Wounds of Peace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-532542-3|pages=|quote=The ethos of Zionism was twofold; it was about demography – ingathering the exiles in a viable Jewish state with as small an Arab minority as possible – and land.|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=June 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240624173908/https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Conforti-2024"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Zionism {{!}} Definition, History, Examples, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |date=13 January 2024 |access-date=July 11, 2023 |archive-date=December 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225204632/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/zionism|title=Zionism|encyclopedia=[[Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary|Oxford Learner's Dictionaries]]|publisher=Oxford|access-date=December 11, 2023|archive-date=November 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221124215018/https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/zionism|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="vox"/>

Zionism initially emerged in [[Central Europe|Central]] and [[Eastern Europe]] as a [[national revival]] movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of [[antisemitism]] and as a consequence of the [[Haskalah]], or Jewish Enlightenment.<ref name="Conforti-2024"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Ben-Ami Shillony|author-link=Ben-Ami Shillony|title=Jews & the Japanese: The Successful Outsiders|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OvzPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA88|year=2012|publisher=Tuttle Publishing|isbn=978-1-4629-0396-2|page=88|quote=(Zionism) arose in response to and in imitation of the current national movements of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe|access-date=November 21, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225204640/https://books.google.com/books?id=OvzPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA88|archive-date=December 25, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=LeVine|first1=Mark|last2=Mossberg|first2=Mathias|title=One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vnVAAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA211|year=2014|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-95840-1|page=211|quote=The parents of Zionism were not Judaism and tradition, but anti-Semitism and nationalism. The ideals of the [[French Revolution]] spread slowly across Europe, finally reaching the [[Pale of Settlement]] in the [[Russian Empire]] and helping to set off the [[Haskalah]], or Jewish Enlightenment. This engendered a permanent split in the Jewish world, between those who held to a halachic or religious-centric vision of their identity and those who adopted in part the racial rhetoric of the time and made the Jewish people into a nation. This was helped along by the wave of [[pogrom]]s in [[Eastern Europe]] that set two million Jews to flight; most wound up in [[United States|America]], but some chose Palestine. A driving force behind this was the [[Hovevei Zion]] movement, which worked from 1882 to develop a Hebrew identity that was distinct from [[Judaism]] as a religion.|access-date=March 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117165546/https://books.google.com/books?id=vnVAAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA211|archive-date=November 17, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gelvin|first=James L.|title=The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GDaZAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA93|year=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-47077-4|page=93|quote=The fact that [[Palestinian nationalism]] developed later than Zionism and indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some "other". Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose. As we have seen, Zionism itself arose in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe. It would be perverse to judge Zionism as somehow less valid than European anti-Semitism or those nationalisms. Furthermore, Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the "conquest of land" and the "conquest of labor" slogans that became central to the dominant strain of Zionism in the [[Yishuv]] originated as a result of the Zionist confrontation with the Palestinian "other".|access-date=March 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117183517/https://books.google.com/books?id=GDaZAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA93|archive-date=November 17, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> During this period, Palestine [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem|was part]] of the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Robin |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgesurveyo00robi |title=The Cambridge Survey of World Migration |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-521-44405-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgesurveyo00robi/page/504 504] |quote=Zionism Colonize palestine. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gelvin |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5FwAT5fx03IC&q=the%20Basel%20program%20colonisation%20of%20Palestine&pg=PA52 |title=The Israel–Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-88835-6 |edition=2nd |page=51 |access-date=February 19, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170220003633/https://books.google.com/books?id=5FwAT5fx03IC&lpg=PA52&dq=the%20Basel%20program%20colonisation%20of%20Palestine&pg=PA52 |archive-date=February 20, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Ilan Pappe, ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', 2006, pp. 10–11</ref> The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]. Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, some Zionist figures, including [[Theodor Herzl]], considered alternative options to Palestine in several places such as "[[Uganda Scheme|Uganda]]" (actually parts of [[British East Africa]] today in [[Kenya]]), [[Argentina]], [[Cyprus]], [[Mesopotamia]], [[Mozambique]], and the [[Sinai Peninsula]],<ref name="Adam Rovner-2014" /> but this was rejected by most of the movement. This process was seen by the emerging Zionist movement as an "[[Gathering of Israel|ingathering of exiles]]" (''kibbutz galuyot''), an effort to put a stop to the exoduses and persecutions that have marked [[Jewish history]] by bringing the Jewish people back to their [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|historic homeland]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gamlen|first=Alan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1iCWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57|title=Human Geopolitics: States, Emigrants, and the Rise of Diaspora Institutions|year=2019|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-883349-9|language=en|access-date=March 2, 2021|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111180739/https://books.google.com/books?id=1iCWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

From 1897 to 1948, the primary goal of the Zionist movement was to establish the basis for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and thereafter to consolidate it. The movement itself recognized that Zionism's claim to Palestine went against the commonly accepted interpretation of the principle of [[self-determination]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Butenschøn|first=Nils A.|date=2006|title=Accommodating Conflicting Claims to National Self-determination. The Intractable Case of Israel/Palestine|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24675372|journal=International Journal on Minority and Group Rights|volume=13|issue=2/3|pages=285–306|doi=10.1163/157181106777909858|jstor=24675372|issn=1385-4879|quote=[<span class="ltr">T</span>]he Zionist claim to Palestine on behalf of world Jewry as an extra-territorial population was unique, and not supported (as admitted at the time) by established interpretations of the principle of national self-determination, expressed in the Covenant of the League of later versions), and as applied to the other territories with the same status as Palestine ('A' mandate).|access-date=March 10, 2023|archive-date=March 10, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310045651/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24675372|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Clarification|reason=Not clear if the reference supports the claim. Not clear in the reference who "admitted" at the time that|date=June 2024}} In 1884, proto-Zionist groups established the [[Lovers of Zion]], and in 1897 the [[World Zionist Congress|first Zionist congress]] was organized. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of Jews immigrated first to [[Ottoman Palestine|Ottoman]] and later to [[Mandatory Palestine]]. At the same time, some international recognition and support was gained, notably in the 1917 [[Balfour Declaration]] by the [[United Kingdom]]. Since the establishment of the [[State of Israel]] in 1948, Zionism has continued primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security.

The term "Zionism" has been applied to various approaches to addressing issues faced by European Jews in the late 19th century.<ref>{{cite book|author=Derek J. Penslar|title=Zionism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PvJnzwEACAAJ&pg=PA|year=2023|publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-7609-1|pages=}}</ref> Modern political Zionism, different from [[Religious Zionism|religious Zionism]], is a movement made up of diverse political groups whose strategies and tactics have changed over time. The common ideology among mainstream Zionist factions is support for territorial concentration and a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine, through [[colonization]].<ref>'Should the powers show themselves willing to grant us sovereignty over a neutral land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land. Here two regions come to mind: Palestine and Argentina. Significant experiments in colonization have been made in both countries, though on the mistaken principle of gradual infiltration of Jews. Infiltration is bound to end badly.'(<span class="ltr">b</span>) 'Only settlement on a grand scale would bring about a solution to the Jewish problem: the Jews must colonize rather than infiltrate and assimilate. This principle was similar to the assertions of Herzl or Zangwill.' [[Theodor Herzl]] cited in Gur Alroey, [ http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.2979/jewisocistud.18.1.1  “Zionism without Zion”? Territorialist Ideology and the Zionist Movement, 1882–1956,']  [[Jewish Social Studies]] , Fall 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1 pp. 1-32, p.5, p.20</ref> The Zionist mainstream has historically included [[Liberal Zionism|liberal]], [[Labor Zionism|labor]], [[Revisionist Zionism|revisionist]], and [[Cultural Zionism|cultural Zionism]], while groups like [[Brit Shalom (political organization)|Brit Shalom]] and [[Ihud]] have been dissident factions within the movement.<ref name="Yosef Gorni-1987">{{cite book|author=Yosef Gorni|title=Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology|date=1987|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crHjZnRmWhgC&pg=PA|publisher=Clarendon Press, 1987|isbn=978-0-19-822721-2|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707011032/https://books.google.com/books?id=crHjZnRmWhgC&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref> Differences within the mainstream Zionist groups lie primarily in their presentation and ethos, having adopted similar strategies to achieve their political goals, in particular in the use of violence and compulsory transfer to deal with the presence of the local Palestinian, non-Jewish population.<ref>{{cite book|author=Shlomo Ben-Ami|title=Scars of War, Wounds of Peace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-532542-3|pages=3|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707010524/https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Anita Shapira-1992">{{cite book|author=Anita Shapira|title=Land and Power|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EdhtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA|year=1992|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-506104-8|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707010524/https://books.google.com/books?id=EdhtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Noam Chomsky|title=Fateful Triangle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aHphMCIkhK0C&pg=PA|year=1999|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=978-0-7453-1530-0|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=June 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240624173917/https://books.google.com/books?id=aHphMCIkhK0C&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Shlomo Ben-Ami|title=Prophets Without Honor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hnhXEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2022|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-006047-3|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=June 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240624173918/https://books.google.com/books?id=hnhXEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Avi Shlaim"/>  Advocates of Zionism have viewed it as a national [[liberation movement]] for the [[repatriation]] of an [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous people]] (which were subject to [[persecution]] and share a [[national identity]] through [[National identity#National consciousness|national consciousness]]), to the [[homeland]] of their [[ancestor]]s as noted in [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|ancient history]].<ref>''Israel Affairs''.  Volume 13, Issue 4, 2007 – Special Issue: ''Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict – De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine''.  S. Ilan Troen</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first1=Ran|last1=Aaronson|year=1996|title=Settlement in Eretz Israel – A Colonialist Enterprise? "Critical" Scholarship and Historical Geography|journal=Israel Studies|volume=1|issue=2|pages=214–229|publisher=Indiana University Press|url=https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:8aPWE9P5iBoJ:130.102.44.246/journals/israel_studies/v001/1.2aaronsohn.pdf+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiwmLNEhH3wwj1Tc0SKIwNXDI7Vn61MevIJkvxNF7UjJdGkVHTlf7yJcPdkujhi-GXEoUsSGjB8Y-cNtoc3AbqZP6uxc2NHFe9R1__kxvACSBMsGtcH4nYZmB5e8gSAdgbH_QT6&sig=AHIEtbSHallbycXdF9sWjGjOU4lvf4a6Og |access-date=July 30, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131221012913/https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache%3A8aPWE9P5iBoJ%3A130.102.44.246%2Fjournals%2Fisrael_studies%2Fv001%2F1.2aaronsohn.pdf+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiwmLNEhH3wwj1Tc0SKIwNXDI7Vn61MevIJkvxNF7UjJdGkVHTlf7yJcPdkujhi-GXEoUsSGjB8Y-cNtoc3AbqZP6uxc2NHFe9R1__kxvACSBMsGtcH4nYZmB5e8gSAdgbH_QT6&sig=AHIEtbSHallbycXdF9sWjGjOU4lvf4a6Og |archive-date=December 21, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>"Zionism and British imperialism II: Imperial financing in Palestine", ''Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture''. Volume 30, Issue 2, 2011. pp. 115–139. Michael J. Cohen</ref> Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a [[colonialist]],<ref name="CHARCOL" /> [[Zionist racism|racist]],<ref name="CHARRAS" /> or [[exceptionalist]] ideology or as a [[settler colonialism|settler colonialist]] movement.<ref>See for example: M. Shahid Alam (2010), ''Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism Paperback'', or [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gouldwartofsky/through-the-looking-glass_b_596704.html? "Through the Looking Glass: The Myth of Israeli Exceptionalism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170921234330/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gouldwartofsky/through-the-looking-glass_b_596704.html |date=September 21, 2017 }}, ''Huffington Post''</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Nur Masalha|title=The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine- Israel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAUeWo8NDK4C&pg=PA314|year=2007|publisher=Zed Books|isbn=978-1-84277-761-9|page=314|access-date=February 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170112015208/https://books.google.com/books?id=LAUeWo8NDK4C&pg=PA314|archive-date=January 12, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Ned Curthoys|author2=Debjani Ganguly|title=Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crIxjc564_AC&pg=PA315|access-date=May 12, 2013|year=2007|publisher=Academic Monographs|isbn=978-0-522-85357-5|page=315|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170112033221/https://books.google.com/books?id=crIxjc564_AC&pg=PA315|archive-date=January 12, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Nādira Shalhūb Kīfūrkiyān|title=Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East: A Palestinian Case-Study |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ka2AmZw3YIC&pg=PA9 |access-date=May 12, 2013|year=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-88222-4|page=9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502223201/http://books.google.com/books?id=_ka2AmZw3YIC&pg=PA9 |archive-date=May 2, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Paul Scham|author2=Walid Salem|author3=Benjamin Pogrund |title=Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c-cviX0c63YC&pg=PA87|access-date=May 12, 2013 |date=2005|publisher=Left Coast Press|isbn=978-1-59874-013-4|pages=87–|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107235523/http://books.google.com/books?id=c-cviX0c63YC&pg=PA87|archive-date=January 7, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist.<ref>{{cite book |author=Morris |first=Benny |author-link=Benny Morris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CC7381HrLqcC&pg=PA |title=1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War |date=October 2008 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-14524-3 |pages=3 |quote=But once there, the settlers could not avoid noticing the majority native population. It was from them, as two of the first settlers put it, that 'we shall... take away the country... through stratagems, without drawing upon us their hostility before we become the strong and populous ones.' |access-date=January 27, 2024 |archive-date=March 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311004654/https://books.google.com/books?id=CC7381HrLqcC&pg=PA |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Jabotinsky |first=Ze'ev |author-link=Ze'ev Jabotinsky |date=4 November 1923 |title=The Iron Wall |url=http://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf |pages=6–7 |quote=It does not matter at all which phraseology we employ in explaining our colonising aims, Herzl's or Sir Herbert Samuel's. Colonisation carries its own explanation, the only possible explanation, unalterable and as clear as daylight to every ordinary Jew and every ordinary Arab... Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. |access-date=April 17, 2024 |archive-date=May 9, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509210923/https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=G. Finkelstein |first=Norman |author-link=Norman Finkelstein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vNb5VkyxDlYC |title=Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict |publisher=Verso Books |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85984-442-7 |pages=109 |quote=The ‘defensive ethos’ was never the operative ideology of mainstream Zionism. From beginning to end, Zionism was a conquest movement. The subtitle of Shapira’s study is ‘The Zionist Resort to Force’. Yet, Zionism did not ‘resort’ to force. Force was – to use Shapira’s apt phrase in her conclusion – ‘inherent in the situation’ (p. 357). Gripped by messianism after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist movement sought to conquer Palestine with a Jewish Legion under the slogan ‘In blood and fire shall Judea rise again’ (pp. 83–98). When these apocalyptic hopes were dispelled and displaced by the mundane reality of the British Mandate, mainstream Zionism made a virtue of necessity and exalted labor as it proceeded to conquer Palestine ‘dunum by dunum, goat by goat’. Force had not been abandoned, however. Shapira falsely counterposes settlement (‘by virtue of labor’) to force (‘by dint of conquest’). Yet, settlement was force by other means. Its purpose, in Shapira’s words, was to build a ‘Jewish infrastructure in Palestine’ so that ‘the balance of power between Jews and Arabs had shifted in favor of the former’ (pp. 121, 133; cf. p. 211). To the call of a Zionist leader on the morrow of Tel Hai that ‘we must be a force in the land’, Shapira adds the caveat: ‘He was not referring to military might but, rather, to power in the sense of demography and colonization’ (p. 113). Yet, Shapira willfully misses the basic point that ‘demography and colonization’ were equally force. Moreover, without the ‘foreign bayonets’ of the British Mandate, the Zionist movement could not have established even a toehold, let alone struck deep roots, in Palestine. Toward the end of the 1930s and especially after World War II, a concatenation of events – Britain’s waning commitment to the Balfour Declaration, the escalation of Arab resistance, the strengthening of the Yishuv, etc. – caused a consensus to crystallize within the Zionist movement that the time was ripe to return to the original strategy of conquering Palestine ‘by blood and fire’. |access-date=January 27, 2024 |archive-date=July 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726064009/https://books.google.com/books?id=vNb5VkyxDlYC |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Terminology==
The term "Zionism" is derived from the word ''[[Zion]]'' ({{lang-he|ציון|translit=Tzi-yon}}), a hill in [[Jerusalem]], widely symbolizing the Land of Israel.<ref>''This is Jerusalem,'' Menashe Harel, Canaan Publishing, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 194–195</ref> Throughout eastern Europe in the late 19th century, numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland,<ref>{{Citation|last=Barnett|first=Michael|title=The Jewish Problem in International Society|date=2020|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/culture-and-order-in-world-politics/jewish-problem-in-international-society/7F2A8CDC25B68F01D773081D9A9FF1E4|work=Culture and Order in World Politics|pages=232–249|editor-last=Phillips|editor-first=Andrew|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781108754613.011|isbn=978-1-108-48497-8|s2cid=214484283|editor2-last=Reus-Smit|editor2-first=Christian|access-date=April 15, 2021|archive-date=April 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415025447/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/culture-and-order-in-world-politics/jewish-problem-in-international-society/7F2A8CDC25B68F01D773081D9A9FF1E4|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as the revitalization and cultivation of the [[Hebrew language]]. These groups were collectively called the "[[Lovers of Zion]]" and were seen as countering a growing Jewish movement toward assimilation. The first use of the term is attributed to the Austrian [[Nathan Birnbaum]], founder of the [[Kadimah (student association)|Kadimah]] nationalist Jewish students' movement; he used the term in 1890 in his journal ''Selbst-Emancipation'' (''Self-Emancipation''),<ref>{{cite book|last=Kühntopf-Gentz|first=Michael|title=Nathan Birnbaum: Biographie|publisher=Eberhard-Karls-Universität zu Tübingen|year=1990|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bNcsAQAAIAAJ|language=de|page=39|quote=Nathan Birnbaum wird immer wieder als derjenige erwähnt, der die Begriffe "Zionismus" und "zionistisch" eingeführt habe, auch sieht er es selbst so, obwohl er es später bereut und Bedauern darüber äußert, wie die von ihm geprägten Begriffe verwendet werden. Das Wort "zionistisch" erscheint bei Birnbaum zuerst in einem Artikel der "Selbst-Emancipation" vom 1 April 1890: "Es ist zu hoffen, dass die Erkenntnis der Richtigkeit und Durchführbarkeit der zionistischen Idee stets weitere Kreise ziehen und in der Assimilationsepoche anerzogene Vorurteile beseitigen wird”|access-date=July 7, 2023|archive-date=July 7, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230707163624/https://books.google.com/books?id=bNcsAQAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Selbst-Emancipation : Zeitschrift für die nationalen, socialen und politischen Interessen des jüdischen Stammes; Organ der Zionisten : (1.4.1890). 1890 Heft 1 (1.4.1890). Wien|via=Digitale Sammlungen|date=August 13, 1890|url=http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/3092765|language=de|access-date=2023-07-07|archive-date=July 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708090145/https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/3092765|url-status=live}}</ref> itself named almost identically to [[Leon Pinsker]]'s 1882 book ''[[Auto-Emancipation]]''.

==Overview==
{{Main|Types of Zionism}}

The common denominator among all modern Zionists is a claim to Palestine, a land traditionally known in Jewish writings as the [[Land of Israel]] ("''Eretz Israel''") as a national homeland of the Jews and as the legitimate focus for Jewish national [[self-determination]].<ref>Gideon Shimoni, ''The Zionist Ideology'' (1995)</ref> Historically, the consensus in Zionist ideology has been that a Jewish national home requires a Jewish majority.<ref name=gorny1>Yosef Gorny, Zionism and the Arabs, 1882–1948: A Study of Ideology, Oxford 1987</ref> Zionism is based on historical ties and [[Judaism|religious traditions]] linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.<ref>[[Aviel Roshwald]], "Jewish Identity and the Paradox of Nationalism", in [[Michael Berkowitz]], (ed.). ''Nationalism, Zionism and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and Beyond'', p. 15.</ref> Zionism does not have a uniform ideology, but modern political Zionism is typically associated with [[Labor Zionism]] and [[Revisionist Zionism]] which are not fundamentally different.<ref name="Anita Shapira-1992a"/><ref name="Avi Shlaim">{{cite book|author=Avi Shlaim|title=The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=The_Iron_Wall&pg=PA|year=|publisher=W.W. Norton, 2001 |isbn=978-0-393-32112-8|pages=}}{{page needed|date=June 2024}}</ref><ref name=gorny1/>
[[File:Flag-of-Israel-4-Zachi-Evenor.jpg|thumb|The flag of the Zionist Movement adopted in 1891 became the flag of the [[State of Israel]], established in 1948.]]
For approximately 1,700 years after the last recorded Jewish majority in the region, most Jews lived in various countries [[Stateless nation|without a national state]] as part of the post-Roman chapter of the [[Jewish diaspora]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/37f9/76b1ef3efc9d44daa3f00846f6ec06905efe.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180820105737/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/37f9/76b1ef3efc9d44daa3f00846f6ec06905efe.pdf|archive-date=2018-08-20|title=Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects, Policy Implications|last=Pergola|first=Sergio della|date=2001|website=Semantic Scholar|s2cid=45782452}}</ref> The Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by [[Jewish culture|secular Jews]], largely as a response by [[Ashkenazi Jews]] to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the [[Dreyfus affair]] in France and the [[anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire]].<ref>Wylen, Stephen M. ''Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism'', 2nd. ed., Paulist Press, 2000, p. 392.</ref> The political movement was formally established by the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] journalist [[Theodor Herzl]] in 1897 following the publication of his book {{Lang|de|[[Der Judenstaat]]}} (''The Jewish State'').<ref>[[Walter Laqueur]], ''The History of Zionism'' (2003) p. 40</ref> At that time, Herzl believed that Jewish migration to [[Ottoman Palestine]], particularly among poor Jewish communities, [[Jewish assimilation|unassimilated]] and whose 'floating' presence caused disquiet, would be beneficial to assimilated European Jews and Christians.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Herzl|first=Theodor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1_6VSVuzCagC&pg=PA80|title=The Jewish State|year=2012|publisher=Courier Corporation|isbn=978-0-486-11961-8|language=en|page=80|quote=if all or any of the French Jews protest against this scheme on account of their own "assimilation," my answer is simple: The whole thing does not concern them at all. They are Jewish Frenchmen, well and good! This is a private affair for the Jews alone. The movement towards the organization of the State I am proposing would, of course, harm Jewish Frenchmen no more than it would harm the "assimilated" of other countries. It would, on the contrary, be distinctly to their advantage. For they would no longer be disturbed in their "chromatic function," as Darwin puts it, but would be able to assimilate in peace, because the present Anti-Semitism would have been stopped for ever. They would certainly be credited with being assimilated to the very depths of their souls, if they stayed where they were after the new Jewish State, with its superior institutions, had become a reality. The "assimilated" would profit even more than Christian citizens by the departure of faithful Jews; for they would be rid of the disquieting, incalculable, and unavoidable rivalry of a Jewish proletariat, driven by poverty and political pressure from place to place, from land to land. This floating proletariat would become stationary.|access-date=June 9, 2021|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111180611/https://books.google.com/books?id=1_6VSVuzCagC&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Political Zionism was in some respects a dramatic break from the two thousand years of Jewish and rabbinical tradition.  Deriving inspiration from other European nationalist movements, Zionism drew in particular from a German version of European enlightenment thought, with German nationalistic principles becoming key features of Zionist nationalism. The Jewish historian of nationalism Hans Kohn argued that Zionism nationalism "had nothing to do with Jewish traditions; it was in many ways opposed to them". Starting early on, Zionism had its critics, the cultural Zionist [[Ahad Ha'am]] in the early 20th century wrote that there was no creativity in Herzl's Zionist movement, and that its culture was European and specifically German. He viewed the movement as depicting Jews as simple transmitters of imperialist European culture.<ref name="Masalha-2012">{{cite book |author=Masalha |first=Nur |title=The Palestine Nakba |publisher=Zed Books |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-84813-973-2 |pages=342 |chapter=Chapter 1: Zionism and European Settler-Colonialism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=px1jDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA |access-date=February 4, 2024 |archive-date=March 30, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240330092600/https://books.google.com/books?id=px1jDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA |url-status=live }}</ref>

Although initially one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to Jewish assimilation and antisemitism, Zionism expanded rapidly. In its early stages, supporters considered setting up a Jewish state in the historic territory of Palestine. After [[World War II]] and the destruction of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe where these alternative movements were rooted, it became dominant in the thinking about a Jewish national state. During this period, Zionism would develop a discourse in which the religious, non-Zionist Jews of the [[Old Yishuv]] who lived in mixed Arab-Jewish cities were viewed as backwards in comparison to the secular Zionist [[New Yishuv]].<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>

From the beginning of the development of the Zionism movement, the support of the European powers was seen as necessary by the Zionist leadership (Herzl, [[Chaim Weizmann]] and [[David Ben-Gurion]]). Creating an alliance with [[United Kingdom|Great Britain]] and securing support for some years for Jewish emigration to Palestine, Zionists also recruited European Jews to immigrate there, especially Jews who lived in areas of the Russian Empire where antisemitism was raging. The alliance with Britain was strained as the latter realized the implications of the Jewish movement for Arabs in Palestine, but the Zionists persisted. The movement was eventually successful in establishing Israel on May 14, 1948 (5 Iyyar 5708 in the [[Hebrew calendar]]), as the [[homeland for the Jewish people]]. The proportion of the world's Jews living in Israel has steadily grown since the movement emerged. By the early 21st century, more than 40% of the [[Jewish population|world's Jews]] lived in Israel, more than in any other country. In some academic studies, Zionism has been analyzed both within the larger context of [[diaspora politics]] and as an example of modern [[Wars of national liberation|national liberation movements]] and as an instance of [[settler-colonialism]].<ref>A.R. Taylor, "Vision and intent in Zionist Thought", in ''The Transformation of Palestine'', ed. by I. Abu-Lughod, 1971, {{ISBN|978-0-8101-0345-0}}, p. 10</ref><ref>Patrick Wolfe (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native,
Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387-409, DOI: 10.1080/14623520601056240</ref>

Zionism was a response to what was seen as the failure of Jews to assimilate into the increasingly nationalistic Western world. Zionism viewed nationalism as a problem for Jews, which excluded them as an "unwanted" or "alien" minority. Zionism also saw nationalism as a solution for the plight of European Jews, by establishing a state in which Jews would be a majority.<ref >{{cite book|author=Avi Shlaim|title=The Iron Wall|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=HBBbY9rMxSAC&pg=PA|year=2001|publisher=W.W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-32112-8|pages=|quote=Modern Zionism was a phenomenon of the late nineteenth-century Europe. It had its roots in the failure of Jewish efforts to become assimilated in Western society, in the intensification of antisemitism in Europe, and in the parallel and not unrelated upsurge of nationalism. If nationalism posed a problem to the Jews by identifying them as an alien and unwanted minority, it also suggested a solution: self-determination for the Jews in a state of their own in which they would constitute a majority.}}</ref> Zionism did not seek to solve antisemitism, but rather saw it as an inevitable reality. [[Leo Pinsker]] described antisemitism as a hereditary and incurable disease, concluding in his [[Autoemancipation]] that "a people without a territory is like a man without a shadow: something unnatural, spectral".<ref>{{cite book|author=David Goldberg|title=To the Promised Land|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=w2hZPgAACAAJ&pg=PA|year=2009|publisher=Faber %26 Faber, Limited |isbn=978-0-571-25423-1|pages=}}</ref> So-called "assimilationist" Jews desired complete integration into European society. They were willing to downplay their [[Jewish identity]] and in some cases to abandon traditional views and opinions in an attempt at modernization and assimilation into the modern world. A less extreme form of assimilation was called cultural synthesis. Those in favor of cultural synthesis desired continuity and only moderate evolution, and were concerned that Jews should not lose their identity as a people. "Cultural synthesists" emphasized both a need to maintain traditional Jewish values and faith and a need to conform to a modernist society, for instance, in complying with work days and rules.<ref>Tesler, Mark. ''Jewish History and the Emergence of Modern Political Zionism.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Printing Press, 1994.</ref>

In 1975, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] passed [[Resolution 3379]], which designated Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination". Resolution 3379 was repealed in 1991 with Israel's conditioning of its participation in the [[Madrid Conference of 1991|Madrid peace talks]] on the passing of [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379#Revocation|Resolution 46/86]], which “ revoke[<span class="ltr">d</span>] the determination contained in” 3379.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lewis|first=Paul|date=1991-12-17|title=U.N. Repeals Its '75 Resolution Equating Zionism With Racism|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/world/un-repeals-its-75-resolution-equating-zionism-with-racism.html|access-date=2023-10-08|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=January 11, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130111211632/http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/world/un-repeals-its-75-resolution-equating-zionism-with-racism.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Beliefs==

===Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine===
Fundamental to Zionism is the belief that Jews constitute a nation and have a moral and historic right and need for self-determination in Palestine. This belief developed out of the experiences of European Jewry which the early Zionists believed demonstrated the danger inherent to their status as a minority. Unlike other forms of nationalism, the Zionist claim to Palestine was aspirational and required a mechanism by which the claim could be realized.<ref>{{cite book|author=Derek J. Penslar|title=Zionism|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=PvJnzwEACAAJ&pg=PA|year=2023|publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-7609-1|pages=|quote=It is a belief that Jews have a moral right and historic need for self- determination within his-toric Palestine...Zionism, in turn, is the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collec-tive self- determination within historic Palestine...Unlike other nationalisms, however, pre-1948 Zionism’s claim on territory was aspirational, based in ancient memories and future hopes. Until well into the twentieth century, a negligible number of Jews lived in the Land of Israel.}}</ref> The territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine and the subsequent goal of establishing a Jewish majority there was the main mechanism by which Zionist groups sought to realize this claim.<ref >{{cite book|author=Benny Morris|title=Righteous Victims|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=M7tr9_rCwD0C&pg=PA|year=1999|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-679-74475-7|pages=|quote=Zionism had always looked to the day when a Jewish majority would enable the movement to gain control over the country: The Zionist leadership had never posited Jewish statehood with a minority of Jews ruling over a majority of Arabs, apartheidstyle.}}</ref> By the time of the [[1936 Arab Revolt]], the political differences between the various Zionist groups had shrunk further, with almost all Zionist groups seeking a Jewish state in Palestine. <ref>{{cite book|author=Yosef Gorni|title=Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=crHjZnRmWhgC&pg=PA|year=|publisher=Clarendon Press, 1987 |isbn=978-0-19-822721-2|pages=Introduction, Chapter 8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Shlomo Ben-Ami, Shlomo Ben-Ami Former Foreign Minister of Israel|title=Scars of War, Wounds of Peace|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&pg=PA|year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-518158-6|pages=|quote=Zionism is both a struggle for land and a demographic race; in essence, the aspiration for a territory with a Jewish majority...Zionist democratic diversity did not mean that there was no commonground between the major segments of the movement. Initially, Ben-Gurion preferred an ‘iron wall of workers’, namely settlements and Jewish infrastructure, on Jabotinsky’s call for an iron wall of military might and deterrence... he even lashed out against what he defined as Jabotinsky’s ‘perverted national fanaticism’, and against the Revisionists’‘worthless prattle of sham heroes, whose lips becloud the moral purity of our national movement. . .’ Eventually, however, under the growing chal-lenge of Arab nationalism and especially with the growth in the Yishuv of a collective mood of sacred Jewish nationalism following the Holocaust,the Labour Zionists, chief among them David Ben-Gurion, accepted forall practical purposes Jabotinsky’s iron-wall strategy. The Jewish State could only emerge, and force the Arabs to accept it, if it erected around it an impregnable wall of Jewish might and deterrence.}}</ref> While not every Zionist group openly called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there.<ref>{{cite book|author=Norman G. Finkelstein|title=Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=55NKCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2016|publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78478-458-4|pages=|quote=Within the Zionist ideological consensus there coexisted three relatively distinct tendencies – political Zionism, labor Zionism and cultural Zionism. Each was wedded to the demand for a Jewish majority, but not for entirely the same reasons.}}</ref>

===Ethnic unity and descent from Biblical Jews===
{{main|Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism}}
Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the [[ethno-nationalist]] myth of common descent".<ref>{{harvnb|Hirsch|2009|pages=592–609}} "The work of Jewish race scientists has been the subject of several recent studies (Efron 1994; R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000; Kiefer 1991; Lipphardt 2007; Y. Weiss 2002; see also Doron 1980). As these studies suggest, among Jewish physicians, anthropologists, and other 'men of science' in Central Europe, proponents of the idea that the Jews were a race were found mainly in the ranks of Zionists, as the idea implied a common biological nature of the otherwise geographically, linguistically, and culturally divided Jewish people, and offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent (Doron 1980: 404; Y. Weiss 2002: 155). At the same time, many of these proponents agreed that the Jews were suffering a process of 'degeneration, and so their writings advanced the national project as a means of 'regeneration' and 'racial improvement' (R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000: 17)... In the Zionist case, the nation-building project was fused with a cultural project of Westernization. 'Race' was an integral concept in certain versions of nationalist thinking, and in Western identity (Bonnett 2003), albeit in different ways. In the discourse of Zionist men of science, 'race' served different purposes, according to the context in question. In some contexts 'race' was mainly used to establish Jewish unity, while in others it was used to establish diversity and hierarchy among Jews. The latter use was more common in texts which appeared in Palestine. It resulted from the encounter of European Zionists with Eastern Jews, and from the tension between the projects of nation-building and of Westernization in the context of Zionist settlement in the East."</ref>  Zionist nationalism drew from [[Völkisch movement|a German ethnic-nationalist theory]] that people of common descent should seek separation and pursue the formation of their own state.<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>{{Page needed|date=May 2024}} In the words of Yulia Egorova, this "racialisation of Jewish identity in the rhetoric of the founders of Zionism" was originally a reaction to [[European antisemitism]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Egorova|first=Yulia|title=The proof is in the genes? Jewish responses to DNA research|journal=Culture and Religion|publisher=Informa UK Limited|volume=10|issue=2|year=2009|issn=1475-5610|doi=10.1080/14755610903077554|pages=159–175|s2cid=30486332|url=https://dro.dur.ac.uk/14438/1/|quote=At the same time, the idea that Jews are a people connected to each other on a ‘biological’ level has been promoted by Zionist ideologues. This racialisation of Jewish identity in the rhetoric of the founders of Zionism was a response to the shift from Christian anti-Semitism to racial anti-Semitism, which occurred in Europe in the late nineteenth century.|access-date=July 11, 2023|archive-date=July 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708223225/https://dro.dur.ac.uk/14438/1/|url-status=live}}</ref> According to [[Raphael Falk (geneticist)|Raphael Falk]], as early as the 1870s, contrary to largely cultural perspectives among integrated and assimilated Jewish communities in the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and [[Age of Romanticism]], "the Zionists-to-be stressed that Jews were not merely members of a cultural or a religious entity, but were an integral biological entity".<ref name="Falk-2014">{{cite journal|last=Falk|first=R. |author-link=Raphael Falk (geneticist)|date=2014|title=Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent|journal=Frontiers in Genetics|volume=5|issue=462|page=462|doi=10.3389/fgene.2014.00462|pmc=4301023|pmid=25653666 |doi-access=free}}</ref> This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the "[[volk]]" of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping.<ref name="Falk-2014" /> The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as a nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory.<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>

It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of [[Ashkenazi Jews]], the original founders of Zionism, are "highly debated and enigmatic".{{sfn|McGonigle|2021|p=35 (c.f. p.52-53 of PhD)|ps=: "Here, the ethnic composition of Israel is crucial. Despite the ambiguity in respect of the legal, biological, and social ‘nature’ of ‘Jewish genes’ and their intermittent role in the reproduction of Jewish identity, Israel is an ethnically diverse country. Many Jewish immigrants have arrived from Eastern Europe, North Africa, France, India, Latin America, Yemen, Iraq, Ethiopia, the US, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the ex-Soviet Union, not to mention Israel’s indigenous Arab minority of close to 2 million people. And while Jewishness has often been imagined as a biological race – most notably, and to horrific ends, by the Nazis, but also later by Zionists and early Israelis for state-building purposes – the initial origins of the Ashkenazi Jews who began the Zionist movement in turn-of-the-century Europe remain highly debated and enigmatic."}}<ref>{{harvnb|Abu El-Haj|2012|p=98}} "There is a “problem” regarding the origins of the Ashkenazim, which needs resolution: Ashkenazi Jews, who seem European—phenotypically, that is—are the normative center of world Jewry. No less, they are the political and cultural elite of the newly founded Jewish state. Given their central symbolic and political capital in the Jewish state and given simultaneously the scientific and social persistence of racial logics as ways of categorizing and understanding human groups, it was essential to find other evidence that Israel’s European Jews were not in truth Europeans. The normative Jew had to have his/her origins in ancient Palestine or else the fundamental tenet of Zionism, the entire edifice of Jewish history and nationalist ideology, would come tumbling down. In short, the Ashkenazi Jew is the Jew—the Jew in relation to whose values and cultural practices the oriental Jew in Israel must assimilate. Simultaneously, however, the Ashkenazi Jew is the most dubious Jew, the Jew whose historical and genealogical roots in ancient Palestine are most difficult to see and perhaps thus to believe—in practice, although clearly not by definition."</ref> Notable proponents of this racial idea included [[Max Nordau]], Herzl's co-founder of the original [[Zionist Organization]], [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]], the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's [[Likud]] party,{{sfn|Baker|2017|p=100-102}} and [[Arthur Ruppin]], considered the "father of Israeli sociology".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Morris-Reich|first=Amos|title=Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race|journal=Israel Studies|publisher=Indiana University Press|volume=11|issue=3|year=2006|issn=1084-9513|jstor=30245648|pages=1–30|doi=10.2979/ISR.2006.11.3.1|s2cid=144898510|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30245648|ref=none|access-date=July 11, 2023|archive-date=July 11, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230711081058/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245648|url-status=live}}</ref> Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on “racial purity", whereas Nordau asserted the need for an "exact anthropological, biological, economic, and intellectual statistic of the Jewish people".{{sfn|Baker|2017|p=100-102}}

According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of [[Jews as the chosen people]] and the "[[Promised Land]]" in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Haddad|first=Hassan S.|authorlink=:ar:حسني حداد|title=The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|publisher=[University of California Press, Institute for Palestine Studies]|volume=3|issue=4|year=1974|issn=0377-919X|jstor=2535451|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2535451|quote=The Zionist moveinent remains firmly anchored on the basic principle of the exclusive right of the Jews to Palestine that is found in the Torah and in other Jewish religious literature. Zionists who are not religious, in the sense of following the ritual practices of Judaism, are still biblical in their basic convictions in, and practical application of the ancient particularism of the Torah and the other books of the Old Testament. They are biblical in putting their national goals on a level that goes beyond historical, humanistic or moral considerations… We can summarize these beliefs, based on the Bible, as follows. 1. The Jews are a separate and exclusive people chosen by God to fulfil a destiny. The Jews of the twentieth century have inherited the covenant of divine election and historical destiny from the Hebrew tribes that existed more than 3000 years ago. 2. The covenant included a definite ownership of the Land of Canaan (Palestine) as patrimony of the Israelites and their descendants forever. By no name, and under no other conditions, can any other people lay a rightful claim to that land. 3. The occupation and settlement of this land is a duty placed collectively on the Jews to establish a state for the Jews. The purity of the Jewishness of the land is derived from a divine command and is thus a sacred mission. Accordingly, settling in Palestine, in addition to its economic and political motivations, acquires a romantic and mythical character. That the Bible is at the root of Zionism is recognized by religious, secular, non-observant, and agnostic Zionists… The Bible, which has been generally considered as a holy book whose basic tenets and whose historical contents are not commonly challenged by Christians and Jews, is usually referred to as the Jewish national record. As a "sacrosanct title-deed to Palestine," it has caused a fossilization of history in Zionist thinking… Modern Jews, accordingly, are the direct descendants of the ancient Israelites, hence the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine.|pages=98–99|doi=10.2307/2535451|access-date=July 5, 2023|archive-date=July 5, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705214548/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535451|url-status=live}}</ref> This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around the concept of an "[[Gathering of Israel|Ingathering of the exiles]]" and the "[[Return to Zion]]", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews.<ref name="McGonigle 2021">{{harvnb|McGonigle|2021|p=36 (c.f. p.54 of PhD)}}: "The stakes in the debate over Jewish origins are high, however, since the founding narrative of the Israeli state is based on exilic ‘return.’ If European Jews have descended from converts, the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as ‘settler colonialism’ pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel’s critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people. The politics of ‘Jewish genetics’ is consequently fierce. But irrespective of philosophical questions of the indexical power or validity of genetic tests for Jewishness, and indeed the historical basis of a Jewish population ‘returning’ to the Levant, the Realpolitik of Jewishness as a measurable biological category could also impinge on access to basic rights and citizenship within Israel."</ref> The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and [[Anti-Zionism|anti-Zionists]] alike,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rich|first=Dave|date=2017-01-02|title=Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682|journal=Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs|language=en|volume=11|issue=1|pages=101–104|doi=10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682|s2cid=152132582|issn=2373-9770|access-date=July 11, 2023|archive-date=July 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708194611/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682|url-status=live}}</ref> as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as ‘settler colonialism’ pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people,"<ref name="McGonigle 2021"/> whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return".{{sfn|McGonigle|2021|p=(c.f. p.218-219 of PhD)|ps=: "The [Israeli national] biobank stands for unmarked global modernity and secular technoscientific progress. It is within the other pole of the Israeli cultural spectrum that one finds right-wingers appropriating genetics as a way of imagining the tribal particularity of Jews, as a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return. It is across this political spectrum that the natural facts of genetics research discursively migrate and transform into the mythologized ethnonationalism of the bio-nation. However, Israel has also moved towards a market-based society, and as the majority of the biomedical research is moving to private biotech companies, the Israeli biobank is becoming underused and outmoded. The epistemics of Jewish genetics fall short of its mythic circulatory semiotics. This is the ultimate lesson from my ethnographic work in Israel."}} A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for the claim  has "remained forever elusive".<ref>{{harvnb|Abu El-Haj|2012|p=18}} "What is evident in the work in Israeli population genetics is a desire to identify biological evidence for the presumption of a common Jewish peoplehood whose truth was hard to “see,” especially in the face of the arrival of oriental Jews whose presumably visible civilizational and phenotypic differences from the Ashkenazi elite strained the nationalist ideology upon which the state was founded. Testament to the legacy of racial thought in giving form to a Zionist vision of Jewish peoplehood by the mid-twentieth century, Israeli population researchers never doubted that biological facts of a shared origin did indeed exist, even as finding those facts remained forever elusive… Looking at the history of Zionism through the lens of work in the biological sciences brings into focus a story long sidelined in histories of the Jewish state: Jewish thinkers and Zionist activists invested in race science as they forged an understanding of the Jewish people and fought to found the Jewish state. By the mid-twentieth century, a biological self-definition—even if not seamlessly a racial one, at least not as race was imagined at the turn of the twentieth century—had become common-sensical for many Jewish nationalists, and, in significant ways, it framed membership and shaped the contours of national belonging in the Jewish state."</ref>

==== Rejection of the Identity of the Diaspora Jew ====
Israeli-Irish scholar [[Ronit Lentin]] has argued that the construction of Zionist identity as a militarized nationalism arose in contrast to the imputed identity of the Diaspora Jew as a "feminised" [[Other (philosophy)|Other]]. She describes this as a relationship of contempt towards the previous identity of the Jewish Diaspora viewed as unable to resist antisemitism and the Holocaust. Lentin argues that Zionism's rejection of this "feminised" identity and its obsession with constructing a nation is reflected in the nature of the symbolism of the movement, which are drawn from modern sources and appropriated as Zionist, instancing the fact that the  melody of the [[Hatikvah]] anthem drew on the version composed by the Czech composer [[Bedřich Smetana]].<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>

=== Negation of the life in the Diaspora ===
[[Negation of the Diaspora|Negation of life in the Diaspora]] is a central assumption in Zionism.<ref>E. Schweid, "Rejection of the Diaspora in Zionist Thought", in ''Essential Papers on Zionism'', ed. by Reinharz & Shapira, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-8147-7449-6}}, p. 133</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Lewis|first=Bernard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTsiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20|title=Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice|date=1999|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-24556-1|language=en|access-date=July 17, 2020|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707010524/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTsiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lustick|first=Ian S.|date=2003|title=Zionist Ideology and Its Discontents: A Research Note|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41805179|journal=Israel Studies Forum|volume=19|issue=1|pages=98–103|issn=1557-2455|jstor=41805179|access-date=July 17, 2020|archive-date=July 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200723065332/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41805179|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Claeys|first=Gregory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EihzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA869|title=Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought (set)|date=2013|publisher=CQ Press|isbn=978-1-4522-3415-1|language=en|access-date=July 17, 2020|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181114/https://books.google.com/books?id=EihzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA869#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Some supporters of Zionism believed that Jews in the Diaspora were prevented from their full growth in Jewish individual and national life.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

The rejection of life in the diaspora was not limited to secular Zionism; many religious Zionists shared this opinion, but not all religious Zionism did. [[Abraham Isaac Kook|Rav Cook]], considered one of the most important religious Zionist thinkers, characterized the diaspora as a flawed and alienated existence marked by decline, narrowness, displacement, solitude, and frailty. He believed that the diasporan way of life is diametrically opposed to a "national renaissance," which manifests itself not only in the return to Zion but also in the return to nature and creativity, revival of heroic and aesthetic values, and the resurgence of individual and societal power.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Don-Yehiya|first=Eliezer|date=1992|title=The Negation of Galut in Religious Zionism|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396185|journal=Modern Judaism|volume=12|issue=2|pages=129–155|doi=10.1093/mj/12.2.129|jstor=1396185|issn=0276-1114|access-date=April 20, 2023|archive-date=April 20, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230420202147/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396185|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Revival of the Hebrew language ===
{{Main|Revival of the Hebrew language}}{{See also|Modern Hebrew|Hebraization of surnames}}
[[File:Portrait of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] (1858–1922), founder and leader of the movement to [[Revival of the Hebrew language|revive the Hebrew language]], is considered the father of [[Modern Hebrew]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mandel |first=George |title=Encyclopedia of modern Jewish culture |date=2005 |others=Glenda Abramson |isbn=978-0-415-29813-1 |edition=New |location=London |publisher=Routledge |chapter=Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer [Eliezer Yizhak Perelman] (1858–1922) |oclc=57470923}}</ref>]]
Zionists generally preferred to speak [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], a [[Semitic languages|Semitic language]] which flourished as a spoken language in the ancient [[Kingdoms of Israel and Judah]] during the period from about 1200 to 586&nbsp;BCE,<ref>אברהם בן יוסף ,מבוא לתולדות הלשון העברית (Avraham ben-Yosef, ''Introduction to the History of the Hebrew Language''), p. 38, אור-עם, Tel-Aviv, 1981.</ref> and continued to be used in some parts of [[Judea]] during the [[Second Temple period]] and up until 200&nbsp;CE. It is the language of the [[Hebrew Bible]] and the [[Mishnah]], central texts in [[Judaism]]. Hebrew was largely preserved throughout later history as the main [[Sacred language|liturgical language]] of Judaism.

Zionists worked to modernize Hebrew and adapt it for everyday use. They sometimes refused to speak [[Yiddish]], a language they thought had developed in the context of [[Antisemitism in Europe|European persecution]]. Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and [[Hebraization of surnames|adopted new, Hebrew names]]. Hebrew was preferred not only for ideological reasons, but also because it allowed all citizens of the new state to have a common language, thus furthering the political and cultural bonds among Zionists.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

The [[revival of the Hebrew language]] and the establishment of [[Modern Hebrew]] is most closely associated with the linguist [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] and the [[Committee of the Hebrew Language]] (later replaced by the [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fellman |first=Jack |title=The Revival of Classical Tongue : Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language |year=2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-087910-0 |oclc=1089437441}}</ref>

=== In the Israeli Declaration of Independence ===
Major aspects of the Zionist idea are represented in the [[Israeli Declaration of Independence]].

==History==
{{Main|History of Zionism}}
{{For timeline|Timeline of Zionism}}

=== Historical and religious background ===
{{synthesis|section|date=November 2023}}
{{Main|Jewish history|History of Israel|History of Palestine|History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel}}

Zionism views [[Jews|the Jewish people]] as an [[ethnoreligious group]] and [[nation]]<ref>{{cite book |author=M. Nicholson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HvI8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 |title=International Relations: A Concise Introduction |publisher=NYU Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8147-5822-9 |pages=19– |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181124/https://books.google.com/books?id=HvI8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} "The Jews are a nation and were so before there was a Jewish state of Israel"</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Alan Dowty |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vL8r4U1FKSQC&pg=PA3 |title=The Jewish State: A Century Later, Updated With a New Preface |publisher=University of California Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-520-92706-3 |pages=3– |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181118/https://books.google.com/books?id=vL8r4U1FKSQC&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} "Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos"</ref> originating from the [[Israelites]]<ref>{{cite book |author=Raymond P. Scheindlin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bfsuicMmrE0C&pg=PA1 |title=A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-19-513941-9 |pages=1– |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181200/https://books.google.com/books?id=bfsuicMmrE0C&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Facts On File, Incorporated |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=stl97FdyRswC&pg=PA337 |title=Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4381-2676-0 |pages=337– |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181113/https://books.google.com/books?id=stl97FdyRswC&pg=PA337#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}"The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history"</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Harry Ostrer MD |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RayZR3V1SFwC&pg=PT26 |title=Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-19-997638-6 |pages=26– |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181122/https://books.google.com/books?id=RayZR3V1SFwC&pg=PT26#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[Hebrews]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jew &#124; History, Beliefs, & Facts &#124; Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jew-people |access-date=2023-03-10 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |quote=In the broader sense of the term, a Jew is any person belonging to the worldwide group that constitutes, through descent or conversion, a continuation of the ancient Jewish people, who were themselves descendants of the Hebrews of the Old Testament. |archive-date=August 4, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220804140340/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jew-people |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Hebrew &#124; People, Religion, & Location &#124; Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew |access-date=2023-03-10 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |quote=Hebrew, any member of an ancient northern Semitic people that were the ancestors of the Jews. |archive-date=August 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220809102541/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew |url-status=live }}</ref> of historical [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|Israel and Judah]], two Israelite kingdoms that emerged in the [[Southern Levant]] during the [[Iron Age]]. Jews are named after the [[Kingdom of Judah]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brenner |first=Michael |title=A short history of the Jews |date=2010 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-14351-4 |location=Princeton, N.J. |oclc=463855870}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Legacy : a Genetic History of the Jewish People. |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |author=Harry Ostrer |isbn=978-1-280-87519-9 |oclc=798209542}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=Adams, Hannah |title=The history of the Jews : from the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time |date=1840 |publisher=Sold at the London Society House and by Duncan and Malcom, and Wertheim |oclc=894671497}}</ref> the southern of the two kingdoms, which was centered in [[Judea]] with its capital in [[Jerusalem]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Finkelstein |first=Israel |date=2001 |title=The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: the Missing Link |journal=Levant |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=105–115 |doi=10.1179/lev.2001.33.1.105 |issn=0075-8914 |s2cid=162036657}}</ref> The Kingdom of Judah was conquered by [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] of the [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]] in 586&nbsp;BCE.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Faust |first=Avraham |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5vjz28 |title=Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period |date=2012 |publisher=Society of Biblical Literature |isbn=978-1-58983-641-9 |page=1 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt5vjz28}}</ref> The Babylonians [[Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC)|destroyed Jerusalem]] and the [[Solomon's Temple|First Temple]], which was at the center of ancient Judean worship. The Judeans were subsequently [[Babylonian captivity|exiled to Babylon]], in what is regarded as the first [[Jewish diaspora]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shapira |first=Anita |date=April 2004 |title=The Bible and Israeli Identity |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ajs-review/article/abs/bible-and-israeli-identity/F840C41D6F695EE7946E663475FE8040 |journal=AJS Review |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=11–41 |doi=10.1017/S0364009404000030 |s2cid=161984097 |issn=1475-4541 |access-date=November 20, 2023 |archive-date=November 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231119075658/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ajs-review/article/abs/bible-and-israeli-identity/F840C41D6F695EE7946E663475FE8040 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Garaudy |first=Roger |date=1977-01-01 |title=Religious and Historical Pretexts of Zionism |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2307/2535501 |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |language=en |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=41–52 |doi=10.2307/2535501 |jstor=2535501 |issn=0377-919X |access-date=November 20, 2023 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181107/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2307/2535501 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Smith-Christopher |first=D. L. |title=Reassessing the Historical and Sociological Impact of the Babylonian Exile (597/587–539 BCE) |date=1997-01-01 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004497719/B9789004497719_s005.xml |work=Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions |pages=7–36 |access-date=2023-11-20 |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-49771-9 |archive-date=February 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203044120/https://brill.com/display/book/9789004497719/B9789004497719_s005.xml |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:LMLK,_Ezekiah_seals.jpg|thumb|"[[Hezekiah]] ... king of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]]" – [[Seal (emblem)|Royal seal]] written in the [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet]], unearthed in Jerusalem]]
Seventy years later, after the [[Fall of Babylon|conquest of Babylon]] by the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Achaemenid Empire]], [[Cyrus the Great]] allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and [[Second Temple|rebuild the Temple]].<ref>Max Mallowan (1972) Cyrus the Great (558–529 B.C.), Iran, 10:1, 1–17, DOI: 10.1080/05786967.1972.11834152</ref> This event came to be known as the [[Return to Zion]]. Under Persian rule, Judah became [[Yehud (Persian province)|a self-governing Jewish province]]. After centuries of Persian and [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic rule]], the Jews regained their independence in the [[Maccabean Revolt]] against the [[Seleucid Empire]], which led to the establishment of the [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean Kingdom]] in Judea. It later expanded over much of modern Israel, and into some parts of Jordan and Lebanon.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Helyer |first1=Larry R. |title=The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts |last2=McDonald |first2=Lee Martin |publisher=Baker Academic |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-8010-9861-1 |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Joel B. |pages=45–47 |chapter=The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era |oclc=961153992 |quote=The ensuing power struggle left Hyrcanus with a free hand in Judea, and he quickly reasserted Jewish sovereignty... Hyrcanus then engaged in a series of military campaigns aimed at territorial expansion. He first conquered areas in the Transjordan. He then turned his attention to Samaria, which had long separated Judea from the northern Jewish settlements in Lower Galilee. In the south, Adora and Marisa were conquered; (Aristobulus') primary accomplishment was annexing and Judaizing the region of Iturea, located between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains |editor-last2=McDonald |editor-first2=Lee Martin}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Sasson |first=H.H. |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-674-39731-6 |page=226 |quote=The expansion of Hasmonean Judea took place gradually. Under Jonathan, Judea annexed southern Samaria and began to expand in the direction of the coast plain... The main ethnic changes were the work of John Hyrcanus... it was in his days and those of his son Aristobulus that the annexation of Idumea, Samaria and Galilee and the consolidation of Jewish settlement in Trans-Jordan was completed. Alexander Jannai, continuing the work of his predecessors, expanded Judean rule to the entire coastal plain, from the Carmel to the Egyptian border... and to additional areas in Trans-Jordan, including some of the Greek cities there.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Eliyahu |first=Eyal |title=Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity |publisher=Univ of California Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-520-29360-1 |page=13 |oclc=1103519319 |quote=From the beginning of the Second Temple period until the Muslim conquest—the land was part of imperial space. This was true from the early Persian period, as well as the time of Ptolemy and the Seleucids. The only exception was the Hasmonean Kingdom, with its sovereign Jewish rule—first over Judah and later, in Alexander Jannaeus's prime, extending to the coast, the north, and the eastern banks of the Jordan.}}</ref> The Hasmonean Kingdom became a client state of the [[Roman Republic]] in 63&nbsp;BCE, and in 6&nbsp;CE, was incorporated into the [[Roman Empire]] as the [[Judaea (Roman province)|province of Judaea]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Abraham Malamat |url={{Google books|2kSovzudhFUC|page=PA223|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-674-39731-6 |pages=223–239}}</ref>

During the [[First Jewish–Roman War|Great Jewish Revolt]] (66–73&nbsp;CE), the Romans [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|destroyed Jerusalem]] and burned the Second Temple.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zissu |first=Boaz |title=Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE |date=2018 |others=Joshua Schwartz, Peter J. Tomson |isbn=978-90-04-34986-5 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |publisher=Brill |page=19 |chapter=Interbellum Judea 70–132 CE: An Archaeological Perspective |oclc=988856967}}</ref> Of the 600,000 (Tacitus) or 1,000,000 (Josephus) Jews of Jerusalem, all of them either died of starvation, were killed or were sold into slavery.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sebag Montefiore |first1=Simon |title=Jerusalem : The Biography |date=2012 |isbn=978-0-307-28050-3 |edition=First Vintage books |location=New York |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |page=11}}</ref> The [[Bar Kokhba Revolt]] (132–136 CE) led to the destruction of large parts of Judea, and many Jews were killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. The province of Judaea was renamed ''Syria Palaestina.'' These actions are seen by many scholars as an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from their homeland.''<ref>H.H. Ben-Sasson, ''A History of the Jewish People'', Harvard University Press, 1976, {{ISBN|978-0-674-39731-6}}, p. 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."</ref><ref>Ariel Lewin. ''The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine''. Getty Publications, 2005 p. 33.『It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name—one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus—Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land.』{{ISBN|978-0-89236-800-6}}</ref>'' In the following centuries, many Jews emigrated to thriving centers in the [[Jewish diaspora|diaspora]]. Others continued living in the region, especially in the [[Galilee]], the [[Israeli coastal plain|coastal plain]], and on the edges of Judea, and some converted.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ehrlich |first=Michael |title=The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634–1800 |publisher=Arc Humanity Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-64189-222-3 |page=33 |oclc=1310046222}}</ref><ref>David Goodblatt, 'The political and social history of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel,' in William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.) [[iarchive:cambridgehis xxxx 1984 004 8494287/page/n437|<!-- pg=406 --> ''The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period'']], Cambridge University Press, 2006 pp. 404–430 [406].</ref> By the fourth century CE, the Jews, who had previously constituted the majority of Palestine, had become a minority.<ref>{{cite book |author=Edward Kessler |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=87Woe7kkPM4C&pg=PA72 |title=An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-70562-2 |page=72}}</ref> A small presence of Jews has been attested for almost all of the period. For example, according to tradition, the Jewish community of [[Peki'in]] has maintained a Jewish presence since the [[Second Temple period]].''<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ashkenaz |first=Eli |title=Researchers Race to Document Vanishing Jewish Heritage of Galilee Druze Village |language=en |work=Haaretz |url=https://www.haaretz.com/2012-07-25/ty-article/racing-to-record-a-druze-villages-last-jew/0000017f-eefa-d8a1-a5ff-fefae4930000 |access-date=2023-03-10 |quote=Zinati, who was born in 1931, is the last link in the chain of a Jewish community that apparently maintained a continuous presence in Peki'in since the time of the Second Temple, when three families from the ranks of the [[kohen]]im, the priestly caste that served in the Temple, moved there. Since then, the only known break in the Jewish presence was during two years in the late 1930s, when the town's Jews fled the Arab riots of 1936–39. Most of them went to what they called the Hadera diaspora. But one family, Zinati's, returned home in 1940. |archive-date=March 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326032858/https://www.haaretz.com/2012-07-25/ty-article/racing-to-record-a-druze-villages-last-jew/0000017f-eefa-d8a1-a5ff-fefae4930000 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lassner |first1=Jacob |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NYNCUXGoFWMC&pg=PA314 |title=Jews and Muslims in the Arab World: Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined |last2=Troen |first2=Selwyn Ilan |date=2007 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-5842-7 |page=314 |language=en |quote=...the small community of Peki'in in the mountains of the Galilee, not far from Safed, whose present-day residents could demonstrate that they were direct descendants of inhabitants of the village who had never gone into exile. |access-date=June 6, 2021 |archive-date=March 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164802/https://books.google.com/books?id=NYNCUXGoFWMC&pg=PA314 |url-status=live }}</ref>''
[[File:Bar_Kokhba_Coin.jpg|thumb|[[Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage|Coin of the Bar-Kokhba revolt]] (132–135 CE). Front shows trumpets surrounded by "To the freedom of Jerusalem". Back shows a lyre surrounded by "Year two to the freedom of Israel".]]
[[Judaism|Jewish religious belief]] holds that the [[Land of Israel]] is a [[God in Judaism|God]]-given inheritance of the Children of Israel based on the [[Torah]], particularly the books of [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] and [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], as well as on the later [[Nevi'im|Prophets]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Havrelock |first=Rachel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5tCIiwLQr2MC&pg=PA210 |title=River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-226-31957-5 |language=en |access-date=April 28, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181203/https://books.google.com/books?id=5tCIiwLQr2MC&pg=PA210#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Exodus 6:4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners |url=http://bible.cc/exodus/6-4.htm |access-date=2013-08-11 |publisher=Bible.cc |archive-date=January 21, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130121225925/http://bible.cc/exodus/6-4.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kallai |first=Zecharia |date=1997 |title=The Patriarchal Boundaries, Canaan and the Land of Israel: Patterns and Application in Biblical Historiography |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27926459 |journal=Israel Exploration Journal |volume=47 |issue=1/2 |pages=69–82 |issn=0021-2059 |jstor=27926459 |quote=The major problem is the intimate relationship of these boundaries to those of the Promised Land, notwithstanding an indubitable territorial disparity between them. A clear territorial distinction must be drawn between three concepts: 1) the patriarchal boundaries; 2) the land of Canaan; and 3) the land of Israel. Of these three, Canaan is the Promised Land, while the land of Israel, despite its partial territorial divergence, is the realization of this promise. The patriarchal boundaries, however, although closely linked with the promise of the land, patently differ from the other two delineations. |access-date=March 2, 2021 |archive-date=March 18, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220318195102/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27926459 |url-status=live }}</ref> According to the Book of Genesis, [[Canaan]] was first promised to [[Abraham]]'s descendants; the text is explicit that this is a [[Biblical covenants|covenant]] between God and Abraham for his descendants.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gen 15:18–21; NIV; On that day the LORD made a covenant |url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen%2015:18%E2%80%9321;&version=NIV; |access-date=2013-08-11 |publisher=Bible Gateway |archive-date=October 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131022224058/http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen%2015:18%E2%80%9321;&version=NIV; |url-status=live }}</ref> The belief that God had assigned Canaan to the Israelites as a Promised Land is also conserved in Christian<ref>Walter C. Kaiser, http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/01-genesis/text/articles-books/kaiser_promisedland_bsac.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226093134/https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Kaiser_PromisedLand_BSac.pdf|date=February 26, 2021}} 'The Promised Land: A Biblical–Historical View,' Biblioteca Sacra 138 (1981)  pp. 302–312 [[Dallas Theological College]].</ref> and Islamic traditions.<ref>''Between Bible and Qurʾān: The Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-Image'' Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 17, (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1999), 57 f.</ref>

Among Jews in the diaspora, the Land of Israel was revered in a cultural, national, ethnic, historical, and religious sense. They thought of a return to it in a future [[Messianic Age#Judaism|messianic age]].<ref>Taylor, A.R., 1971, ''Vision and intent in Zionist Thought'', pp. 10, 11</ref> The Return to Zion remained a recurring theme among generations, particularly in [[Passover]] and [[Yom Kippur]] prayers, which traditionally concluded with "[[L'Shana Haba'ah|Next year in Jerusalem]]", and in the thrice-daily [[Amidah]] (Standing prayer).<ref>"Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 11:12) Blessed are you, O Lord, Who gathers in the dispersed of His people Israel."</ref> The biblical prophecy of [[Gathering of Israel|''Kibbutz Galuyot'']], the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel as foretold by the [[Nevi'im|Prophets]], became a central idea in Zionism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Halamish |first=Aviva |date=2008 |title=Zionist Immigration Policy Put to the Test: Historical analysis of Israel's immigration policy, 1948–1951 |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725880802124164 |journal=Journal of Modern Jewish Studies |language=en |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=119–134 |doi=10.1080/14725880802124164 |issn=1472-5886 |s2cid=143008924 |quote=A number of factors motivated Israel's open immigration policy. First of all, open immigration—the ingathering of the exiles in the historic Jewish homeland—had always been a central component of Zionist ideology and constituted the raison d'etre of the State of Israel. The ingathering of the exiles (kibbutz galuyot) was nurtured by the government and other agents as a national ethos, the consensual and prime focus that united Jewish Israeli society after the War of Independence |access-date=May 7, 2022 |archive-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220113034020/http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725880802124164 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shohat |first=Ella |date=2003 |title=Rupture and Return: Zionist Discourse and the Study of Arab Jews |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/43731 |journal=Social Text |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=49–74 |doi=10.1215/01642472-21-2_75-49 |issn=1527-1951 |s2cid=143908777 |quote=Central to Zionist thinking was the concept of Kibbutz Galuiot—the "ingathering of the exiles." Following two millennia of homelessness and living presumably "outside of history," Jews could once again "enter history" as subjects, as "normal" actors on the world stage by returning to their ancient birth place, Eretz Israel |access-date=May 7, 2022 |archive-date=March 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304013021/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/43731 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Russell, C. T., Gordon, H. L., & America, P. P. F. O. (1917). Zionism in Prophecy. ''Reprinted in Pastor Russell's Sermons. Brooklyn, NY: International Bible Students Association''.</ref>

===Pre-Zionist initiatives===
{{See also|Aliyah#Middle_Ages}}
{{Synthesis|date=February 2024}}
[[File:RoyLindmanAbuhav1.jpg|thumb|The [[Abuhav synagogue]], established by Sephardic Jews in [[Safed]] in the 15th century<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Abuhav Synagogue|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-abuhav-synagogue|access-date=2023-03-10|website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org|archive-date=March 10, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310045628/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-abuhav-synagogue|url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=May 2022}}]]

Pre-Zionist resettlement in Palestine met with various degrees of success. In late antiquity, many Babylonian Jews immigrated to centers of religious study in the Land of Israel.<ref>''The Jerusalem Cathedra: Studies in the History, Archaeology, Geography and Ethnography of the Land of Israel'', "Aliya from Babylonia During the Amoraic Period (200–500 AD)", Joshua Schwartz, pp.58–69, ed. Lee Levine, 1983, Yad Izhak Ben Zvi & Wayne State University Press</ref> In the 10th century, leaders of the [[Karaite Judaism|Karaite]] Jewish community, mostly living under Persian rule, urged their followers to settle in the Land of Israel, where they established their own quarter in [[Jerusalem]].<ref>''The Jerusalem Cathedra: Studies in the History, Archaeology, Geography and Ethnography of the Land of Israel'', "Aliya and Pilgrimage in the Early Arab Period (634–1009)", Moshe Gil, 1983, Yad Izhak Ben Zvi & Wayne State University Press</ref>

The number of Jews migrating to the land of Israel rose significantly between the 13th and 19th centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in [[religious persecution]], including the [[Edict of Expulsion|expulsion of Jews from England]] (1290), France (1391), [[History of the Jews in Austria|Austria]] (1421), and [[History of the Jews in Spain|Spain]] (the [[Alhambra decree]] of 1492).<ref>{{cite web |title=יהדות הגולה והכמיהה לציון, 1840–1240 |url=http://www.tchelet.org.il/article.php?id=203 |date=2008-08-02 |work=Tchelet |access-date=2012-03-19 |archive-date=2022-04-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407075612/https://tchelet.org.il/article.php?id=203 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In the middle of the 16th century, the Portuguese Sephardi [[Joseph Nasi]], with the support of the Ottoman Empire, tried to gather the Portuguese Jews, first to migrate to [[Cyprus]], then owned by the Republic of Venice, and later to resettle in Tiberias. Nasi—who never converted to Islam<ref name="Baer-2011">{{Cite book|last=Baer|first=Marc David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CIPR5L5SAtYC&pg=PA137|title=Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-199-79783-7|location=New York|oclc=657455452|page=137|quote=Hatice Turhan’s insistence on conversion mitigated any educational edge Jewish physicians had over others. In contrast to the mid-sixteenth century, when Jews such as Joseph Nasi rose to the highest medical post in the empire and played an active role at the Ottoman court while remaining practicing Jews, and even convinced Suleiman to intervene with the pope on behalf of Portuguese Jews who were Ottoman subjects imprisoned in Ancona, the leading physicians at court in the mid-to late seventeenth century such as Hayatizade and Nuh Efendi had to be converted Jews.|access-date=May 29, 2022|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707010525/https://books.google.com/books?id=CIPR5L5SAtYC&pg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Graf|first=Tobias P.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NukwDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT244|title=The Sultan's Renegades : Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite: 1575–1610|date=2017|isbn=978-0-19-250903-1|edition=|location=Oxford|oclc=975125193|pages=178–179|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote=(Nasi) settled in the Ottoman Empire where he openly returned to Judaism.|access-date=May 29, 2022|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181420/https://books.google.com/books?id=NukwDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT244#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>—eventually obtained the highest medical position in the empire, and actively participated in court life. He convinced Suleiman I to intervene with the Pope on behalf of Ottoman-subject Portuguese Jews imprisoned in Ancona.<ref name="Baer-2011"/>

In the 17th century [[Sabbatai Zevi]] (1626–1676) announced himself as the Messiah and gained many Jews to his side, forming a base in Salonika. He first tried to establish a settlement in Gaza, but moved later to [[Smyrna]]. After deposing the old rabbi [[Aaron Lapapa]] in the spring of 1666, the Jewish community of [[Avignon, France]], prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Shabbethai Ẓebi B. Mordecai – JewishEncyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13480-shabbethai-zebi-b-mordecai|access-date=2023-03-10|website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326032858/https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13480-shabbethai-zebi-b-mordecai|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the early 19th century, a group of Jews known as the ''[[perushim]]'' left Lithuania to settle in [[Ottoman Palestine]].

===Establishment of the Zionist movement===
In the 19th century, a current in Judaism supporting a [[return to Zion]] grew in popularity,<ref>{{Cite web|date=2003-04-06|title=LDS Church History|url=http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/0,15478,3900-1,00.html#FlashPluginDetected|access-date=2023-03-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030406002351/http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/0,15478,3900-1,00.html#FlashPluginDetected |archive-date=April 6, 2003}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=February 2024}} particularly in Europe, where antisemitism and hostility toward Jews were growing. The idea of returning to Palestine was rejected by the conferences of rabbis held in that epoch. Individual efforts supported the emigration of groups of Jews to Palestine, [[Aliyah#19th century|pre-Zionist Aliyah]], even before the [[First Zionist Congress]] in 1897, the year considered as the start of practical Zionism.<ref>C.D. Smith, 2001, ''Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict'', 4th ed., {{ISBN|978-0-312-20828-8}}, pp. 1–12, 33–38</ref>

[[Reform Judaism|Reform Jews]] rejected this idea of a return to Zion. The conference of rabbis held at [[Frankfurt am Main]] over July 15–28, 1845, deleted from the ritual all prayers for a return to Zion and a restoration of a Jewish state. The Philadelphia Conference, 1869, followed the lead of the German rabbis and decreed that the Messianic hope of Israel is "the union of all the children of God in the confession of the unity of God". In 1885 the [[Pittsburgh Platform|Pittsburgh Conference]] reiterated this interpretation of the Messianic idea of Reform Judaism, expressing in a resolution that "we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Zionism|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15268-zionism|access-date=2023-03-10|website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com|archive-date=March 10, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310045630/https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15268-zionism|url-status=live}}</ref>[[File:Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, Colonial Times 1841.jpg|thumb|"Memorandum to the Protestant Powers of the North of Europe and America", published in the ''[[Colonial Times]]'' (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia), in 1841]]Jewish settlements were proposed for establishment in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819.<ref>American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 8, p. 80</ref>

Moral but not practical efforts were made in [[Prague]] to organize a Jewish emigration, by [[Abraham Benisch]] and [[Moritz Steinschneider]] in 1835. In the United States, [[Mordecai Manuel Noah|Mordecai Noah]] attempted to establish a Jewish refuge opposite [[Buffalo, New York]], on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/Mordecai_Manuel_Noah_-Final.pdf|title=Major Noah: American Patriot, American Zionist|author=Jerry Klinger|publisher=[[Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation]] |access-date=May 12, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231234/http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/Mordecai_Manuel_Noah_-Final.pdf |archive-date=March 3, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=May 2015}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/completedprgms2/buffalonewyork.html|title=Mordecai Noah and St. Paul's Cathedral: An American Proto-Zionist Solution to the "Jewish Problem"|publisher=[[Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation]] |access-date=May 12, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311093639/http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/completedprgms2/buffalonewyork.html |archive-date=March 11, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Sir [[Moses Montefiore]], famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around the world, including the attempt to rescue [[Edgardo Mortara]], established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend [[Judah Touro]] bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem—today known as ''[[Mishkenot Sha'ananim]].'' [[Laurence Oliphant (author)|Laurence Oliphant]] failed in a like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882).

==== Theodor Herzl and the birth of modern political Zionism ====
The official beginning of the construction of the New Yishuv in Palestine is usually dated to the arrival of the [[Bilu (movement)|Bilu]] group in 1882, who commenced the [[First Aliyah]]. In the following years, Jewish immigration to Palestine started in earnest. Most [[Jewish refugees|immigrants]] came from the Russian Empire, escaping the frequent [[pogrom]]s and state-led persecution in what are now Ukraine and Poland.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} They founded a number of agricultural settlements with financial support from Jewish philanthropists in Western Europe. Additional Aliyahs followed the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]] and its eruption of violent pogroms. At the end of the 19th century, Jews were a small minority in Palestine.<ref>{{cite book |author=Benny Morris |title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 |publisher= |year= 2001 |isbn= |pages= }}</ref>

[[File:PikiWiki Israel 5628 Synagogue (cropped).jpg|thumb|The Great Synagogue of [[Rishon LeZion]] was founded in 1885.]]In the 1890s, Theodor Herzl (the father of political Zionism) infused Zionism with a new ideology and practical urgency, leading to the [[First Zionist Congress]] at [[Basel]] in 1897, which created the [[World Zionist Organization|Zionist Organization]] (<span class="ltr">ZO</span>), renamed in 1960 as [[World Zionist Organization]] (WZO).<ref>[http://fusion.dalmatech.com/%7Eadmin24/files/zionism_in-britishpalestine.pdf Zionism & The British In Palestine]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127070858/http://fusion.dalmatech.com/~admin24/files/zionism_in-britishpalestine.pdf |date=November 27, 2007 }}, by [[Arjun Charan Sethi|Sethi, Arjun]] (University of Maryland) January 2007, accessed May 20, 2007.</ref> In [[Der Judenstaat]], Herzl was explicit in mentioning that the "state of the Jews" could be established only with the support of a European power. He described the Jewish state as an "outpost of civilization against Barbarism". In separate writing, Herzl compared himself to [[Cecil Rhodes]], who was a strong supporter of British colonialist and imperialist ideologies.<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>{{rp|327}} {{Better source needed|date=June 2024}}

In 1896, Theodor Herzl expressed in {{Lang|de|[[Der Judenstaat]]}} his views on "the restoration of the Jewish state".<ref>Laqueur, W. (2009). ''A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel''. p. 84</ref> Herzl considered [[antisemitism]] to be an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and that only a sovereignty could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution: "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!" he proclaimed exposing his plan.<ref name="Herzl-1896" />{{rp|27, 29}}

==== Success and stumbles in Russia ====
Before World War I, although led by Austrian and German Jews, Zionism was primarily composed of Russian Jews.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Judaism: History, Belief, and Practice |publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=9781615305377 |editor-last=Stefon |editor-first=Matt |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=151 |language=en }}</ref> Initially, Zionists were a minority, both in Russia and worldwide.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Taylor |first=Alan R. |date=1974 |title=The Isolation of Israel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535926 |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=82–93 |doi=10.2307/2535926 |jstor=2535926 |issn=0377-919X |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124071247/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535926 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jeffery |first=Keith |date=1982 |editor-last=Monroe |editor-first=Elizabeth |editor2-last=Hardie |editor2-first=Frank |editor3-last=Herrman |editor3-first=Irwin |editor4-last=Andrew |editor4-first=Christopher M. |editor5-last=Kanya-Forstner |editor5-first=A. S. |editor6-last=Dockrill |editor6-first=Michael L. |editor7-last=Goold |editor7-first=J. Douglas |editor8-last=Darwin |editor8-first=John |editor9-last=Kenez |editor9-first=Peter |title=Great Power Rivalry in the Middle East |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638650 |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=1029–1038 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00021415 |jstor=2638650 |s2cid=162469637 |issn=0018-246X |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124071246/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638650 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |date=2007 |title=Another Forged 'Stalin Document' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20451399 |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=59 |issue=5 |pages=869–872 |doi=10.1080/09668130701377714 |jstor=20451399 |s2cid=154952224 |issn=0966-8136 |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231120070226/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20451399 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Gardner |title=Legacy of empire: Britain, Zionism and the creation of Israel |publisher=Saqi Books |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-86356-386-7 |location=London |language=en}}</ref> Russian Zionism quickly became a major force within the movement, making up about half the delegates at Zionist Congresses.<ref name="Goldstein-1986">{{Cite journal |last=Goldstein |first=J. |title=The Attitude of the Jewish and the Russian Intelligentsia to Zionism in the Initial Period (1897–1904) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4209355 |journal=The Slavonic and East European Review |publication-date=October 1986 |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=546–556 |jstor=4209355 |issn=0037-6795 |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124071248/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4209355 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Despite its success in attracting followers, Russian Zionism faced fierce opposition from the Russian intelligentsia across the political spectrum and socioeconomic classes. It was condemned by different groups as reactionary, messianic, and unrealistic, arguing that it would isolate Jews and exacerbate their circumstances rather than integrate them into European societies.<ref name="Goldstein-1986" /> Religious Jews such as Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum viewed in Zionism a desecration of their sacred beliefs and a Satanic plot, while others hardly thought it deserved serious attention.<ref name="Waxman-1987">{{Cite journal |last=Waxman |first=Chaim I. |title=Messianism, Zionism, and the State of Israel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396238 |journal=Modern Judaism |publication-date=May 1987 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=175–192 |doi=10.1093/mj/7.2.175 |jstor=1396238 |issn=0276-1114 |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124071251/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396238 |url-status=live }}</ref> For them, Zionism was seen as an attempt to defy the divine order to await the coming of the Messiah.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shapira |first=Anita |date=January 25, 2021 |title=Herzl Was the New Jew |url=https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2021/01/herzl-was-the-new-jew/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208173342/https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2021/01/herzl-was-the-new-jew/ |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |access-date=November 24, 2023 |website=[[Mosaic (magazine)|Mosaic]]}}</ref> However, many of these religious Jews still believed in the Messiah coming soon. For example, Rabbi Israel Meir Kahan "was so convinced of the imminent arrival of the Messiah that he urged his students to study the laws of the priesthood so that the priests would be prepared to carry out their duties when the Temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt."<ref name="Waxman-1987" />

Criticism was not limited to religious Jews. [[General Jewish Labour Bund|Bundist socialists]] and liberals of th''e Voskhod'' newspaper attacked Zionism for distracting from class struggle and blocking the path to Jewish emancipation in Russia, respectively.<ref name="Goldstein-1986" /> Figures like historian [[Simon Dubnow]] saw potential value in Zionism promoting Jewish identity but fundamentally rejected a Jewish state as messianic and unfeasible.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |year=2006 |isbn=9781593394912 |pages=305–306 |language=en}}</ref> They provided alternative emancipatory solutions, such as assimilation, emigration, and Diaspora nationalism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wiemer |first=Reinhard |title=The Theories of Nationalism and of Zionism in the First Decade of the State of Israel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4283170 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |publication-date=April 1987 |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=172–187 |doi=10.1080/00263208708700698 |jstor=4283170 |issn=0026-3206 |access-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124071252/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4283170 |url-status=live }}</ref> The opposition to Zionism, rooted in the intelligentsia's rationalist worldview, weakened its appeal among potential adherents like the Jewish working class and intelligentsia.<ref name="Goldstein-1986" /> Ultimately, the Russian intelligentsia was united in the view that Zionism was an aberrant ideology that ran counter to their beliefs in Jewish assimilation.

[[File:JewishChronicle1896.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Front page of ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]'', January 17, 1896, showing an article by Theodor Herzl, a month prior to the publication of his pamphlet {{Lang|de|[[Der Judenstaat]]}}]]
[[File:THEODOR HERZL AT THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS IN BASEL ON 25.8.1897. תאודור הרצל בקונגרס הציוני הראשון - 1897.8.25 (cropped).jpg|upright=1.35|right|thumb|The delegates at the First Zionist Congress, held in [[Basel]], Switzerland (1897)]]

==== Pre-state institutions ====
* [[World Zionist Organization|Zionist Organization]] (<span class="ltr">ZO</span>), est. 1897
** [[World Zionist Congress|Zionist Congress]] (est. 1897), the supreme organ of the ZO
** [[Palestine Office]] (est. 1908), the executive arm of the ZO in Palestine
** [[Jewish National Fund]] (JNF), est. 1901 to buy and develop land in Palestine
** [[Keren Hayesod]], est. 1920 to collect funds
** [[Jewish Agency]], est. 1929 as the worldwide operative branch of the ZO

==== Funding ====
The Zionist enterprise was mainly funded by major benefactors who made large contributions, sympathisers from Jewish communities across the world (see for instance the [[Jewish National Fund#JNF collection boxes|Jewish National Fund's collection boxes]]), and the settlers themselves. The movement established a bank for administering its finances, the Jewish Colonial Trust (est. 1888, incorporated in London in 1899). A local subsidiary was formed in 1902 in Palestine, the [[Anglo-Palestine Bank]].

A list of pre-state large contributors to Pre-Zionist and Zionist enterprises would include, alphabetically,
* [[Isaac Leib Goldberg]] (1860–1935), Zionist leader and philanthropist from Russia
* [[Maurice de Hirsch]] (1831–1896), German Jewish financier and philanthropist, founder of the Jewish Colonization Association
* [[Moses Montefiore]] (1784–1885), British Jewish banker and philanthropist in Britain and the Levant, initiator and financier of Proto-Zionism
* [[Edmond James de Rothschild]] (1845–1934), French Jewish banker and major donor of the Zionist project

====Pre-state paramilitary organizations====
A list of Jewish pre-state paramilitary and defense organisations in Palestine would include:
;Direct precursors of the IDF
* [[Bar-Giora (organization)|Bar-Giora]] (1907–1909)
* [[Hashomer]] (1909–1920)
* [[Haganah]] (1920–1948)
** [[Palmach]] (1941–1948)
'''Not sanctioned by central Zionist administration'''
* [[Irgun]] (1931–1948)
* [[Lehi (militant group)|Lehi]] (1940–1948)

;Unrelated
*[[Mahane Yehuda guards|Mahane Yehuda]], 'Judah's Camp', a mounted guards company founded by Michael Halperin in 1891<ref>{{cite web |title= The Israeli Flag (definitive stamp), 11/2010. Four Milestones in the History of the Flag: Nezz Ziona, 1891 |publisher= [[Israel Post]], The [[Israel Philatelic Service]] |url= https://services.israelpost.co.il/PostBoolaee.nsf/Allbulim/25823662C6A509C6C22577D100379ECC/$File/Israeli%20Flag.pdf |access-date= 22 January 2024 |archive-date= April 11, 2024 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240411104055/https://services.israelpost.co.il/PostBoolaee.nsf/Allbulim/25823662C6A509C6C22577D100379ECC/$File/Israeli%20Flag.pdf |url-status= live }}</ref> (see [[Ness Ziona#History|Ness Ziona]])
* [[HaNoter]], 'The Guard' (1912–1913),<ref>{{cite book |author= Goldstein, Jacob |title= From Fighters to Soldiers |year= 1998 |publisher=[[Sussex Academic Press]] |isbn= 1-902210-01-8 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=IyoYJquK-lsC&pg=PA58 |access-date= 2008-10-09}}</ref> distinct from the British Mandate-period [[Notrim]]<ref name="Hemmingby"/>
* [[HaMagen]], 'The Shield' (1915–1917)<ref name="Hemmingby">Hemmingby, Cato. [http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-28597 ''Conflict and Military Terminology: The Language of the Israel Defense Forces''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181627/https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/24378 |date=January 11, 2024 }}. Master's thesis, University of Oslo, 2011. Accessed January 8, 2021.</ref>

====Territories considered====
{{Main|Jewish territorialism|Proposals for a Jewish state}}
Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, there were several instances where some Zionist figures, including Herzl, considered a Jewish state in places outside Palestine, such as [[Uganda Scheme|"Uganda"]] (actually parts of [[British East Africa]] today in [[Kenya]]), [[Argentina]], [[Cyprus]], [[Mesopotamia]], [[Mozambique]], and the [[Sinai Peninsula]].<ref name="Adam Rovner-2014">{{cite book |author= Adam Rovner |title= In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ej_UBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 |year= 2014 |publisher= NYU Press |isbn= 978-1-4798-1748-1 |page= 45 |quote= European Jews swayed and prayed for Zion for nearly two millennia, and by the end of the nineteenth century their descendants had transformed liturgical longing into a political movement to create a Jewish national entity somewhere in the world. Zionism's prophet, Theodor Herzl, considered Argentina, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Mozambique, and the Sinai Peninsula as potential Jewish homelands. It took nearly a decade for Zionism to exclusively concentrate its spiritual yearning on the spatial coordinates of Ottoman Palestine.|access-date= March 16, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161117170246/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ej_UBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 |archive-date= November 17, 2016 |url-status= live}}</ref> Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, was initially content with any Jewish self-governed state.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Caryn S. Aviv|author2=David Shneer|title=New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kdBtob8RWEMC&q=zionism+uganda+argentina&pg=PA10|year=2005|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-4017-0|page=10|access-date=January 22, 2016|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181633/https://books.google.com/books?id=kdBtob8RWEMC&q=zionism+uganda+argentina&pg=PA10#v=snippet&q=zionism%20uganda%20argentina&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> Jewish settlement of Argentina was the project of [[Baron Maurice de Hirsch|Maurice de Hirsch]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hazony|first1=Yoram|title=The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul|date=2000|publisher=Basic Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-465-02902-0|page=150|edition=|quote=Recalling his views when he had written "The Jewish State" eight years earlier, he [Herzl] pointed out that at the time, he had openly been willing to consider building on Baron de Hirsch's beginning and establishing the Jewish state in Argentina. But those days were long gone.}}</ref> It is unclear if Herzl seriously considered this alternative plan,<ref>Friedman, M. (Motti) (2021). Theodor Herzl’s Zionist Journey – Exodus and Return. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 239–240</ref> however he later reaffirmed that Palestine would have greater attraction because of the historic ties of Jews with that area.<ref name="Herzl-1896">{{cite book|chapter-url=http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/pageview/938004|title=Der Judenstaat|chapter=Palästina oder Argentinien?|page=29 (<span class="ltr">31</span>)|first=Theodor|last=Herzl|language=de|publisher=sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de|year=1896|access-date=May 27, 2016|archive-date=August 25, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160825203024/http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/pageview/938004|url-status=live}}</ref>

A major concern and driving reason for considering other territories was the Russian pogroms, in particular the [[Kishinev pogrom|Kishinev]] massacre, and the resulting need for quick resettlement in a safer place.<ref>{{cite book |last= Hazony |first= Yoram |title= The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul |date= 2000 |publisher= Basic Books |location= New York |isbn= 978-0-465-02902-0 |page= 369 |edition= 1st |quote= Herzl decided to explore the East Africa proposal in the wake of the pogrom, writing to Nordau: "We must give an answer to Kishinev, and this is the only one...We must, in a word, play the politics of the hour."}}</ref>
However, other Zionists emphasized the memory, emotion and tradition linking Jews to the Land of Israel.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Caryn S. Aviv|author2=David Shneer|title=New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora|year=2005|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-4017-0|page=10 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=kdBtob8RWEMC&q=Jews+should+be+able+to+live+anywhere+in+the+world+theodor+herzl&pg=PA10 |access-date= January 22, 2016 |archive-date= January 11, 2024 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181736/https://books.google.com/books?id=kdBtob8RWEMC&q=Jews+should+be+able+to+live+anywhere+in+the+world+theodor+herzl&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q=Jews%20should%20be%20able%20to%20live%20anywhere%20in%20the%20world%20theodor%20herzl&f=false |url-status= live}}</ref> [[Mount Zion|Zion]] became the name of the movement, after the place where King David established his kingdom, following his conquest of the Jebusite fortress there ({{bibleverse|2 Samuel| 5:7}}, {{bibleverse|1 Kings| 8:1}}). The name Zion was synonymous with Jerusalem. Palestine only became Herzl's main focus after his Zionist manifesto '[[Der Judenstaat]]' was published in 1896, but even then he was hesitant to focus efforts solely on resettlement in Palestine when speed was of the essence.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lilly Weissbrod|title=Israeli Identity: In Search of a Successor to the Pioneer, Tsabar and Settler|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ES2iAwAAQBAJ&q=and+even+then+he+was+hesitant.+After+weighing+in+the+pros+and+cons+of+Palestine+and+Argentina+he+decided+in+favor+of+the+former+because+of+its+historic+meaning+to+the+Jews&pg=PA13|access-date=January 22, 2016|year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-29386-4|page=13|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181743/https://books.google.com/books?id=ES2iAwAAQBAJ&q=and+even+then+he+was+hesitant.+After+weighing+in+the+pros+and+cons+of+Palestine+and+Argentina+he+decided+in+favor+of+the+former+because+of+its+historic+meaning+to+the+Jews&pg=PA13#v=snippet&q=and%20even%20then%20he%20was%20hesitant.%20After%20weighing%20in%20the%20pros%20and%20cons%20of%20Palestine%20and%20Argentina%20he%20decided%20in%20favor%20of%20the%20former%20because%20of%20its%20historic%20meaning%20to%20the%20Jews&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1903, British Colonial Secretary [[Joseph Chamberlain]] offered Herzl {{convert|5,000|sqmi|km2}} in the [[Uganda Protectorate]] for Jewish settlement in Great Britain's East African colonies.<ref name="Robert J. Littman-2005">{{cite book|author1=Naomi E. Pasachoff|author2=Robert J. Littman|title=A Concise History of the Jewish People|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z4eaj09hscAC&pg=PA240|year=2005|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-4366-9|pages=240–242|access-date=February 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170219222816/https://books.google.com/books?id=z4eaj09hscAC&pg=PA240|archive-date=February 19, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Herzl accepted to evaluate Joseph Chamberlain's proposal,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofisraeli00tess_0|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofisraeli00tess_0/page/55 55]|first=Mark A.|last=Tessler|title=A History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1994|quote=The suggestion that Uganda might be suitable for Jewish colonization was first put forward by Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, who said that he had thought about Herzl during a recent visit to the interior of British East Africa. Herzl, who at that time had been discussing with the British a scheme for Jewish settlement in Sinai, responded positively to Chamberlain's proposal, in part because of a desire to deepen Zionist-British cooperaion and, more generally to show that his diplomatic efforts were capable of bearing fruit. |access-date=June 22, 2016|isbn=978-0-253-20873-6}}</ref>{{rp|55–56}} and it was introduced the same year to the World Zionist Organization's Congress at its [[Sixth Zionist Congress|sixth]] meeting, where a fierce debate ensued. Some groups felt that accepting the scheme would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], the African land was described as an "[[Antechamber|ante-chamber]] to the Holy Land". It was decided to send a commission to investigate the proposed land by 295 to 177 votes, with 132 abstaining. The following year, Congress sent a delegation to inspect the plateau. A temperate climate due to its high elevation, was thought to be suitable for European settlement. However, the area was populated by a large number of [[Maasai people|Maasai]], who did not seem to favour an influx of Europeans. Furthermore, the delegation found it to be filled with [[lion]]s and other animals.

After Herzl died in 1904, the Congress decided on the fourth day of its seventh session in July 1905 to decline the British offer and, according to Adam Rovner, "direct all future settlement efforts solely to Palestine".<ref name="Robert J. Littman-2005"/><ref name="Adam Rovner-2014a"/> [[Israel Zangwill]]'s [[Jewish Territorialist Organization]] aimed for a Jewish state anywhere, having been established in 1903 in response to the Uganda Scheme. It was supported by a number of the Congress's delegates. Following the vote, which had been proposed by [[Max Nordau]], Zangwill charged Nordau that he "will be charged before the bar of history," and his supporters blamed the Russian voting bloc of [[Menachem Ussishkin]] for the outcome of the vote.<ref name="Adam Rovner-2014a">{{cite book|author=Adam Rovner|title=In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ej_UBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45|year=2014|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-1-4798-1748-1|page=81|quote=On the afternoon of the fourth day of the Congress a weary Nordau brought three resolutions before the delegates: (<span class="ltr">1</span>) that the Zionist Organization direct all future settlement efforts solely to Palestine; (<span class="ltr">2</span>) that the Zionist Organization thank the British government for its other of an autonomous territory in East Africa; and (<span class="ltr">3</span>) that only those Jews who declare their allegiance to the Basel Program may become members of the Zionist Organization." Zangwill objected... When Nordau insisted on the Congress's right to pass the resolutions regardless, Zangwill was outraged. "You will be charged before the bar of history," he challenged Nordau... From approximately 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 30, 1905, a Zionist would henceforth he defined as someone who adhered to the Basel Program and the only "authentic interpretation" of that program restricted settlement activity exclusively to Palestine. Zangwill and his supporters could not accept Nordau's "authentic interpretation" which they believed would lead to an abandonment of the Jewish masses and of Herzl's vision. One territorialist claimed that Ussishkin's voting bloc had in fact "buried political Zionism".|access-date=March 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117170246/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ej_UBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45|archive-date=November 17, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

The subsequent departure of the JTO from the Zionist Organization had little impact.<ref name="Robert J. Littman-2005"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Lawrence J. Epstein|title=The Dream of Zion: The Story of the First Zionist Congress|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OLxnCgAAQBAJ&q=uganda+zionist+maasai+lions&pg=PA97|year=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4422-5467-1|page=97|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181634/https://books.google.com/books?id=OLxnCgAAQBAJ&q=uganda+zionist+maasai+lions&pg=PA97#v=snippet&q=uganda%20zionist%20maasai%20lions&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Paul R. Mendes-Flohr|author2=Jehuda Reinharz|title=The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Bu5GnLZCw0C&q=jewish+zionist+territorial+organization&pg=PA552|access-date=January 22, 2016|year=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507453-6|page=552|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181911/https://books.google.com/books?id=0Bu5GnLZCw0C&q=jewish+zionist+territorial+organization&pg=PA552#v=snippet&q=jewish%20zionist%20territorial%20organization&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Zionist Socialist Workers Party]] was also an organization that favored the idea of a Jewish territorial autonomy outside of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref>Ėstraĭkh, G. ''In Harness: Yiddish Writers' Romance with Communism. Judaic traditions in literature, music, and art.'' [[Syracuse, New York]]: Syracuse University Press, 2005. p. 30</ref>

As an alternative to Zionism, [[Soviet]] (USSR) authorities established a [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] in 1934, which remains extant as the only autonomous oblast of Russia.<ref>{{cite book|author=Masha Gessen|title=Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j3YkCwAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8052-4341-3}}</ref>

According to Elaine Hagopian, in the early decades it foresaw the homeland of the Jews as extending not only over the region of Palestine, but into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, with its borders more or less coinciding with the major riverine and water-rich areas of the Levant.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hagopian|first=Elaine C.|date=2016|title=The Primacy of Water in the Zionist Project|journal=Arab Studies Quarterly|volume=38|issue=4|pages=700–708|doi=10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0700|jstor=10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0700|issn=0271-3519|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine===
{{main|Balfour Declaration|Mandate for Palestine}}
[[File:Palestine claimed by WZO 1919.png|thumb|right|Palestine as claimed by the World Zionist Organization in 1919 at the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]]]]
Lobbying by Russian Jewish immigrant Chaim Weizmann, together with fear that [[American Jews]] would encourage the US to support Germany in the war against Russia, culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917. <!--Explain - how was this a result?-->

It endorsed the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as follows:
{{blockquote|His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.<ref>{{cite book| author-link=Malcolm Yapp|last=Yapp|first=M.E.|title=The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923|date=September 1, 1987|publisher=Longman|location=Harlow, England|isbn=978-0-582-49380-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/makingofmodern00yapp/page/290 290]|url=https://archive.org/details/makingofmodern00yapp/page/290}}</ref>}}

[[File:King Crane Commission 1919 Summary of Arguments Presented to the Commission For and Against Zionism.jpg|thumb|left|During the [[1919 Paris Peace Conference]], an [[King–Crane Commission|Inter-Allied Commission]] was sent to Palestine to assess the views of the local population; the report summarized the arguments received from petitioners for and against Zionism.]]
In 1922, the [[League of Nations]] adopted the declaration, and granted to Britain the Palestine Mandate:

{{blockquote|The Mandate will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home ... and the development of self-governing institutions, and also safeguard the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stateofisrael.com/mandate|title=League of Nations Palestine Mandate: July 24, 1922|website=stateofisrael.com|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171113040457/http://stateofisrael.com/mandate/|archive-date=November 13, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the Zionist movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948, and then was elected as the first [[President of Israel]] after the nation gained independence.

A number of high-level representatives of the international Jewish women's community participated in the [[First World Congress of Jewish Women]], which was held in [[Vienna]], Austria, in May 1923. One of the main resolutions was: "It appears ... to be the duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/international-council-of-jewish-women|title=International Council of Jewish Women|author=Las, Nelly|publisher=International Council of Jewish Women|access-date=November 20, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001141150/https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/international-council-of-jewish-women|archive-date=October 1, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1927, [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] [[Judaism|Jew]] [[Yitzhak Lamdan]] wrote an [[epic poem]] titled ''Masada'' to reflect the plight of the Jews, calling for a "last stand".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lamdan|first1=Yitzhak|title=Masada|date=1927}}</ref>

=== Nazism and the Holocaust ===
In 1933, [[Adolf Hitler]] came to power in Germany, and in 1935 the [[Nuremberg Laws]] made [[German Jews]] (and later [[Anschluss|Austrian]] and [[Czech Jews]]) stateless refugees. Similar rules were applied by the many [[Axis powers|Nazi allies]] in Europe. The subsequent growth in Jewish migration fostered the [[1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine]]. Britain established the [[Peel Commission]] to investigate the situation. The commission called for a two-state solution and compulsory [[Population transfer|transfer of populations]]. The Arabs opposed the partition plan and Britain later rejected this solution and instead implemented the [[White Paper of 1939]]. This planned to end Jewish immigration by 1944 and to allow no more than 75,000 additional Jewish migrants. At the end of the five-year period in 1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been utilized, and the British offered to allow immigration to continue beyond cutoff date of 1944, at a rate of 1500 per month, until the remaining quota was filled.<ref name="Kochavi-1998" /><ref>Study (June 30, 1978): [https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/AEAC80E740C782E4852561150071FDB0 The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem Part I: 1917–1947] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181129203640/https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/AEAC80E740C782E4852561150071FDB0 |date=November 29, 2018 }}, access-date: November 10, 2018</ref> According to Arieh Kochavi, at the end of the war, the Mandatory Government had 10,938 certificates remaining and gives more details about government policy at the time.<ref name="Kochavi-1998">{{cite journal|title=The Struggle against Jewish Immigration to Palestine|last=Kochavi|first=Arieh J.|year=1998|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|volume=34|issue=3|pages=146–167|jstor=4283956|doi=10.1080/00263209808701236}}</ref> The British maintained the policies of the 1939 White Paper until the end of the Mandate.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Palestine Conference (Government Policy) (Hansard, 18 February 1947)|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/feb/18/palestine-conference-government-policy|access-date=2023-03-10|website=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]]|quote=We have, therefore, reached the conclusion that the only course now open to us is to submit the problem to the judgment of the United Nations ... <br />[[Barnett Janner, Baron Janner|Mr. Janner]] Pending the remitting of this question to the United Nations, are we to understand that the Mandate stands. and that we shall deal with the situation of immigration and land restrictions on the basis of the terms of the Mandate, and that the White Paper of 1939 will be abolished? ... <br />[[Ernest Bevin|Mr. Bevin]] No, Sir. We have not found a substitute yet for that White Paper, and up to the moment, whether it is right or wrong, the House is committed to it. That is the legal position. We did, by arrangement and agreement, extend the period of immigration which would have terminated in December, 1945. Whether there will be any further change, my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, who, of course, is responsible for the administration of the policy, will be considering later.|archive-date=October 12, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012111704/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/feb/18/palestine-conference-government-policy|date=18 February 1947|url-status=live}}</ref>
{|class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:16px;"
|+ Population of Palestine by ethno-religious groups, excluding nomads, from the 1946 Survey of Palestine<ref>Survey of Palestine (1946), Vol I, Chapter VI, p. 141 and Supplement to Survey of Palestine (1947), p. 10.</ref>
|-
! style="width:50px;"|Year
! style="width:60px;"|[[Islam in Palestine|Muslims]]
! style="width:60px;"|[[Yishuv|Jews]]
! style="width:60px;"|[[Palestinian Christians|Christians]]
! style="width:60px;"|Others
! style="width:50px;"|Total Settled
|- style="text-align:right;"
||1922
||486,177 ''(74.9%)''
||83,790 ''(12.9%)''
||71,464 ''(11.0%)''
||7,617 ''(1.2%)''
||649,048
|- style="text-align:right;"
||1931
||693,147 ''(71.7%)''
||174,606 ''(18.1%)''
||88,907 ''(9.2%)''
||10,101 ''(1.0%)''
||966,761
|- style="text-align:right;"
||1941
||906,551 ''(59.7%)''
||474,102 ''(31.2%)''
||125,413 ''(8.3%)''
||12,881 ''(0.8%)''
||1,518,947
|- style="text-align:right;"
||1946
||1,076,783 ''(58.3%)''
||608,225 ''(33.0%)''
||145,063 ''(7.9%)''
||15,488 ''(0.8%)''
||1,845,559
|}
The growth of the Jewish community in Palestine and the devastation of European Jewish life sidelined the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The Jewish Agency for Palestine under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion increasingly dictated policy with support from American Zionists who provided funding and influence in Washington, D.C., including via the [[American Palestine Committee]].{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} In 1938, Ben-Gurion argued that a significant source of fear for Zionists was the defensive political strength of the Palestinian position, stating:<ref>[[Simha Flapan|Flapan, Simha]] (1979), ''Zionism and the Palestinians''. London: [[Croom Helm]], pp. 141–142.</ref>
<blockquote>A people which fights against the usurpation of its land will not tire so easily. ... When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves — this is only half the truth. ... [<span class="ltr">P</span>]olitically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.</blockquote>

[[File:Declaration of State of Israel 1948 2.jpg|thumb|[[David Ben-Gurion]] proclaiming Israel's independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl]]

During World War II, as the horrors of [[the Holocaust]] became known, the Zionist leadership formulated the [[One Million Plan]], a reduction from Ben-Gurion's previous target of two million immigrants. Following the end of the war, many [[Sh'erit ha-Pletah|stateless refugees]], mainly [[Holocaust survivors]], began [[Aliyah Bet|migrating to Palestine]] in small boats in defiance of British rules. The Holocaust united much of the rest of world Jewry behind the Zionist project.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Johnson|first=Paul|title=The Miracle|journal=Commentary|date=May 1998|volume=105|pages=21–28}}</ref> The British either [[Cyprus internment camps|imprisoned these Jews in Cyprus]] or [[sS Exodus|sent them]] to the British-controlled [[Allied Occupation Zones in Germany]]. The British, having faced Arab revolts, were now facing opposition by [[British–Zionist conflict|Zionist groups in Palestine]] for subsequent restrictions on Jewish immigration. In January 1946 the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint [[United Kingdom–United States relations|British and American]] committee, was tasked to examine political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine and the well-being of the peoples now living there; to consult representatives of Arabs and Jews, and to make other recommendations 'as necessary' for an interim handling of these problems as well as for their eventual solution.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Avalon Project – Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry – Preface|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angpre.asp|access-date=2023-03-10|website=avalon.law.yale.edu|archive-date=August 7, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807185116/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angpre.asp|url-status=live}}</ref> Following the failure of the [[London Conference of 1946–47|1946–47 London Conference on Palestine]], at which the United States refused to support the British leading to both the [[Morrison–Grady Plan]] and the [[Bevin Plan]] being rejected by all parties, the British decided to refer the question to the UN on February 14, 1947.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ravndal|first1=Ellen Jenny|title=Exit Britain: British Withdrawal From the Palestine Mandate in the Early Cold War, 1947–1948|journal=Diplomacy & Statecraft|volume=21|issue=3|year=2010|pages=416–433|issn=0959-2296|doi=10.1080/09592296.2010.508409|s2cid=153662650}}</ref>{{refn|group=fn|The reasons for this decision were explained by His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in a speech to the House of Commons on February 18, 1947, in which he said:<br />
"His Majesty's Government have been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles. There are in Palestine about 1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews. For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine. The discussions of the last month have quite clearly shown that there is no prospect of resolving this conflict by any settlement negotiated between the parties. But if the conflict has to be resolved by an arbitrary decision, that is not a decision which His Majesty's Government are empowered, as Mandatory, to take. His Majesty's Government have of themselves no power, under the terms of the Mandate, to award the country either to the Arabs or to the Jews, or even to partition it between them."}}

===Post-World War II===
[[File:1948 Arab Israeli War - May 15-June 10.svg|thumb|Arab offensive at the beginning of the [[1948 Arab-Israeli war]]]]
With the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the USSR]] in 1941, Stalin reversed his long-standing opposition to Zionism, and tried to mobilize worldwide Jewish support for the Soviet war effort. A Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in Moscow. Many thousands of Jewish refugees fled the Nazis and entered the Soviet Union during the war, where they reinvigorated Jewish religious activities and opened new synagogues.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hiroaki Kuromiya|title=Stalin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BRV4AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA193 |year=2013|publisher=Routledge|page=193|isbn=978-1-317-86780-7 |access-date=June 16, 2018|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181912/https://books.google.com/books?id=BRV4AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> In May 1947 Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister [[Andrei Gromyko]] told the United Nations that the USSR supported the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The USSR formally voted that way in the UN in November 1947.<ref>{{cite book|author=P. Mendes|title=Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2vAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA107 |year=2014|publisher=Springer|page=107 |isbn=978-1-137-00830-5|access-date=June 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506225555/https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2vAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA107|archive-date=May 6, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> However once Israel was established, Stalin reversed positions, favoured the Arabs, arrested the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and launched attacks on Jews in the USSR.<ref>Gabriel Gorodetsky, "The Soviet Union's role in the creation of the state of Israel." ''Journal of Israeli History'' 22.1 (2003): 4–20.</ref>

In 1947, the [[UN Special Committee on Palestine]] recommended that western Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a UN-controlled territory, [[Corpus separatum (Jerusalem)|''Corpus separatum'', around Jerusalem]].<ref>United Nations Special Committee on Palestine; report to the General Assembly, A/364, September 3, 1947</ref> This [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|partition plan]] was adopted on November 29, 1947, with UN GA Resolution 181, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote led to celebrations in Jewish communities and protests in Arab communities throughout Palestine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,934119,00.html|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120604204421/http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,934119,00.html |title=Extracts from Time Magazine of that time|archivedate=4 June 2012}}</ref> Violence throughout the country, previously an [[1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine|Arab]] and [[Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine|Jewish insurgency against the British]], Jewish-Arab [[communal violence]], spiralled into the [[1947–1949 Palestine war]]. [[List of estimates of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight|According to various assessments of the UN]], the conflict led to an [[1948 Palestinian exodus|exodus]] of 711,000 to 957,000 [[Palestinian people|Palestinian Arabs]],<ref>[https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/93037E3B939746DE8525610200567883 General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the period from December 11, 1949 to October 23, 1950] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140520201651/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/93037E3B939746DE8525610200567883 |date=May 20, 2014}}, (doc.nr. A/1367/Rev.1); October 23, 1950</ref> outside of Israel's territories. More than a quarter had already fled during the [[1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine]], before the [[Israeli Declaration of Independence]] and the outbreak of the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]]. After the [[1949 Armistice Agreements]], [[Land and Property laws in Israel#The 'Absentees Property Law'|a series of laws]] passed by the first Israeli government prevented [[Palestinian refugees|displaced Palestinians]] from claiming private property or returning on the state's territories. They and many of their descendants remain [[Palestinian refugees|refugees]] supported by [[UNRWA]].<ref>Kodmani-Darwish, p. 126; Féron, Féron, p. 94.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=87|title=United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East |publisher=UNRWA|date=January 7, 2015 |access-date=January 22, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906121016/http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=87 |archive-date=September 6, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Op Magic Carpet (Yemenites).jpg|thumb|Yemenite Jews on their way to Israel during [[Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)|Operation Magic Carpet]]]]
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the World Zionist Organization has functioned mainly as an organization dedicated to assisting and encouraging Jews to migrate to Israel. It has provided political support for Israel in other countries but plays little role in internal Israeli politics. The movement's major success since 1948 was in providing logistical support for Jewish migrants and refugees and, most importantly, in assisting [[Soviet Jews]] in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the USSR and to practice their religion in freedom, and the [[Jewish exodus from Arab lands|exodus of 850,000 Jews]] from the Arab world, mostly to Israel. In 1944–45, Ben-Gurion described the [[One Million Plan]] to foreign officials as being the "primary goal and top priority of the Zionist movement."{{sfn|Hacohen|1991|p=262 #2|ps=:"In meetings with foreign officials at the end of 1944 and during 1945, Ben-Gurion cited the plan to enable one million refugees to enter Palestine immediately as the primary goal and top priority of the Zionist movement.}} The immigration restrictions of the British White Paper of 1939 meant that such a plan could not be put into large scale effect until the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948. The new country's immigration policy had some opposition within the new Israeli government, such as those who argued that there was "no justification for organizing large-scale emigration among Jews whose lives were not in danger, particularly when the desire and motivation were not their own"{{sfn|Hakohen|2003|p=46|ps=: "After independence, the government presented the Knesset with a plan to double the Jewish population within four years. This meant bringing in 600,000 immigrants in a four-year period. or 150,000 per year. Absorbing 150,000 newcomers annually under the trying conditions facing the new state was a heavy burden indeed. Opponents in the Jewish Agency and the government of mass immigration argued that there was no justification for organizing large-scale emigration among Jews whose lives were not in danger, particularly when the desire and motivation were not their own."}} as well as those who argued that the absorption process caused "undue hardship".{{sfn|Hakohen|2003|p=246–247|ps=: "Both the immigrants' dependence and the circumstances of their arrival shaped the attitude of the host society. The great wave of immigration in 1948 did not occur spontaneously: it was the result of a clear-cut foreign policy decision that taxed the country financially and necessitated a major organizational effort. Many absorption activists, Jewish Agency executives, and government officials opposed unlimited, nonselective immigration; they favored a gradual process geared to the country's absorptive capacity. Throughout this period, two charges resurfaced at every public debate: one, that the absorption process caused undue hardship; two, that Israel's immigration policy was misguided."}} However, the force of Ben-Gurion's influence and insistence ensured that his immigration policy was carried out.{{sfn|Hakohen|2003|p=47|ps=: "But as head of the government, entrusted with choosing the cabinet and steering its activities, Ben-Gurion had tremendous power over the country's social development. His prestige soared to new heights after the founding of the state and the impressive victory of the IDF in the War of Independence. As prime minister and minister of defense in Israel's first administration, as well as the uncontested leader of the country's largest political party, his opinions carried enormous weight. Thus, despite resistance from some of his cabinet members, he remained unflagging in his enthusiasm for unrestricted mass immigration and resolved to put this policy into effect."}}{{sfn|Hakohen|2003|p=247|ps=: "On several occasions, resolutions were passed to limit immigration from European and Arab countries alike. However, these limits were never put into practice, mainly due to the opposition of Ben-Gurion. As a driving force in the emergency of the state, Ben-Gurion—both prime minister and minister of defense—carried enormous weight with his veto. His insistence on the right of every Jew to immigrate proved victorious. He would not allow himself to be swayed by financial or other considerations. It was he who orchestrated the large-scale action that enabled the Jews to leave Eastern Europe and Islamic countries, and it was he who effectively forged Israel's foreign policy. Through a series of clandestine activities carried out overseas by the Foreign Office, the Jewish Agency, the Mossad le-Aliyah, and the Joint Distribution Committee, the road was paved for mass immigration."}}

== Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict ==
The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine in the late 19th century is widely seen as the start of the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]].<ref name="Masalha-2012"/>{{rp|70}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Efraim Karsh|title=The Arab-Israeli Conflict|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=00dTMFWXAOIC&pg=PA|year=2009|publisher=Rosen Pub.|isbn=978-1-4042-1842-0|pages=12|access-date=April 27, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707011026/https://books.google.com/books?id=00dTMFWXAOIC&pg=PA#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Benny Morris|title=1948|date=October 2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CC7381HrLqcC&pg=PA|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-14524-3|pages=1|access-date=January 27, 2024|archive-date=March 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311004654/https://books.google.com/books?id=CC7381HrLqcC&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref> In response to Ben-Gurion's 1938 quote that "politically we are the aggressors and they [the Palestinians] defend themselves", Israeli historian [[Benny Morris]] says, "Ben-Gurion, of course, was right. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement", and that "Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist." Morris describes the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine as necessarily displacing and dispossessing the Arab population.<ref name="Morris-2001">{{cite book |author=Morris |first=Benny |title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 |publisher= |year=2001 |isbn= |pages=}}</ref>
The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish and Arab region was a fundamental issue for the Zionist movement.<ref name="Morris-2001" /> Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or [[ethnic cleansing]], of the Arab Palestinian population.{{refn|group=fn|Nur Masalha ''The Palestine Nakba'' 2012 p. 28: "In the 1930s and 1940s the Zionist leadership found it expedient to euphemise, using the term ‘transfer’ or ha‘avarah — the Hebrew euphemism for ethnic cleansing — one of the most enduring themes of Zionist colonisation of Palestine."}}<ref name="Norman G. Finkelstein-2012">{{cite book |author=Norman G. Finkelstein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w10uR-TeWnYC&pg=PA |title=Knowing Too Much |publisher=OR Books |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-935928-77-5 |pages= |access-date=February 4, 2024 |archive-date=March 30, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240330213232/https://books.google.com/books?id=w10uR-TeWnYC&pg=PA |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Benny Morris, "the idea of transferring the Arabs out... was seen as the chief means of assuring the stability of the 'Jewishness' of the proposed Jewish State".<ref name="Morris-2001" /> 

In fact, the concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions{{refn|group=fn|On this topic, Ben-Ami writes: "This is how a Brit-Shalom Ihud, non-Zionist member of the Jewish Agency, Werner Senator, put it: ‘If I weigh the catastrophe of five million Jews against the transfer of one million Arabs, then with a clean and easy conscience I can state that even more drastic acts are permissible.’"<ref name="Ben-Ami-2007"/>}}, from early on in the movement's development.<ref name="Ben-Ami-2007">{{cite book|first=Shlomo|last=Ben-Ami|title=Scars of War, Wounds of Peace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-532542-3|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=June 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240624173908/https://books.google.com/books?id=x72ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Jerome Slater|title=Mythologies Without End|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1AAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2020|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-045908-6|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=June 24, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240624173911/https://books.google.com/books?id=y1AAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref><ref> Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 (1992),『It should not be imagined that the concept of transfer was held only by maximalists or extremists within the Zionist movement. On the contrary, it was embraced by almost all shades of opinion, from the Revisionist right to the Labor left. Virtually every member of the Zionist pantheon of founding fathers and important leaders supported it and advocated it in one form or another, from Chaim Weizmann and [[Vladimir Jabotinsky]] to David Ben-Gurion and [[Menahem Ussishkin]]. Supporters of transfer included such moderates as the “Arab appeaser』[[Moshe Shertok]] and the socialist [[Arthur Ruppin]], founder of [[Brit Shalom (political organization)|Brit Shalom]], a movement advocating equal rights for Arabs and Jews. More importantly, transfer proposals were put forward by the [[Jewish Agency]] itself, in effect the government of the Yishuv." </ref><ref name="Morris-2001" /><ref>Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete (New York: 2001), pp. 404–5</ref><ref name="Norman G. Finkelstein-2016"/> The concept of transfer was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership.<ref name="Norman G. Finkelstein-2016">{{cite book|author=Norman G. Finkelstein|title=Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55NKCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA|year=2016|publisher=Verso Books|isbn=978-1-78478-458-4|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707011030/https://books.google.com/books?id=55NKCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Anita Shapira-1992"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Yosef Gorni|title=Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology|date=1987|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crHjZnRmWhgC&pg=PA|publisher=Clarendon Press, 1987|isbn=978-0-19-822721-2|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707011032/https://books.google.com/books?id=crHjZnRmWhgC&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref> The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to this leadership that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission. Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day". It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main arguments against transfer, their objections being primarily on practical rather than moral grounds.<ref name="Ben-Ami-2007"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Simha Flapan|title=Zionism and the Palestinians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cJRtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA|year=1979|publisher=Croom Helm|isbn=978-0-06-492104-6|pages=|access-date=June 23, 2024|archive-date=July 7, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707011034/https://books.google.com/books?id=cJRtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA|url-status=live}}</ref> 

According to Morris, the idea of ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine was to play a large role in Zionist ideology from the inception of the movement. He explains that "transfer" was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" and that a land which was primarily Arab could not be transformed into a Jewish state without displacing the Arab population.{{refn|group=fn|Benny Morris, ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'' (2003) "Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab popu- lation; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure."}} Further, the stability of the Jewish state could not be ensured given the Arab population's fear of displacement. He explains that this would be the primary source of conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab population.<ref name="Norman G. Finkelstein-2012" />

==Types==
{{main|Types of Zionism}}
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:16px;"
|+ Members and delegates at the 1939 Zionist congress, by country/region (Zionism was banned in the Soviet Union). 70,000 Polish Jews supported the Revisionist Zionism movement, which was not represented.<ref>Source: ''A Survey of Palestine'', prepared in 1946 for the [[Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry]], Volume II p. 907 HMSO 1946.</ref>
|-
! Country/Region
! Members
! Delegates
|-
| Poland
| style="text-align:center;"|299,165
| style="text-align:center;"|109
|-
| US
| style="text-align:center;"|263,741
| style="text-align:center;"|114
|-
| Palestine
| style="text-align:center;"|167,562
| style="text-align:center;"|134
|-
| Romania
| style="text-align:center;"|60,013
| style="text-align:center;"|28
|-
| United Kingdom
| style="text-align:center;"|23,513
| style="text-align:center;"|15
|-
| South Africa
| style="text-align:center;"|22,343
| style="text-align:center;"|14
|-
| Canada
| style="text-align:center;"|15,220
| style="text-align:center;"|8
|}

The multi-national, worldwide Zionist [[Philosophical movement|movement]] is structured on [[representative democracy|representative democratic]] principles. Congresses are held every four years (they were held every two years before the Second World War) and delegates to the congress are elected by the membership. Members are required to pay dues known as a ''shekel''. At the congress, delegates elect a 30-man executive council, which in turn elects the movement's leader.{{cn|date=July 2024}} The movement was democratic from its inception and women had the right to vote.<ref>{{cite book|title=Living Without a Constitution: Civil Rights in Israel|last=Sharfman|first=Dafnah|date=1993|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOrHFmiQy6kC&q=women+voting&pg=PA29|isbn=978-0-7656-1941-9|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181914/https://books.google.com/books?id=YOrHFmiQy6kC&q=women+voting&pg=PA29#v=snippet&q=women%20voting&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

Until 1917, the [[World Zionist Organization]] pursued a strategy of building a [[Jewish National Home]] through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the [[Jewish National Fund]] (1901&nbsp;– a charity that bought land for Jewish settlement) and the [[Anglo-Palestine Bank]] (1903&nbsp;– provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers). In 1942, at the [[Biltmore Conference]], the movement included for the first time an express objective of the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.<ref>''American Jewish Year Book'' Vol. 45 (1943–1944) [http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1943_1944_5_USCivicPolitical.pdf Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp. 206–214] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190803115204/http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1943_1944_5_USCivicPolitical.pdf |date=August 3, 2019 }}</ref>

The 28th [[Zionist Congress]], meeting in Jerusalem in 1968, adopted the five points of the "Jerusalem Program" as the aims of Zionism today. They are:<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=497&subject=43|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206062301/http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=497&subject=43|url-status=dead|title=Hagshama.org|archive-date=December 6, 2008}}</ref>
* Unity of the Jewish People and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life
* Ingathering of the Jewish People in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through Aliyah from all countries
* Strengthening of the State of Israel, based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace
* Preservation of the identity of the Jewish People through fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education, and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values
* Protection of Jewish rights everywhere

Since the creation of modern Israel, the role of the movement has declined. It is now a peripheral factor in [[Israeli politics]], though different perceptions of Zionism continue to play roles in Israeli and Jewish political discussion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/History/Zionism/Pages/Zionist%20Philosophies.aspx|title=Zionist Philosophies|website=Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs|access-date=May 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518091418/http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/History/Zionism/Pages/Zionist%20Philosophies.aspx|archive-date=May 18, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> After the state's establishment, Zionism has come to be described as Israel's national or state ideology.<ref name="vox">{{cite web|url=https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080010/zionism-israel-palestine|title=What is Zionism?|work=Vox|accessdate=2 May 2024|date=14 May 2018|archive-date=March 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309144243/https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080010/zionism-israel-palestine|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Labor Zionism===
{{Main|Labor Zionism}}
[[File:Amos Oz 1965-12-12.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Israeli author [[Amos Oz]], who today is described as the 'aristocrat' of Labor Zionism<ref>''To Rule Jerusalem''
 By Roger Friedland, Richard Hecht, University of California Press, 2000, p. 203</ref>]]
Labor Zionism originated in [[Eastern Europe]]. Socialist Zionists believed that centuries of oppression in [[antisemitic]] societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence that invited further antisemitism, a view originally stipulated by Theodor Herzl.<ref>http://humanities1.tau.ac.il/zionism/templates/ol_similu/files/israel16/Israel16_conforti.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605101512/http://humanities1.tau.ac.il/zionism/templates/ol_similu/files/israel16/Israel16_conforti.pdf |date=June 5, 2023 }}

היהודי החדש במחשבה הציונית: לאומיות, אידאולוגיה והיסטוריוגרפיה יצחק קונפורטי

2009

The new Jew in Zionist thought: nationalism, ideology and historiography

Yitzhak Conforti</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hertzberg |first=Arthur |date=1998 |title=The Meaning of Zionism for the Diaspora |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24461013 |journal=CrossCurrents |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=500–509 |jstor=24461013 |issn=0011-1953 |access-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231123120404/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24461013 |url-status=live }}</ref> They argued that a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to [[Israel]] and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Most socialist Zionists rejected the observance of traditional religious Judaism as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people, and established rural communes in Israel called "[[kibbutz]]im".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Near |first=Henry |date=1986 |title=Paths to Utopia: The Kibbutz as a Movement for Social Change |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467337 |journal=Jewish Social Studies |volume=48 |issue=3/4 |pages=189–206 |jstor=4467337 |issn=0021-6704 |access-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231123120402/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467337 |url-status=live }}</ref> The kibbutz began as a variation on a "national farm" scheme, a form of cooperative agriculture where the [[Jewish National Fund]] hired Jewish workers under trained supervision. The kibbutzim were a symbol of the [[Second Aliyah]] in that they put great emphasis on communalism and egalitarianism, representing [[Utopian socialism]] to a certain extent. Furthermore, they stressed self-sufficiency, which became an essential aspect of Labor Zionism.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sternhell |first1=Zeev |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7sdts |title=The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State |last2=Maisel |first2=David |date=1998 |publisher=Princeton University Press |jstor=j.ctt7sdts |isbn=978-0-691-00967-4 |access-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-date=April 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230412013650/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7sdts |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="countrystudies.us">{{Cite web |title=Israel - Labor Zionism |url=https://countrystudies.us/israel/11.htm |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=countrystudies.us |archive-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231123184510/https://countrystudies.us/israel/11.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Though socialist Zionism draws its inspiration and is philosophically founded on the fundamental values and spirituality of Judaism, its progressive expression of that [[Judaism]] has often fostered an antagonistic relationship with [[Orthodox Judaism]].<ref name="countrystudies.us" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=PERL FREILICH |first=TOBY |date=3 September 2014 |title=The Right Hand Washes the Left |work=[[The Tablet]] |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/haredi-left-alliance |access-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-date=June 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230618103149/https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/haredi-left-alliance |url-status=live }}</ref>

Traditionalist Israeli historian Anita Shapira describes labor Zionism's use of violence against Palestinians for political means as essentially the same as that of radical conservative Zionist groups. For example, Shapira notes that during the [[1936 Palestine revolt]], the [[Irgun Zvai Leumi]] engaged in the "uninhibited use of terror", "mass indiscriminate killings of the aged, women and children", "attacks against British without any consideration of possible injuries to innocent bystanders, and the murder of British in cold blood". Shapira argues that there were only marginal differences in military behavior between the Irgun and the labor Zionist [[Palmah]]. In following with policies laid out by Ben-Gurion, the prevalent method among field squads was that if an Arab gang had used a village as a hideout, it was considered acceptable to hold the entire village collectively responsible. The lines delineating what was acceptable and unacceptable while dealing with these villagers were "vague and intentionally blurred". As Shapira suggests, these ambiguous limits practically did not differ from those of the openly terrorist group, Irgun.<ref name="Anita Shapira-1992a">{{cite book|author=Anita Shapira|title=Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Land_and_Power&pg=PA|year=1992|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-506104-8|pages=247,249, 251–252,350,365|quote=It is doubtful whether [the] external differences in framework and patterns of behavior were sufficient to create a different attitude toward fighting or to develop “civilian” barriers to military callousness and insensitivity...if a village had served as a hiding place for an Arab gang, it was permissible to place collective responsibility on the village.}}</ref>

Labor Zionism became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the [[Yishuv]] during the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] and was the dominant ideology of the political establishment in Israel until the [[1977 Israeli legislative election|1977 election]] when the [[Israeli Labor Party]] was defeated. The Israeli Labor Party continues the tradition, although the most popular party in the kibbutzim is [[Meretz]].<ref>Gilbert, ''Israel: A History'' (London 1997), pp. 594–607</ref> Labor Zionism's main institution is the [[Histadrut]] (general organisation of labor unions), which began by providing strikebreakers against a Palestinian worker's strike in 1920 and until 1970s was the largest employer in Israel after the Israeli government.<ref>{{cite book|author=Guy Mundlak|title=Fading Corporatism: Israel's Labor Law and Industrial Relations in Transition|url=https://archive.org/details/fadingcorporatis00mund|url-access=registration|quote=second largest employer.|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/fadingcorporatis00mund/page/44 44]|isbn=978-0-8014-4600-9|year=2007}}</ref>

===Liberal Zionism===
{{Main|General Zionists}}
[[File:Mishmar HaEmek.JPG|thumb|Kibbutznikiyot (female Kibbutz members) in [[Mishmar HaEmek]], during the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]]. The [[Kibbutz]] is the historical heartland of Labor Zionism.]]
General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Chaim Weizmann aspired. Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights. Their political arm was one of the ancestors of the modern-day [[Likud]]. [[Kadima]], the main centrist party during the 2000s that split from Likud and is now defunct, however, did identify with many of the fundamental policies of Liberal Zionist ideology, advocating among other things the need for Palestinian statehood in order to form a more democratic society in Israel, affirming the free market, and calling for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. In 2013, [[Ari Shavit]] suggested that the success of the then-new [[Yesh Atid]] party (representing secular, middle-class interests) embodied the success of "the new General Zionists."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Ari|last=Shavit|title=The Dramatic Headline of This Election: Israel Is Not Right Wing|language=en|work=Haaretz|url=https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2013-01-24/ty-article/.premium/ari-shavit-right-meet-center/0000017f-f41e-d47e-a37f-fd3e53e50000|access-date=2023-03-10|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326033424/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2013-01-24/ty-article/.premium/ari-shavit-right-meet-center/0000017f-f41e-d47e-a37f-fd3e53e50000|url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=July 2023}}

[[Dror Zeigerman]] writes that the traditional positions of the General Zionists—"liberal positions based on social justice, on law and order, on pluralism in matters of State and Religion, and on moderation and flexibility in the domain of foreign policy and security"—are still favored by important circles and currents within certain active political parties.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.fnst-jerusalem.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dror_book.pdf|title=A Liberal Upheaval: From the General Zionists to the Liberal Party (pre-book dissertation)|author=Dror Zeigerman|publisher=Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty|date=2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402102632/http://www.fnst-jerusalem.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dror_book.pdf |archive-date=April 2, 2015}}</ref>

Philosopher [[Carlo Strenger]] describes a modern-day version of Liberal Zionism (supporting his vision of "Knowledge-Nation Israel"), rooted in the original ideology of Herzl and [[Ahad Ha'am]], that stands in contrast to both the [[romantic nationalism]] of the right and the ''Netzah Yisrael'' of the ultra-Orthodox. It is marked by a concern for democratic values and human rights, freedom to criticize government policies without accusations of disloyalty, and rejection of excessive religious influence in public life. "Liberal Zionism celebrates the most authentic traits of the Jewish tradition: the willingness for incisive debate; the contrarian spirit of ''davka''; the refusal to bow to authoritarianism."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Carlo|last=Strenger|title=Liberal Zionism|language=en|work=Haaretz|url=https://www.haaretz.com/2010-05-26/ty-article/liberal-zionism/0000017f-dbef-df9c-a17f-ffffd5e30000|access-date=2023-03-10|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326033424/https://www.haaretz.com/2010-05-26/ty-article/liberal-zionism/0000017f-dbef-df9c-a17f-ffffd5e30000|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Carlo Strenger, [http://azure.org.il/download/magazine/Az39%20Strenger.pdf Knowledge-Nation Israel: A New Unifying Vision] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023322/http://azure.org.il/download/magazine/Az39%20Strenger.pdf |date=March 4, 2016 }}, ''[[Azure (magazine)|Azure]]'' Winter 2010, No. 39, pp. 35–57</ref> Liberal Zionists see that "Jewish history shows that Jews need and are entitled to a nation-state of their own. But they also think that this state must be a [[liberal democracy]], which means that there must be strict equality before the law independent of religion, ethnicity or gender."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Carlo|last=Strenger|title=Israel Today: A Society Without a Center|language=en|work=Haaretz|url=https://www.haaretz.com/2014-03-07/ty-article/.premium/israel-today-a-society-without-a-center/0000017f-f7c8-d887-a7ff-ffec82200000|access-date=2023-03-10|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326033444/https://www.haaretz.com/2014-03-07/ty-article/.premium/israel-today-a-society-without-a-center/0000017f-f7c8-d887-a7ff-ffec82200000|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Revisionist Zionism===
{{Main|Revisionist Zionism}}
[[File:Zeev Jabotinsky.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.75|[[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]], founder of Revisionist Zionism]]
Revisionist Zionists, led by [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]], believed that a Jewish state must expand to both sides of the [[Jordan River]], i.e. taking [[Transjordan (region)|Transjordan]] in addition to all of Palestine.<ref>{{Citation |last=Zouplna |first=Jan |title=Revisionist Zionism: Image, Reality and the Quest for Historical Narrative |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=44 |number=1 |pages=3–27 |year=2008 |doi=10.1080/00263200701711754 |s2cid=144049644 |via=JSTOR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shlaim |first=Avi |date=1996 |title=The Likud in Power: The Historiography of Revisionist Zionism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245501 |journal=Israel Studies |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=278–293 |doi=10.2979/ISR.1996.1.2.278 |jstor=30245501 |issn=1084-9513 |access-date=April 17, 2024 |archive-date=November 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231108002930/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245501 |url-status=live }}</ref> The movement developed what became known as Nationalist Zionism, whose guiding principles were outlined in the 1923 essay ''[[Iron Wall (essay)|Iron Wall]]'', a term denoting the force needed to prevent Palestinian resistance against colonization.<ref>{{cite web |last=Jabotinsky |first=Ze'ev |date=4 November 1923 |title=The Iron Wall |url=http://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf |quote=Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. |access-date=April 17, 2024 |archive-date=May 9, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509210923/https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Jabotinsky wrote that{{blockquote|Zionism is a colonising adventure and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot—or else I am through with playing at colonization.|Zeev Jabotinsky<ref>[[Lenni Brenner]], ''The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir'', Zed Books 1984, pp. 74–75.</ref><ref>[[Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi]], ''Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel'', Olive Branch Press, 1993 p. 103.</ref>}}

Historian [[Avi Shlaim]] states that<ref>{{cite news |last=Shlaim |first=Avi |date=1999 |title=The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World since 1948 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/shlaim-wall.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007202053/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/shlaim-wall.html |archive-date=October 7, 2017 |access-date=April 6, 2018 |newspaper=The New York Times |authorlink=Avi Shlaim}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Although the Jews originated in the East, they belonged to the West culturally, morally, and spiritually. Zionism was conceived by Jabotinsky not as the return of the Jews to their spiritual homeland but as an offshoot or implant of Western civilization in the East. This worldview translated into a geostrategic conception in which Zionism was to be permanently allied with European colonialism against all the Arabs in the eastern Mediterranean.|}}

In 1935 the Revisionists left the WZO because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} The Revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration.

Supporters of Revisionist Zionism developed the [[Likud]] Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel's maintaining control of the [[West Bank]], including [[East Jerusalem]], and takes a hard-line approach in the Arab–Israeli conflict. In 2005, the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima Party.<ref>{{cite news|author=John Vause|author2=Guy Raz|author3=Shira Medding|url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/21/israel.politics/|title=Sharon shakes up Israeli politics|date=November 22, 2005|work=CNN|access-date=August 31, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331162557/http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/21/israel.politics/ |archive-date=March 31, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Religious Zionism===
{{Main|Religious Zionism}}
{{Conservatism in Israel}}
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and observant [[Judaism]]. Before the establishment of the state of [[Israel]], Religious Zionists were mainly observant Jews who supported Zionist efforts to build a [[Jewish state]] in the [[Land of Israel]]. One of the core ideas in Religious Zionism is the belief that the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel and the establishment of Israel is [[Atchalta De'Geulah]] ("the beginning of the redemption"), the initial stage of the ''[[Jewish eschatology|geula]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Asscher|first=Omri|date=2021|title=Exporting political theology to the diaspora: translating Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook for Modern Orthodox consumption|journal=Meta|volume=65|issue=2|pages=292–311|doi=10.7202/1075837ar|s2cid=234914976|issn=1492-1421|quote=Highlighting and infusing the unsolved tension between religion and nationality rooted in Israeli Jewish identity, the father of religious Zionism Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), and his son and most influential interpreter Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), assigned primary religious significance to settling the (Greater) Land of Israel, sacralising Israel’s national symbols, and, more generally, perceiving the contemporary historical period of statehood as Atchalta De’Geulah [the beginning of the redemption]|doi-access=free}}</ref>

After the [[Six-Day War]] and the capture of the [[West Bank]], a territory referred to in Jewish terms as [[Judea and Samaria]], right-wing components of the Religious Zionist movement integrated nationalist revindication and evolved into what is sometimes known as [[Neo-Zionism]]. Their ideology revolves around three pillars: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the [[Torah]] of Israel.<ref>Adriana Kemp, ''Israelis in Conflict: Hegemonies, Identities and Challenges'', Sussex Academic Press, 2004, pp. 314–315.</ref>

==Non-Jewish support==
The French government, through Minister M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "...&nbsp;the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gold|first=Dore|date=2017|title=The Historical Significance of the Balfour Declaration|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44510469|journal=Jewish Political Studies Review|volume=28|issue=1/2|pages=8–13|jstor=44510469|issn=0792-335X|access-date=July 16, 2020|archive-date=July 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726100801/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44510469|url-status=live}}</ref>

In China, top figures of the [[Kuomintang|Nationalist government]], including [[Sun Yat-sen]], expressed their sympathy with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a National Home.<ref>{{citation|last=Goldstein|first=Jonathan|year=1999|contribution=The Republic of China and Israel |editor-last=Goldstein |editor-first=Jonathan|title=China and Israel, 1948–1998: A Fifty Year Retrospective|pages=1–39|place=Westport, Conn. and London|publisher=Praeger}}</ref>

===Christian support for Zionism===
{{Main|Christian Zionism}} {{See also|Christian Zionism in the United Kingdom}}
[[File:Martin_Luther_King_Jr_NYWTS.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was a notable Christian supporter of Israel and Zionism.<ref name="Sundquist" />]]
Some Christians actively supported the return of Jews to Palestine even prior to the rise of Zionism, as well as subsequently. [[Anita Shapira]], a history professor emerita at Tel Aviv University, suggests that evangelical Christian restorationists of the 1840s "passed this notion on to Jewish circles".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shapira |first=Anita |title=Israel a history |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=London |page=15 |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-297-87158-3}}</ref> Evangelical Christian anticipation of and political lobbying within the UK for [[Christian Zionism in the United Kingdom|Restorationism]] was widespread in the 1820s and common beforehand.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Donald |title=The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury And Evangelical Support For A Jewish Homeland |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014 |location=Cambridge |page=380 |isbn=978-1-107-63196-0}}</ref> It was common among the [[Puritan]]s to anticipate and frequently to pray for a Jewish return to their homeland.<ref>{{cite book |last=Murray |first=Iain |title=the Puritan Hope |publisher=Banner of Truth |year=2014 |location=Edinburgh |page=326 |isbn=978-1-84871-478-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cwi.org.uk/library/articles/HAPH.htm |title=The Puritan Hope and Jewish Evangelism |work=Herald Magazine, Christian Witness to Israel |date=2015| access-date=June 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160629204443/http://www.cwi.org.uk/library/articles/HAPH.htm |archive-date=June 29, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanvision.org/1715/john-macarthur-israel-calvinism-postmillennialism-part-2/ |title=John MacArthur, Israel, Calvinism, and Postmillennialism |work=American Vision |date=July 3, 2007| access-date=June 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160629204142/http://americanvision.org/1715/john-macarthur-israel-calvinism-postmillennialism-part-2/ |archive-date=June 29, 2016}}</ref>

One of the principal [[Protestantism|Protestant]] teachers who promoted the biblical doctrine that the Jews would return to their national homeland was [[John Nelson Darby]]. His doctrine of [[dispensationalism]] is credited with promoting Zionism, following his 11 lectures on the hopes of the church, the Jew and the [[gentile]] given in Geneva in 1840.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sizer |first=Stephen |title=Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? |publisher=IVP |date=Dec 2005 |location=Nottingham |page=298 |isbn=978-0-8308-5368-7}}</ref> However, others like [[Charles Spurgeon|C H Spurgeon]],<ref>Sermon preached in June 1864 to the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews</ref> [[Horatius Bonar|both Horatius]]<ref>'The Jew', July 1870, The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy</ref> and [[Andrew Bonar]], [[Robert Murray M'Cheyne|Robert Murray M'Chyene]],<ref>Sermon preached November 17, 1839, after returning from a "Mission of Inquiry into the State of the Jewish People"</ref> and [[J. C. Ryle|J C Ryle]]<ref>Sermon preached June 1864 to London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews</ref> were among a number of prominent proponents of both the importance and significance of a Jewish return, who were not dispensationalist. Pro-Zionist views were embraced by many [[Evangelicalism|evangelicals]] and also affected international foreign policy.

The [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox]] ideologue [[Hippolytus Lutostansky]], also known as the author of multiple [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] tracts, insisted in 1911 that Russian Jews should be "helped" to move to Palestine "as their rightful place is in their former kingdom of Palestine".<ref>{{Cite news|author=Herman Bernstein|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/us/new-york/new-york/new-york-times/1911/08-27/page-42|title=Ritual murder libel encouraged by Russian court|date=August 27, 1911|work=[[The New York Times]]|publication-date = August 27, 1911|quote=Russia would make any sacrifice to help the Jews settle in Palestine and form an autonomous state of their own|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170204142149/https://newspaperarchive.com/us/new-york/new-york/new-york-times/1911/08-27/page-42|archive-date = February 4, 2017|url-status = dead}}</ref>

Notable early supporters of Zionism include British Prime Ministers [[David Lloyd George]] and [[Arthur Balfour]], American President [[Woodrow Wilson]] and British [[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major-General]] [[Orde Wingate]], whose activities in support of Zionism led the British Army to ban him from ever serving in Palestine. According to Charles Merkley of Carleton University, Christian Zionism strengthened significantly after the [[Six-Day War]] of 1967, and many dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist evangelical Christians, especially Christians in the United States, now strongly support Zionism.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was a strong supporter of Israel and Zionism,<ref name="Sundquist">Sundquist, Eric J. (2005). Strangers in the land: Blacks, Jews, post-Holocaust America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 110.</ref> although the [[Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend]] is a work falsely attributed to him.

In the last years of his life, the founder of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]], [[Joseph Smith]], declared, "the time for Jews to return to the land of Israel is now." In 1842, Smith sent [[Orson Hyde]], an Apostle of the [[Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints)|Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints]], to Jerusalem to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/Jews/jewsch6.htm|title=Orson Hyde and Israel's Restoration|publisher=Signaturebookslibrary.org |access-date=June 3, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707015147/http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/Jews/jewsch6.htm |archive-date=July 7, 2010}}</ref>

Some [[Arab Christians]] publicly supporting Israel include US author [[Nonie Darwish]], and former Muslim [[Magdi Allam]], author of ''Viva Israele'',<ref>{{Cite book|isbn=978-88-04-56777-6|title=Viva Israele: Dall'ideologia della morte alla civiltà della vita : La mia storia|last1=Allam|first1=Magdi|year=2007|publisher=Mondadori}}</ref> both born in Egypt. [[Brigitte Gabriel]], a Lebanese-born Christian US journalist and founder of the [[American Congress for Truth]], urges Americans to "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization".<ref>{{cite web|last=anonymous|title=Mission/Vision|publisher=American Congress for Truth|url=http://americancongressfortruth.com/mission-vision.asp|access-date=April 17, 2008 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080324132304/http://www.americancongressfortruth.com/mission-vision.asp <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = March 24, 2008}}</ref>

The largest Zionist organisation is [[Christians United for Israel]], which has 10 million members and is led by [[John Hagee]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rubin |first=Jennifer |date=August 2, 2010 |title=Onward, Christian Zionists |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/onward-christian-zionists |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100726135421/http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/onward-christian-zionists |archive-date=July 26, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Savage |first=Sean |date=9 March 2021 |title=How CUFI has awakened the 'sleeping giant' of Christian Zionism |work=Jewish News Syndicate |url=https://www.jns.org/how-cufi-has-awakened-the-sleeping-giant-of-christian-zionism/ |access-date=5 September 2022 |archive-date=May 2, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502181020/https://www.jns.org/how-cufi-has-awakened-the-sleeping-giant-of-christian-zionism/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Kornbluh |first=Jacob |date=8 May 2022 |title=He was the head of Christians United for Israel. Now he's running as a Jewish candidate for Congress |work=The Forward |url=https://forward.com/news/501610/david-brog-nevada-election-christians-united-for-israel-congress/ |access-date=5 September 2022 |archive-date=May 2, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502164007/https://forward.com/news/501610/david-brog-nevada-election-christians-united-for-israel-congress/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Muslim support for Zionism===
{{Main|Muslim supporters of Israel}}
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 1337 Druze scouts at jethro holy place צופים דרוזים בקבר יתרו.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Israeli Druze]] Scouts march to Jethro's tomb. Today, thousands of Israeli Druze belong to '[[Druze]] Zionist' movements.<ref name="Eli Ashkenazi-2005">{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1054873 |script-title=he:הרצל והתקווה בחגיגות 30 לתנועה הדרוזית הציונית|language=he |trans-title=Herzl and hope in celebrating 30 (years of the) Druze Zionist movement|author=Eli Ashkenazi|newspaper=[[Haaretz]]|date=November 3, 2005 |access-date=October 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190909053515/http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1054873 |archive-date=September 9, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
Muslims who have publicly defended Zionism include [[Tawfik Hamid]], Islamic thinker and reformer<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tawfikhamid.com|title=Dr. Tawfik Hamid's Official Website – Part of the Potomac Institute of Policy Studies|publisher=Tawfikhamid.com |access-date=June 3, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100702164726/http://www.tawfikhamid.com/ |archive-date=July 2, 2010 |url-status=live}}</ref> and former member of [[al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]], an Islamist militant group that is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2005/l_340/l_34020051223en00640066.pdf|title=The Council of the European Union, Council Decision of 21 December 2005 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090924025231/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2005/l_340/l_34020051223en00640066.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 24, 2009}}</ref> Sheikh Prof. [[Abdul Hadi Palazzi]], Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community<ref>Behrisch, Sven. "[http://www.jpost.com/Christian-In-Israel/Blogs/The-Zionist-Imam The Zionist Imam] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200626214611/https://www.jpost.com/Christian-In-Israel/Blogs/The-Zionist-Imam |date=June 26, 2020 }}" at ''[[The Jerusalem Post]]'' Christian Edition, July 19, 2010</ref> and [[Tashbih Sayyed]], a Pakistani-American scholar, journalist, and author.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Sayyed|first=Tasbih|date=December 2, 2005|title=A Muslim in a Jewish Land|url=http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/land30.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101211111908/http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/land30.htm |archive-date=December 11, 2010}}</ref>

On occasion, some non-Arab Muslims such as some [[Kurds]] and [[Berber people|Berbers]] have also voiced support for Zionism.<ref>"Islam, Islam, Laїcité, and Amazigh Activism in France and North Africa" (2004 paper), Paul A. Silverstein, Department of Anthropology, Reed College</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/august/israel_kurds_11804.shtml|title=Why not a Kurdish-Israeli Alliance? (Iran Press Service)|website=iran-press-service.com|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803155358/http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/august/israel_kurds_11804.shtml|archive-date=August 3, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=anonymous|title=Berbers, Where Do You Stand on Palestine?|publisher=MEMRI|date=February 26, 2009|url=http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD226209|access-date=March 5, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806070400/http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD226209|archive-date=August 6, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref>

While most Israeli Druze identify as ethnically [[Arab]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/10/5-facts-about-israeli-christians/|title=5 facts about Israeli Christians|date=May 10, 2016|website=pewresearch.org|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181111043948/http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/10/5-facts-about-israeli-christians/|archive-date=November 11, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> today, tens of thousands of Israeli Druze belong to "Druze Zionist" movements.<ref name="Eli Ashkenazi-2005"/>

During the Palestine Mandate era, [[As'ad Shukeiri]], a Muslim scholar ('alim) of the Acre area, and the father of [[PLO]] founder [[Ahmad Shukeiri]], rejected the values of the Palestinian Arab national movement and was opposed to the anti-Zionist movement.<ref>''Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East'', Volume 4, Reeva S. Simon, Philip Mattar, Richard W. Bulliet. Macmillan Reference US, 1996. p. 1661</ref> He met routinely with Zionist officials and had a part in every pro-Zionist Arab organization from the beginning of the British Mandate, publicly rejecting [[Mohammad Amin al-Husayni]]'s use of [[Islam]] to attack Zionism.<ref>''Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948''. By Hillel Cohen. University of California Press, 2009. p. 84</ref>

Some [[Indian Muslims]] have also expressed opposition to [[Islam and anti-Zionism|Islamic anti-Zionism]]. In August 2007, a delegation of the All India Organization of [[Imam (Sunni Islam)|Imams]] and mosques led by its president Maulana Jamil Ilyas visited Israel. The meeting led to a joint statement expressing "peace and goodwill from Indian Muslims", developing dialogue between Indian Muslims and Israeli Jews, and rejecting the perception that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is of a religious nature.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/aug/15/american_jewish_group_takes_indian_muslims_israel.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090430145743/http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/aug/15/american_jewish_group_takes_indian_muslims_israel.html|url-status=dead|title=American Jewish group takes Indian Muslims to Israel &#124; Indian Muslims|archive-date=April 30, 2009}}</ref> The visit was organized by the [[American Jewish Committee]]. The purpose of the visit was to promote meaningful debate about the status of Israel in the eyes of Muslims worldwide and to strengthen the relationship between India and Israel. It is suggested that the visit could "open Muslim minds across the world to understand the democratic nature of the state of Israel, especially in the Middle East".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/dialogue-democracy-indian-muslims-visit-israel|title=Dialogue of Democracy: Indian Muslims Visit Israel|website=yaleglobal.yale.edu|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030155812/http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/dialogue-democracy-indian-muslims-visit-israel|archive-date=October 30, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Hindu support for Zionism===
{{Main|India–Israel relations|Hindu nationalism}}

After Israel's creation in 1948, the [[Indian National Congress]] government opposed Zionism. Some writers have claimed that this was done in order to get more Muslim votes in India (where Muslims numbered over 30 million at the time).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers2/paper131.html|title=India–Israel Relations: The Imperatives for Enhanced Strategic Cooperation&nbsp;– Subhash Kapila |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100211233957/http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers2/paper131.html |archive-date=February 11, 2010|publisher=[[South Asia Analysis Group]]|website=southasiaanalysis.org|access-date=March 12, 2018}}</ref> Zionism, seen as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of the Jewish people to their homeland then under British colonial rule, appealed to many [[Hindu Nationalist|Hindu nationalist]]s, who viewed their struggle for [[Indian Independence Movement|independence from British rule]] and the [[Partition of India]] as national liberation for [[Persecution of Hindus|long-oppressed Hindus]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}

An international opinion survey has shown that India is the most pro-Israel country in the world.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3696887,00.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120919150737/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3696887,00.html|url-status=dead|title=From India with Love|date=September 19, 2012|archive-date=September 19, 2012|website=Israel News – ynetnews.com|access-date=March 12, 2018}}</ref> In more current times, conservative Indian parties and organizations tend to support Zionism.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/10sharon11.htm|title=RSS slams Left for opposing Sharon's visit: Rediff.com India News|publisher=Us.rediff.com|date=September 10, 2003 |access-date=June 3, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100617073538/http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/10sharon11.htm |archive-date=June 17, 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> This has invited attacks on the [[Hindutva]] movement by parts of the Indian left opposed to Zionism, and allegations that Hindus are conspiring with the "[[Jewish Lobby]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ghadar.insaf.net/June2004/MainPages/zionism.htm|title=Ghadar . 2004|publisher=Ghadar.insaf.net |access-date=June 3, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421115747/http://ghadar.insaf.net/June2004/MainPages/zionism.htm |archive-date=April 21, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Anti-Zionism==
{{Main|Anti-Zionism|Timeline of Anti-Zionism}}
{{See also|Non-Zionism|New Antisemitism|Criticism of the Israeli government|Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory}}
[[File:A 1936 caricature published in the Falastin newspaper on Zionism and Palestine.png|thumb|upright=1.35|right|The Palestinian [[Arab Christian]]-owned ''[[Falastin]]'' newspaper featuring a caricature on its June 18, 1936, edition showing Zionism as a crocodile under the protection of a British officer telling Palestinian Arabs: "Don't be afraid!!! I will swallow you peacefully...".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/13805989|title=Anatomy of the 1936–39 Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Cartoons of Mandatory Palestine |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|date=January 1, 2008|volume=37|issue=2|pages=23–42|access-date=January 14, 2008|last1=Sufian |first1=Sandy |doi=10.1525/jps.2008.37.2.23|archive-date=June 20, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620080011/https://www.academia.edu/13805989 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

Zionism has been opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. In 1919, the US-based [[King–Crane Commission]] found that the subjection of Palestinians to Zionist rule was a violation of the principle of self-determination. The report stated that "The initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can barely be seriously considered."<ref>Quigley, John. The Legality of a Jewish State: A Century of Debate over Rights in Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, page 181, Chapter 22: ''Was the Declaration of a Jewish State Valid?'' https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/426CFAED43417B3652E2359A2967B2EA/9781316519240c22_181-193.pdf/was_the_declaration_of_a_jewish_state_valid.pdf</ref><ref>''Report of the American Section of the International Commission on Mandates in Turkey'' ([[King-Crane Commission]]), August 28, 1919, page 794 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/d380 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231216002528/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/d380 |date=December 16, 2023 }}</ref>

Among those opposing Zionism before their dissolution were the former [[Soviet Union]]<ref name="Gale Group-2010">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Zionism |encyclopedia=[[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]] |orig-year=1970–1979 |year=2010 |edition=3rd |url=https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Zionism |access-date=2024-01-26 |via=The Free Dictionary |publisher=Gale Group |archive-date=October 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231028162338/https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Zionism |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hitler and the Nazis' Anti-Zionism |url=https://fathomjournal.org/hitler-and-the-nazis-anti-zionism-2/ |access-date=2023-11-19 |website=Fathom |quote=First, Hitler despised Zionism. In fact he ridiculed the idea as he was convinced that the Jews would be incapable of establishing and then defending a state. More importantly, he and his government viewed the prospect of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the broader international Jewish conspiracy which his fevered imagination presented as a dire threat to Germany. |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111182148/https://fathomjournal.org/hitler-and-the-nazis-anti-zionism-2/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kuentzel |first=Matthias |date=2019-04-24 |title=Nazi-Germany's Anti-Zionist Propaganda and Its Impact on the War of 1947/48 |url=https://webjcli.org/index.php/webjcli/article/view/659 |journal=European Journal of Current Legal Issues |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |issn=2059-0881 |quote=The article examines the influence of Nazi Germany's radio propaganda in the Arabic language that – from April 1939 to April 1945 – urged their listeners to prevent the birth of a Jewish state and exterminate the Jews living in Palestine. It shows how Nazi officials co-operated with the Muslim Brotherhood in secrecy before WW II and deals with the mobilisation of the Muslim Brotherhood after WW II that dragged Egypt and other Arab states into a full-scale war against the Jews of Mandatory Palestine. |access-date=November 19, 2023 |archive-date=November 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231119082605/https://webjcli.org/index.php/webjcli/article/view/659 |url-status=live }}</ref> Today, opponents include [[Palestinian nationalism|Palestinian nationalists]], several states of the [[Arab League]] and in the [[Muslim world]], some secular, [[Satmar]] and [[Neturei Karta]] Jews.<ref name="Gale Group-2010" /><ref>*{{cite web |title=The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering |url=http://www.jewsconfrontapartheid.org/ |access-date=September 17, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100411082527/http://www.jewsconfrontapartheid.org/ |archive-date=April 11, 2010 |url-status=dead }}
*{{cite web |title=Not In Our Name ... Jewish voices opposing Zionism |url=http://www.nion.ca/ |access-date=September 17, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120713225319/http://www.nion.ca/ |archive-date=July 13, 2012 |url-status=dead }}
*{{cite web |title=Jews Against Zionism |url=http://www.jewsagainstzionism.org |access-date=September 17, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121032702/http://www.jewsagainstzionism.org/ |archive-date=November 21, 2008 |url-status=dead }}
*{{cite web |title=International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network |url=http://www.ijsn.net/home/ |access-date=September 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://swap.stanford.edu/20091120000830/http%3A//www%2Eijsn%2Enet/home/ |archive-date=November 20, 2009 }}
*{{cite web |title=Charter of the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network |url=http://www.ijsn.net/about_us/charter/ |access-date=October 29, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325235047/http://www.ijsn.net/about_us/charter/ |archive-date=March 25, 2009 |website=International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network }}</ref><ref>"Holocaust Victims Accuse" by Reb. Moshe Shonfeld; Bnei Yeshivos NY; (1977)</ref><ref>Nadler, Allan. 2010. Satmar Hasidic Dynasty. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Satmar_Hasidic_Dynasty {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220318090236/https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Satmar_Hasidic_Dynasty |date=March 18, 2022 }} (accessed March 22, 2022).</ref> Reasons for opposing Zionism have been varied, and they include: fundamental disagreement that foreign born Jews have rights of resettlement, the perception that land confiscations are unfair; expulsions of Palestinians; violence against Palestinians; and alleged [[racism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=LaBelle |first1=Maurice |title="The Only Thorn": Early Saudi-American Relations and the Question of Palestine, 1945–1949 |date=February 4, 2024 |issue=2 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916479 |journal=Diplomatic History |volume=35 |pages=257–281 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7709.2010.00949.x |jstor=24916479 |access-date=1 February 2024 |archive-date=February 1, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240201224038/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916479 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Asa Winstanley, ''Why Zionism has always been a racist ideology'', 2019 https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190420-why-zionism-has-always-been-a-racist-ideology/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240527153516/https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190420-why-zionism-has-always-been-a-racist-ideology/ |date=May 27, 2024 }}</ref><ref>Ardi Imseis, "Zionism, Racism, and the Palestinian People: Fifty Years of Human Rights Violations in Israel and the Occupied Territories" (1999) 8 Dal J Leg Stud 1.</ref> Arab states in particular have historically strongly opposed Zionism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Renton |first1=James |title=The Age of Nationality and the Origins of the Zionist-Palestinian Conflict. |journal=The International History Review |date=2013 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=576–99 |doi=10.1080/07075332.2013.795495 |jstor=24701267 |s2cid=154421211 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24701267.}}</ref> The preamble of the [[African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights]], which has been ratified by 53 African countries {{As of|2014|lc=y}}, includes an undertaking to eliminate Zionism together with other practices including [[colonialism]], [[neo-colonialism]], [[apartheid]], "aggressive foreign military bases" and all forms of [[discrimination]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/|title=African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights / Legal Instruments / ACHPR |website=achpr.org|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130119013007/http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/|archive-date=January 19, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/ratification/ Ratification Table: African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180119010517/http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/ratification/ |date=January 19, 2018 }}, African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, 2014</ref>

In 1945 US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] met with King [[Ibn Saud]] of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud pointed out that it was Germany who had committed crimes against the Jews and so Germany should be punished. Palestinian Arabs had done no harm to European Jews and did not deserve to be punished by losing their land. Roosevelt on return to the US concluded that Israel "could only be established and maintained by force."<ref>{{cite book|author=Monty Noam Penkower|title=The Holocaust and Israel Reborn: From Catastrophe to Sovereignty|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImbmtqZQ6QEC&pg=PA225|year=1994|publisher=University of Illinois Press|page=225|isbn=978-0-252-06378-7|access-date=March 11, 2019|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181917/https://books.google.com/books?id=ImbmtqZQ6QEC&pg=PA225#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Catholic Church and Zionism===
{{Main|Holy See–Israel relations|Supersessionism#Roman Catholicism|Christianity and antisemitism}}
Shortly after the [[First Zionist Congress]], the semi-official Vatican periodical (edited by the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuits]]) [[Civiltà Cattolica]] gave its biblical-theological judgement on political Zionism: "1827 years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth was fulfilled&nbsp;... that [after the destruction of Jerusalem] the Jews would be led away to be slaves among all the nations and that they would remain in the dispersion [diaspora, galut] until the end of the world."<ref name="Rosen-2015">{{Cite web|last=Rosen|first=David|date=December 2015|title=The Fundamental Agreement – the culmination of Nostra Aetate|url=https://www.rabbidavidrosen.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/The-Fundamental-Agreement-the-culmination-of-Nostra-Aetate-NA-50th-Conference-Tel-Aviv-Dec-15-2015.pdf|location=Tel Aviv|page=1|access-date=November 29, 2022|archive-date=November 29, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221129200031/https://www.rabbidavidrosen.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/The-Fundamental-Agreement-the-culmination-of-Nostra-Aetate-NA-50th-Conference-Tel-Aviv-Dec-15-2015.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> The Jews should not be permitted to return to Palestine with sovereignty: "According to the Sacred Scriptures, the Jewish people must always live dispersed and vagabondo [vagrant, wandering] among the other nations, so that they may render witness to Christ not only by the Scriptures&nbsp;... but by their very existence".<ref name="Rosen-2015" />

Nonetheless, Theodor Herzl travelled to Rome in late January 1904, after the sixth Zionist Congress (August 1903) and six months before his death, looking for support. On January 22, Herzl first met the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal [[Rafael Merry del Val]]. According to Herzl's private diary notes, the Cardinal's interpretation of the history of Israel was the same as that of the Catholic Church, but he also asked for the conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. Three days later, Herzl met Pope [[Pius X]], who replied to his request of support for a Jewish return to Israel in the same terms, saying that "we are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it&nbsp;... The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people." In 1922, the same periodical published a piece by its Viennese correspondent, "anti-Semitism is nothing but the absolutely necessary and natural reaction to the Jews' arrogance... Catholic anti-Semitism—while never going beyond the moral law—adopts all necessary means to emancipate the Christian people from the abuse they suffer from their sworn enemy".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kertzer|first=David|title=Civiltà cattolica, 1922, IV, pp. 369–371, cited in Unholy War|publisher=Pan Books|location=London|page=273|date=2001|isbn=978-0-330-39049-1}}</ref> This initial attitude changed over the next 50 years, until 1997, when at the [[Holy See|Vatican]] symposium of that year, Pope [[John Paul II]] rejected the Christian roots of antisemitism, stating that "...&nbsp;the wrong and unjust interpretations of the New Testament relating to the Jewish people and their supposed guilt [in Christ's death] circulated for too long, engendering sentiments of hostility toward this people."<ref>Rev. Thomas F. Stransky, Paulist. [http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/mag/MAen9901.html "A Catholic Views&nbsp;– Zionism and the State of Israel"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521082933/http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/mag/MAen9901.html |date=May 21, 2016 }}. The Holy land.</ref>

===Characterization as colonialist and racist===
{{See also|Racism in Israel#Zionism|Israel and apartheid|Soviet anti-Zionism}}
[[File:2017.03.26 Anti-Israel Protest, Washington, DC USA 01929 (33670862035).jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|right|Pro-Palestinian protest with placards demanding the US to stop funding of "Israeli apartheid" in Washington, DC, 2017]]

Zionism  is often  consider to be an example of a colonial<ref name=CHARCOL/> or [[racism|racist]]<ref name=CHARRAS>
* ''Zionism, imperialism, and race'', Abdul Wahhab Kayyali, ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Kayyālī (Eds), Croom Helm, 1979
* Gerson, Allan, "The United Nations and Racism: the Case of Zionism and Racism", in ''Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1987, Volume 17; Volume 1987, Yoram Dinstein, Mala Tabory  (Eds)'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988, p. 68
* Hadawi, Sami, ''Bitter harvest: a modern history of Palestine'', Interlink Books, 1991, p. 183
* Beker, Avi, ''Chosen: the history of an idea, the anatomy of an obsession'', Macmillan, 2008, pp. 131, 139, 151
* Dinstein, Yoram, ''Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1987, Volume 17; Volume 1987'', pp. 31, 136
* Harkabi, Yehoshafat, ''Arab attitudes to Israel'', pp. 247–248</ref> movement. According to historian [[Avi Shlaim]], throughout its history up to present day, Zionism "is replete with manifestations of deep hostility and contempt towards the indigenous population." Shlaim balances this by pointing out that there have always been individuals within the Zionist movement that have criticized such attitudes. He cites the example of Ahad Ha'am, who after visiting Palestine in 1891, published a series of articles criticizing the aggressive behaviour and political ethnocentrism of Zionist settlers. Ha'am reportedly wrote that the [[Yishuv]] "behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency" and that they believed that "the only language that the Arabs understand is that of force."<ref>{{cite journal|last=shlaim|first=Avi|title=It can be done|journal=[[London Review of Books]]|date=June 9, 1994|volume=16|issue=11|pages=26–27|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v16/n11/avi-shlaim/it-can-be-done|access-date=October 16, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116083152/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v16/n11/avi-shlaim/it-can-be-done|archive-date=January 16, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> Some criticisms of Zionism claim that Judaism's notion of the "[[Jews as a chosen people|chosen people]]" is the source of racism in Zionism,<ref>
* Korey, William, ''Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology of Zionism'', Psychology Press, 1995, pp. 33–34
* Beker, Avi, ''Chosen: the history of an idea, the anatomy of an obsession'', Macmillan, 2008, p. 139
* Shimoni, Gideon, ''Community and conscience: the Jews in apartheid South Africa'', UPNE, 2003, p. 167
</ref> despite, according to [[Gustavo Perednik]], that being a religious concept unrelated to Zionism.<ref>{{cite web|last=Perednik|first=Gustavo|title=Judeophobia|publisher=The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism|url=http://www.antisemitism.org.il/eng/Chapter%2014%3A%20Contemporary%20Anti-Zionism|access-date=December 14, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728170359/http://www.antisemitism.org.il/eng/Chapter%2014%3A%20Contemporary%20Anti-Zionism|archive-date=July 28, 2017|url-status=dead}}
:"… This identity is often explicitly worded by its spokespersons. Thus, Yakov Malik, the Soviet ambassador to the UN, declared in 1973: "The Zionists have come forward with the theory of the Chosen People, an absurd ideology." (As it is well known, the biblical concept of "Chosen People" is part of Judaism; Zionism has nothing to do with it). "</ref> This characterization of Zionism as a colonialism has been made by, among others, Gershon Shafir, [[Michael Prior (theologian)|Michael Prior]], [[Ilan Pappe]], and [[Baruch Kimmerling]].<ref name=CHARCOL>
* Shafir, Gershon, ''Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 37–38
* Bareli, Avi, "Forgetting Europe: Perspectives on the Debate about Zionism and Colonialism", in ''Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right'', Psychology Press, 2003, pp. 99–116
* [[Ilan Pappe|Pappé Ilan]], ''A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 72–121
* Prior, Michael, ''The Bible and colonialism: a moral critique'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997, pp. 106–215
* Shafir, Gershon, "Zionism and Colonialism", in ''The Israel / Palestinian Question'', by Ilan Pappe, Psychology Press, 1999, pp. 72–85
* Lustick, Ian, ''For the Land and the Lord'' ...
* Zuriek, Elia, ''The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism'', Routledge & K. Paul, 1979
* Penslar, Derek J., "Zionism, Colonialism and Postcolonialism", in ''Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right'', Psychology Press, 2003, pp. 85–98
* [[Ilan Pappé|Pappe, Ilan]], ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld, 2007
* {{citation|title=The Bible and Zionism: invented traditions, archaeology and post-colonialism in Palestine-Israel|volume=1|last=Masalha|first=Nur|year=2007|publisher=Zed Books|page=16}}
* {{citation|title=The Dark Side of Zionism: Israel's Quest for Security Through Dominance|last=Thomas|first=Baylis|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2011|page=4}}
* {{citation|title=Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry|last=Prior|first=Michael|publisher=Psychology Press|year=1999|page=240}}
</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]], John P. Quigly, [[Nur Masalha]], and [[Cheryl Rubenberg]] have criticized Zionism, saying that it unfairly confiscates land and expels Palestinians.<ref>
* {{cite book|title=The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan|first=Steven George|last=Salaita|publisher=Syracuse University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8156-3109-5|page=54}}
* {{cite book|title=The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East|first=David|last=Hirst|publisher=Nation Books|author-link=David Hirst (journalist)|year=2003|isbn=978-1-56025-483-6|pages=418–419}}
* {{cite book|title=World Orders, Old and New|first=Noam|last=Chomsky|author-link=Noam Chomsky|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-231-10157-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/worldordersoldne0000chom/page/264 264]|url=https://archive.org/details/worldordersoldne0000chom/page/264}}
* {{cite book|title=Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion|url=https://archive.org/details/imperialisraelpa00masa|url-access=limited|first=Nur|last=Masalha|author-link=Nur Masalha|publisher=Pluto Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-7453-1615-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/imperialisraelpa00masa/page/n97 93]}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/hitchens-dawkins-and-harris|title=Essay by James M. Martin from "Atheist Nexus"|access-date=November 14, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716073344/http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/hitchens-dawkins-and-harris|archive-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite book|title=Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice|first=John B.|last=Quigley|publisher=Duke University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-8223-1023-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/palestineisrael00john/page/176 176–177]|url=https://archive.org/details/palestineisrael00john/page/176}}
* {{cite book|title=Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (2nd Ed, revised)|first=Noam|last=Chomsky|publisher=South End Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-89608-601-2|pages=153–154}}
* Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007) "Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War" in ''Israel and the Palestinian Refugees'', Eyal Benvenistî, Chaim Gans, Sari Hanafi (Eds.), Springer, p. 78.
* {{cite book|title=Land or Peace: Whither Israel?|first=Yael|last=Yishai|publisher=Hoover Press|year=1987|isbn=978-0-8179-8521-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/landorpeacewhith00yael/page/112 112–125]|url=https://archive.org/details/landorpeacewhith00yael/page/112}}
* {{cite book|title=The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace|url=https://archive.org/details/palestiniansinse0000rube|url-access=registration|first=Cheryl|last=Rubenberg|publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers|author-link=Cheryl Rubenberg|year=2003|isbn=978-1-58826-225-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/palestiniansinse0000rube/page/162 162]}}
* {{cite book|title=Islam and the West Post 9/11|first=Ron|last=Geaves|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|year=2004|isbn=978-0-7546-5005-8|page=31}}
* {{cite book|title=The Palestine Yearbook of International Law, 1998–1999, Volume 10|first=Anis F.|last=Kassim|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=2000|isbn=978-90-411-1304-7|page=9}}
* Raphael Israeli, ''Palestinians Between Israel and Jordan'', Prager, 1991, pp. 158–159, 171, 182.</ref> [[Isaac Deutscher]] has called Israelis the 'Prussians of the Middle East', who have achieved a 'totsieg', a 'victorious rush into the grave' as a result of dispossessing 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel had become the 'last remaining colonial power' of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite book|first=Tariq|last=Ali |author-link=Tariq Ali|title=The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihad and Modernity|publisher=Verso|year=2003|page=124}}</ref> [[Saleh Abdel Jawad]], [[Nur Masalha]], [[Michael Prior (theologian)|Michael Prior]], [[Ian Lustick]], and John Rose have criticized Zionism for having been responsible for violence against Palestinians, such as the [[Deir Yassin massacre]], [[Sabra and Shatila massacre]], and [[Cave of the Patriarchs massacre]].<ref>
* Weisburd, David, ''Jewish Settler Violence'', Penn State Press, 1985, pp. 20–52
* Lustick, Ian, "Israel's Dangerous Fundamentalists", ''Foreign Policy'', 68 (Fall 1987), pp. 118–139
* Tessler, Mark, "Religion and Politics in the Jewish State of Israel", in ''Religious Resurgence and Politics in the Contemporary World'', (Emile Sahliyeh, Ed)., SUNY Press, 1990, pp. 263–296.
* {{cite book|title=Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence|first=Elliott S.|last=Horowitz|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-691-12491-9|pages=6–11}}
* {{cite book|title=An Understanding of Judaism|first=John D.|last=Rayner|isbn=978-1-57181-971-0|year=1997|page=57|publisher=Berghahn Books}}
* Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007) "Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War" in ''Israel and the Palestinian refugees'', Eyal Benvenistî, Chaim Gans, Sari Hanafi (Eds.), Springer, p. 78:
:".. the Zionist movement, which claims to be secular, found it necessary to embrace the idea of 'the promised land' of Old Testament prophecy, to justify the confiscation of land and the expulsion of the Palestinians. For example, the speeches and letter of Chaim Weizman, the secular Zionist leader, are filled with references to the biblical origins of the Jewish claim to Palestine, which he often mixes liberally with more pragmatic and nationalistic claims. By the use of this premise, embraced in 1937, Zionists alleged that the Palestinians were usurpers in the Promised Land, and therefore their expulsion and death was justified. The Jewish-American writer Dan Kurzman, in his book ''Genesis 1948'' ... describes the view of one of the Deir Yassin's killers: 'The Sternists followed the instructions of the Bible more rigidly than others. They honored the passage (Exodus 22:2): 'If a thief be found ...' This meant, of course, that killing a thief was not really murder. And were not the enemies of Zionism thieves, who wanted to steal from the Jews what God had granted them?'"
* Ehrlich, Carl. S., (1999) "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in ''Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century'', Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill. p. 117–124.
* Hirst, David, ''The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East''. 1984, p. 139.
* Lorch, Netanel, ''The Edge of the Sword: Israel's War of Independence, 1947–1949'', Putnam, 1961, p. 87
* [[Ilan Pappé|Pappe, Ilan]], ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld, 2007, p. 88
</ref>

[[Edward Said]] and [[Michael Prior (theologian)|Michael Prior]] claim that the notion of expelling the Palestinians was an early component of Zionism, citing Herzl's diary from 1895 which states "we shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed—the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."<ref>
* [[Edward W. Said|Said, Edward]], ''The Edward Said Reader'', Random House, Inc., 2000, pp. 128–129
* Prior, Michael P. ''Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry'', Psychology Press, 1999, pp. 191–192
* [[Derek Penslar|Penslar, Derek]], ''Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective'', Taylor & Francis, 2007, p. 56.
</ref> <!--He describes it as "a feature of Palestinian propaganda", writing that Herzl was referring to the voluntary resettlement of squatters living on land purchased by Jews, and that the full diary entry stated, "It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example ... Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us."<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Patai|editor-first=Raphael|title=The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, translation, June 1895 entry|publisher=Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff|year=1960|page=88}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Alexander|first1=Edward|last2=Bogdanor|first2=Paul|title=The Jewish Divide Over Israel|publisher=Transaction|year=2006|pages=251–252}}</ref>--> [[Derek Penslar]] says that Herzl may have been considering either South America or Palestine when he wrote the diary entry about expropriation.<ref>*[[Derek Penslar|Penslar, Derek]], ''Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective'', Taylor & Francis, 2007, p. 56.</ref> According to [[Walter Laqueur]], although many Zionists proposed transfer, it was never official Zionist policy and in 1918 Ben-Gurion "emphatically rejected" it.<ref>{{cite book|last=Laqueur|first=Walter|title=A History of Zionism|publisher=Random House|year=1972|pages=231–232}}</ref>

The exodus of the [[Arab Palestinians]] during the [[1947–1949 Palestine war|1947–1949 war]] has been controversially described as having involved [[ethnic cleansing]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Memories and maps keep alive Palestinian hopes of return|author=Ian Black |newspaper=The Guardian|date=November 26, 2010|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/26/palestinian-refugees-middle-east-conflict |location=London |access-date=December 13, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202041903/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/26/palestinian-refugees-middle-east-conflict |archive-date=February 2, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|first=Ari|last=Shavit|title=Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris|url=http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm|access-date=2023-03-10|website=www.logosjournal.com|year=2004|archive-date=September 5, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905113719/http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to a growing consensus between '[[New Historians|new historians]]' in Israel and Palestinian historians, expulsion and destruction of villages played a major role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Vidal|first=Dominique|date=1997-12-01|title=The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined|url=https://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine|access-date=2023-03-10|website=Le Monde diplomatique|language=en |archive-date=March 10, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310045630/https://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine|url-status=live}}<br />[http://zochrot.org/en/content/were-they-expelled Were they expelled? by Pappé, Ilan (Zochrot)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819082658/http://zochrot.org/en/content/were-they-expelled |date=August 19, 2014 }}<br /> "the important point is a growing consensus among Israeli and Palestinian historians about the Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 (expulsion and the destruction of villages and towns)" (...) "The gist of the common ground is a consensus between the 'new historians' in Israel and many Palestinian historians that Israel bore the main responsibility for the making of the problem."</ref> While traditionalist scholars such as [[Efraim Karsh]] state that most of the Arabs who fled left of their own accord or were pressured to leave by their fellow Arabs (and that Israel attempted to convince them to stay)<ref>Efraim Karsh, ''Palestine betrayed'' (Yale University Press, 2010) pp. 1–15.</ref><ref>cf. {{cite journal |last=Teveth|first=Shabtai|title=The Palestine Arab Refugee Problem and Its Origins|journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=26|issue=2|pages=214–249|date=April 1990|jstor=4283366 |doi=10.1080/00263209008700816}}</ref> the scholarly consensus now dismisses this claim,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Matthews |first=Elizabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ubfEsbawzoC&pg=PA41 |title=The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Parallel Discourses |date=2011 |publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-136-88432-0 |language=en|page=41}}</ref> and as such, Benny Morris concurs that Arab instigation was not the major cause of the refugees' flight,<ref>{{Cite news|title=No Peaceful Solution |first=Miron |last=Rapaport |publisher=Haaretz Friday Supplement |date=August 11, 2005 |url= http://www.editriceilponte.org/_files/HaaretzInterviewEnglish.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060507081443/http://www.editriceilponte.org/_files/HaaretzInterviewEnglish.pdf |archive-date=May 7, 2006}}</ref> and state that the major cause of Palestinian flight was instead military actions by the Israeli Defence Force and fear of them and that Arab instigation can only explain a ''small part'' of the exodus and not a ''large part'' of it.<ref>Morris, Benny (1988): ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 286, 294.</ref><ref>Morris, Benny (1986): "Yosef Weitz and the Transfer Committees, 1948–49", ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 22, October 1986, pp. 522–561.</ref><ref>Morris, Benny (1986): "The Harvest of 1948 and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem". ''Middle East Journal'' 40, Autumn 1986, pp. 671–685.</ref><ref>Morris, Benny (1985): ''The Crystallization of Israeli Policy Against a Return of the Arab Refugees: April–December 1948''. Studies in Zionism 6, l (1985), pp. 85–118.</ref><ref>Flapan, Simha (1987): ''The Birth of Israel, Myths and Realities''. London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1987.</ref><ref>Flapan, Simha (1987): "The Palestinian Exodus of 1948". ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', vol. 16, no. 4. (Summer, 1987), pp. 3–26.</ref>
[[Ilan Pappe]] said that Zionism resulted in ethnic cleansing.<ref>[[Ilan Pappé|Pappe, Ilan]], ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld, 2007</ref> This view diverges from other [[New Historians]], such as [[Benny Morris]], who place the Palestinian exodus in the context of war, not ethnic cleansing.<ref>Rane, Halim. ''Islam and Contemporary Civilisation''. Academic Monographs, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-522-85728-3}}. p. 198</ref> When Benny Morris was asked about the [[1948 Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle|Expulsion of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle]], he responded "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Shavit|first1=Ari |title=Survival of the Fittest (an interview with Historian Benny Morris) |url=http://www.deiryassin.org/bennymorris.html |publisher=Haaretz, Magazine Section, January 9, 2004|access-date=February 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150203132343/http://deiryassin.org/bennymorris.html|archive-date=February 3, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1938, [[Mahatma Gandhi]] said in the letter "The Jews", that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine must be performed by non-violence against the Arabs, comparing it to the [[Partition of India]] into Hindu and Muslim countries.  He proposed to the Jews to "offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/unearthed-gandhi-wwii-letter-wishes-jews-era-peace-65821500|title=Unearthed Gandhi WWII letter wishes Jews 'era of peace'|website=abcnews |access-date=April 29, 2022|archive-date=April 29, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220429122459/https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/unearthed-gandhi-wwii-letter-wishes-jews-era-peace-65821500|url-status=live}}</ref> He expressed his "sympathy" for the Jewish aspirations, but said: "The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lsquo-the-jews-rsquo-by-gandhi|title=Gandhi & Zionism: 'The Jews'|date=November 26, 1938|website=Jewish Virtual Library|access-date=April 29, 2022|archive-date=April 28, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220428023251/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lsquo-the-jews-rsquo-by-gandhi|url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=May 2022}} and warned them against violence: "It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs&nbsp;... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home&nbsp;... They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart".<ref>William R. Slomanson. ''Fundamental Perspectives on International Law''. p. 50</ref> Gandhi later told American journalist [[Louis Fischer]] in 1946 that "Jews have a good case in Palestine. If the Arabs have a claim to Palestine, the Jews have a prior claim".<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/416684|title=India's Israel Policy (review)|first=Michael B.|last=Bishku|date=February 12, 2011|journal=The Middle East Journal|volume=65|issue=1|pages=169–170|access-date=March 12, 2018|via=Project MUSE|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313092149/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/416684|archive-date=March 13, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> He expressed himself again in 1946, nuancing his views: "Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew-Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose". He concluded: "If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence&nbsp;... their case would be the world's and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-on-jews-and-palestine-july-1946|title=Gandhi, the Jews & Zionism: Gandhi on Jews and Palestine|website=jewishvirtuallibrary|date=July 21, 1946|access-date=April 29, 2022|archive-date=April 29, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220429122500/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-on-jews-and-palestine-july-1946|url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=May 2022}}

In December 1973, the UN passed a series of resolutions condemning South Africa and included a reference to an "unholy alliance between [[Portuguese Colonial War|Portuguese colonialism]], [[Apartheid]] and Zionism."<ref>Resolution 3151 G (XXVIII) of December 14, 1973, by the UN General Assembly</ref>  At the time there was little cooperation between [[Israel – South Africa relations|Israel and South Africa]],<ref>Israel and Black Africa: A Rapprochement? Ethan A. Nadelmann. Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (June 1981), pp. 183–219</ref> although the two countries would develop a close relationship during the 1970s.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel|title=Brothers in arms – Israel's secret pact with Pretoria|first=Chris|last=McGreal|date=February 7, 2006|website=The Guardian|access-date=March 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180309223421/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel|archive-date=March 9, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Parallels have also been drawn between aspects of South Africa's apartheid regime and certain Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, which are seen as manifestations of racism in Zionist thinking.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6390755.stm|title=UN envoy hits Israel 'apartheid'|date=February 23, 2007|access-date=March 12, 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180704020055/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6390755.stm|archive-date=July 4, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1975 the [[UN General Assembly]] passed Resolution 3379, which said "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". According to the resolution, "any doctrine of racial differentiation of superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous." The resolution named the occupied territory of Palestine, Zimbabwe, and South Africa as examples of racist regimes. Resolution 3379 was pioneered by the Soviet Union and passed with numerical support from Arab and African states amidst accusations that Israel was supportive of the apartheid regime in South Africa.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cfr.org/un/un-general-assembly-resolution-3379-racial-discrimination/p11284|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130141738/http://www.cfr.org/un/un-general-assembly-resolution-3379-racial-discrimination/p11284|url-status=dead|title=UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, Racial Discrimination (Council on Foreign Relations, November 10, 1975)|archive-date=January 30, 2012}}</ref> In 1991 the resolution was repealed with [[UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=260 General Assembly Resolution 46–86 – Revocation of Resolution 3379 – 16 December 1991 and statement by President Herzog|language=en|publisher=Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs|url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%2520Relations/Israels%2520Foreign%2520Relations%2520since%25201947/1988-1992/260%2520General%2520Assembly%2520Resolution%252046-86-%2520Revocation |access-date=2023-03-26 |archive-date=March 24, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090324051151/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%20Relations/Israels%20Foreign%20Relations%20since%201947/1988-1992/260%20General%20Assembly%20Resolution%2046-86-%20Revocation|website=www.mfa.gov.il}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=July 2023}} after Israel declared that it would only participate in the [[Madrid Conference of 1991]] if the resolution were revoked.<ref>Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York: Basic Books. p. 320. {{ISBN|978-0-465-04195-4}}.</ref>

Arab countries sought to associate Zionism with racism in connection with a [[World Conference against Racism 2001|2001 UN conference on racism]], which took place in [[Durban]], South Africa,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1484002.stm|title=Anger over Zionism debate|date=September 4, 2001|access-date=March 12, 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181107030339/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1484002.stm|archive-date=November 7, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> which caused the United States and Israel to walk away from the conference as a response. The final text of the conference did not connect Zionism with racism. A human rights forum arranged in connection with the conference, on the other hand, did equate Zionism with racism and censured Israel for what it called "racist crimes, including acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1523600.stm|title=US abandons racism summit|date=September 3, 2001|access-date=March 12, 2018|via=news.bbc.co.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104085705/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1523600.stm|archive-date=January 4, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Haredi Judaism and Zionism===
{{See also|Haredim and Zionism}}
Some Haredi Orthodox organizations reject Zionism as they view it as a [[secular movement]] and reject [[nationalism]] as a doctrine. [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] groups in Jerusalem, most famously the [[Satmar (Hasidic dynasty)|Satmar]] Hasidim, as well as the larger movement they are part of, the [[Edah HaChareidis]], are opposing its ideology for religious reasons. They number in the tens of thousands in Jerusalem, and hundreds of thousands worldwide.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}} One of the best known Hasidic opponents of political Zionism was [[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[rebbe]] and [[Talmud]]ic scholar [[Joel Teitelbaum]].
[[File:Judaism condemns Israel's atrocities -6 (52032176719).jpg|thumb|right|Members of [[Neturei Karta]] holding Palestinian flags and placards saying that "Judaism condemns the state of Israel and its atrocities" in London, 2022]]
The [[Neturei Karta]], an Orthodox Haredi sect viewed as a cult on the "farthest fringes of Judaism" by most mainstream Jews, reject Zionism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.adl.org/extremism/karta/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029025033/http://www.adl.org/extremism/karta/|url-status=dead|title=Neturei Karta: What is it?|archive-date=October 29, 2012}}</ref> Some have said that Israel is a "racist regime",<ref>[http://globalfire.tv/nj/03en/jews/ttjews.htm "We oppose the Zionists and their 'state'] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515235351/http://globalfire.tv/nj/03en/jews/ttjews.htm |date=May 15, 2011 }} vigorously and we continue our prayers for the dismantlement of the Zionist 'state' and peace to the world." Rabbi E Weissfish, Neturei Karta, Representatives of Orthodox Jewry, US, London, Palestine and worldwide.</ref> compared Zionists to [[Nazis]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Great Gulf Between Zionism and Judaism|url=https://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/greatgulf.cfm|website=www.nkusa.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128090750/http://nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/greatgulf.cfm |archive-date=November 28, 2010}}</ref> claimed that Zionism is contrary to the teachings of the [[Torah]],<ref>[http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/whatis.cfm "What is Zionism?"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101114024502/http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/whatis.cfm |date=November 14, 2010 |first=G. J. |last=Neuberger}} Jews against Zionism.</ref> or accused it of promoting antisemitism.<ref>[http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/zionismpromotes.cfm "Zionism promotes antisemitism"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124121839/http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/zionismpromotes.cfm |date=November 24, 2010 }}, Jews against Zionism</ref>

===Anti-Zionism or antisemitism===
{{Main|Anti-Zionism#Anti-Zionism and antisemitism|New Antisemitism}}
Critics of anti-Zionism have argued that opposition to Zionism can be hard to distinguish from antisemitism,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://jcpa.org/phas/phas-wistrich-f04.htm|title=Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism|work=Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs|date=Fall 2004 |access-date=November 17, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121115102337/http://jcpa.org/phas/phas-wistrich-f04.htm |archive-date=November 15, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{citation|first=Kenneth L.|last=Marcus|title=Anti-Zionism as Racism: Campus Anti-Semitism and the Civil Rights Act of 1964|journal=William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal|volume=15|issue=3|pages=837–891|year=2007}}</ref> and that criticism of Israel may be used as an excuse to express viewpoints that might otherwise be considered antisemitic.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/sep/03/religion.immigrationpolicy|location=London|work=The Guardian|first=Ned|last=Temko|title=Critics of Israel 'fuelling hatred of British Jews'|date=October 17, 2006 | access-date=December 13, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202042852/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/sep/03/religion.immigrationpolicy | archive-date=February 2, 2017 | url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.h-net.org/~antis/papers/jcr_antisemitism.pdf|title=H-Antisemitism|publisher=H-Net |access-date=January 22, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130516084421/http://www.h-net.org/~antis/papers/jcr_antisemitism.pdf |archive-date=May 16, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> In discussion of the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, "one theory holds that anti-Zionism is no more than veiled anti-Semitism". This is contrasted with the theory "that criticism of Israeli politics has been discredited as anti-Zionism, and thus linked with anti-Semitism, in order to prevent such criticism".<ref>{{cite book|title=Anti-semitism in Germany: the post-Nazi epoch since 1945|first1=Werner|last1=Bergmann|first2=Rainer|last2=Erb|pages=182|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Mc9wZPAky8C|date=1997|translator-first1=Belinda|translator-last1=Cooper|translator-first2=Allison|translator-last2=Brown|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-1736-3|access-date=August 13, 2023|archive-date=January 11, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111181915/https://books.google.com/books?id=5Mc9wZPAky8C|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the Arab world, the words "Jew" and "Zionist" are often used interchangeably. To avoid accusations of antisemitism, the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] has historically avoided using the word "Jewish" in favor of using "Zionist," though PLO officials have sometimes slipped.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3PNt46aB_sYC&pg=PA48|title=Native vs. Settler |author-last=Mitchell |author-first=Thomas G.|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2000|page=48|quote=To most Arabs the terms Jew or Jewish and Zionist are interchangeable. After the introduction of European anti-Semitism into the Arab world in the thirties and forties through the Axis powers, Arab propaganda has displayed many classic Nazi anti-Semitic claims about the Jews. For public relations purposes the PLO has never wanted to be accused of being anti-Semitic but rather only of being anti-Zionist. Occasionally its leaders slip, as Arafat did when he referred to the "Jewish invasion" in his speech.|isbn=978-0-313-31357-8 |access-date=February 14, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150516124255/https://books.google.com/books?id=3PNt46aB_sYC&pg=PA48 |archive-date=May 16, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some antisemites have alleged that Zionism was, or is, part of a Jewish plot to take control of the world.<ref>[[Norman Cohn]], [[Warrant for Genocide]], Serif 2001 chapter 3</ref> One particular version of these allegations, a fake document known as ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' claiming to outline Jewish plans to take over the world, achieved global notability. A 1920 German version renamed them ''[[The Zionist Protocols]]''.<ref>[[Norman Cohn]], [[Warrant for Genocide]], Serif 2001 pp. 75–76</ref> The protocols were [[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion#toc|extensively used as propaganda]] by the Nazis and remain widely [[Protocols of the Elders of Zion#Post World War II|distributed in the Arab world]]. They are referred to in the 1988 [[Hamas#Hamas Charter|Hamas charter]].<ref>Hamas charter, article 32: "The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"&nbsp;..."</ref>

Anti-Zionist writers such as [[Noam Chomsky]], [[Norman Finkelstein]], [[Michael Marder]], and [[Tariq Ali]] have argued that the characterization of anti-Zionism as antisemitic obscures legitimate [[criticism of Israel]]'s policies and actions, and that it is used as a political ploy in order to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.
* Jewish American linguist [[Noam Chomsky]] argues: "There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; 'one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all,' Israeli diplomat [[Abba Eban]] argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position (Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973). But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as 'self-hatred,' so that all possible cases are covered."&nbsp;– Chomsky, 1989 ''"Necessary Illusions''
* Philosopher Michael Marder argues: "To deconstruct Zionism is ... to demand justice for its victims—not only for the Palestinians, who are suffering from it, but also for the anti-Zionist Jews, 'erased' from the officially consecrated account of Zionist history. By deconstructing its ideology, we shed light on the context it strives to repress and on the violence it legitimises with a mix of theological or metaphysical reasoning and affective appeals to historical guilt for the undeniably horrific persecution of Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere."<ref>{{cite book|title=Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics|editor-first1=Gianni|editor-last1=Vattimo|editor-first2=Michael|editor-last2=Marder|year=2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-1-4411-0594-3}}</ref>
* Jewish American political scientist Norman Finkelstein argues that anti-Zionism and often just criticism of Israeli policies have been conflated with antisemitism, sometimes called [[new antisemitism]] for political gain: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations débâcle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.' The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It's to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It's a role reversal—the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It's no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it's the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/5104|title=ZNet – Beyond Chutzpah |access-date=June 25, 2009|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090625165331/http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/5104 |archive-date=June 25, 2009}}</ref>

==Marcus Garvey and Black Zionism==
{{See also|Alliance of Black Jews|Back-to-Africa movement}}
Zionist success in winning British support for the formation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine helped inspire the Jamaican [[Black nationalism|Black nationalist]] [[Marcus Garvey]] to form a movement dedicated to returning Americans of African origin to Africa. During a speech in [[Harlem]] in 1920, Garvey stated: "other races were engaged in seeing their cause through—the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement—and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through."<ref>''[[Negro World]]'' March 6, 1920, cited in [http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/lifeintr.asp University of California, Los Angeles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080102123926/http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/lifeintr.asp |date=January 2, 2008 }} (accessed November 29, 2007)</ref> Garvey established a shipping company, the [[Black Star Line]], to allow Black Americans to emigrate to Africa, but for various reasons he failed in his endeavor.

Garvey helped inspire the [[Rastafari movement]] in Jamaica, the [[Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation|Black Jews]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.blackjews.org/RabbiBios/RabbiFord.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030055447/http://www.blackjews.org/RabbiBios/RabbiFord.html|url-status=dead|title=BlackJews.org&nbsp;– A Project of the International Board of Rabbis|archive-date=October 30, 2007}}</ref> and the [[African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem]] who initially moved to [[Liberia]] before settling in Israel.

==Zionism as settler colonialism==
{{main|Zionism as settler colonialism}}
Beyond characterizing it as a colonial movement, Zionism has been more recently described as a form of  settler colonialism, with proponents of this paradigm including [[Edward Said]], [[Rashid Khalidi]], [[Noam Chomsky]], [[Ilan Pappe]], [[Fayez Sayegh]], [[Maxime Rodinson]], George Jabbour, [[Ibrahim Abu-Lughod]], Baha Abu-Laban, Jamil Hilal, and [[Rosemary Sayigh]].{{sfn|Sabbagh-Khoury|2022|loc=first section}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tawil-Souri |first=Helga |date=2016 |title=Response to Elia Zureik's Israel's Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0683 |url-status=live |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=683–687 |doi=10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0683 |issn=0271-3519 |jstor=10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0683 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220609085442/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0683 |archive-date=9 June 2022 |access-date=9 June 2022 |quote=Calling Israel a settler colonial regime is an argument increasingly gaining purchase in activist and, to a lesser extent, academic circles.}}</ref>

The current form of this conceptual framework emerged in the 1990s among [[Palestinian citizens of Israel|Palestinian scholars in Israel]] who "reframed the history of the [[Nakba]] as [[Ongoing Nakba|enduring]]" in response to their marginalization by the [[Two-state solution|two-state]] [[Israeli–Palestinian peace process]].{{sfn|Sabbagh-Khoury|2022|loc=Conclusion}}{{refn|group=fn|The settler colonial paradigm, linked to Israeli critical sociology, post-Zionism, and postcolonialism, reemerged following changes in the political landscape from the mid-1990s that reframed the history of the Nakba as enduring, challenged the Jewish definition of the state, and legitimated Palestinians as agents of history. Palestinian scholars in Israel lead the paradigm's reformulation.{{sfn|Sabbagh-Khoury|2022|loc=first section}}}} It built of the work of [[Patrick Wolfe]], an influential theorist of settler colonial studies who has defined settler colonialism as an ongoing "structure, not an event" aimed at replacing a native population rather than exploiting it.{{sfn|Wolfe|2006}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Forum on Patrick Wolfe |url=https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3437-forum-on-patrick-wolfe |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210621043010/https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3437-forum-on-patrick-wolfe |archive-date=21 June 2021 |access-date=26 April 2022 |website=Versobooks.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=26 October 2020 |title=What is at Stake in the Study of Settler Colonialism? |url=https://developingeconomics.org/2020/10/26/what-is-at-stake-in-the-study-of-settler-colonialism/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211125221504/https://developingeconomics.org/2020/10/26/what-is-at-stake-in-the-study-of-settler-colonialism/ |archive-date=25 November 2021 |access-date=26 April 2022 |website=Developing Economics |language=en}}</ref> 

Rachel Busbridge says the framework's subsequent popularity is inseparable from frustration at the stagnation of that process and resulting Western left-wing sympathy for [[Palestinian nationalism]]. Busbridge writes that while a settler colonial analysis "offers a far more accurate portrayal of the conflict than...has conventionally been painted", Wolfe's zero-sum approach is limited in practical application because almost all Israeli Jews naturally reject it, as a form of [[antisemitism]] that denies their long-standing [[History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel|history in the land of Israel]] and aspirations for [[self-determination]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Troen |first1=S. Ilan |year=2007 |title=De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine |journal=Israel Affairs |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=872–884 |doi=10.1080/13537120701445372 |s2cid=216148316}}</ref>{{sfn|Busbridge|2018|pp=97–98}}

==See also==
{{div col |colwidth=20em}}
* [[American Council for Judaism]]
* [[Gathering of Israel]]
* [[Golus nationalism]]
* [[Jewish Agency for Israel]]
* [[Jewish Autonomism]]
* [[List of Zionist figures]]
* [[Romanistan]]
* [[Yehud Medinata]]
* [[Zio (pejorative)]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
'''Explanatory notes'''
{{Reflist|group=fn}}
{{notelist}}

'''Citations'''
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
::'''Primary sources'''
* Herzl, Theodor. ''A Jewish state: an attempt at a modern solution of the Jewish question'' (1896) [https://archive.org/details/ajewishstateana00aviggoog <!-- quote=inauthor:herzl. --> full text online]
* Herzl, Theodor. ''Theodor Herzl: Excerpts from His Diaries'' (2006) [https://books.google.com/books?id=2RhB8hgyK4UC excerpt and text search] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140708150713/http://books.google.com/books?id=2RhB8hgyK4UC&dq=inauthor:herzl&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=3 |date=July 8, 2014 }}

::'''Secondary sources'''
* Armborst-Weihs, Kerstin: [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2010092115 ''The Formation of the Jewish National Movement Through Transnational Exchange: Zionism in Europe up to the First World War''], [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2011, retrieved: August 17, 2011.
* [[A. B. Masilamani]], ''Zionism'' in ''Melu Kolupu'' ([[Telugu language|Telugu]]), Navajeevana Publications, Vijayanagar Colony, Hyderabad, 1984, pp.&nbsp;121–126.
* {{cite book|chapter=Zionism’s New Jew and the Birth of the Genomic Jew|last=Baker|first=Cynthia M.|title=Jew|publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]]|series=Key Words in Jewish Studies|year=2017|pages=99–110|isbn=978-0-813-57386-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iQy0DQAAQBAJ | access-date=2023-07-10}}
* Beller, Steven. ''Herzl'' (2004)
* Brenner, Michael, and Shelley Frisch. ''Zionism: A Brief History'' (2003) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558763015 excerpt and text search]
* [[Judith Butler|Butler, Judith]]: ''[[Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism]]''. Columbia University Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0-231-14611-1}}
* Cohen, Naomi. ''The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948'' (2003). 304 pp. essays on specialized topics
* Friedman, Isaiah. "Theodor Herzl: Political Activity and Achievements," ''Israel Studies'' 2004 9(<span class="ltr">3</span>): 46–79, online in [[EBSCO]]
* {{citation|title=Studies in Contemporary Jewry : Volume VII: Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning|editor=Jonathan Frankel|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1991|isbn=978-0-19-536198-8|chapter=BenGurion and the Second World War|first=Dvorah|last=Hacohen}}
* {{citation|title=Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After|first=Devorah|last=Hakohen|publisher=Syracuse University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8156-2969-6}}
* [[David Hazony]], Yoram Hazony, and Michael B. Oren, eds., "New Essays on Zionism," Shalem Press, 2007.
* Kloke, Martin: [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2011081801 ''The Development of Zionism Until the Founding of the State of Israel''], [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2010, retrieved: June 13, 2012.
* Laqueur, Walter. ''A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel'' (2003) survey by a leading scholar [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805211497 excerpt and text search]
* {{cite journal|doi=10.1353/ajh.1998.0002|title=Review Essay: Recent Trends in the Historiography of American Zionism|journal=American Jewish History|volume=86|pages=117–134|year=1998|last1=Medoff|first1=Rafael|s2cid=143834470}}
* {{cite book|last=Motyl|first=Alexander J.|author-link=Alexander J. Motyl|title=Encyclopedia of Nationalism, Volume II|year=2001|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=978-0-12-227230-1}}
* Pawel, Ernst. ''The Labyrinth of Exile: A Life of Theodor Herzl'' (1992) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374523517 excerpt and text search]
* Sachar, Howard M. ''A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375711325 excerpt and text search]
* Shimoni, Gideon. ''The Zionist Ideology'' (1995)
* {{Cite EB1922 |wstitle= Zionism |volume = 32 |last= Simon |first= Leon |pages = |short= 1}}
* [[Gadi Taub|Taub, Gadi]]. ''The Settlers and the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism'' (2010, Hebrew, English)
* Taylor, A.R., 1971, "Vision and intent in Zionist Thought'" in ''The transformation of Palestine'', ed. by I. Abu-Lughod, {{ISBN|978-0-8101-0345-0}}, [[Northwestern University Press]], Evanston, IL
* Urofsky, Melvin I. ''American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust'' (1995), a standard history
* Wigoder, Geoffrey, ed. ''New Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel'' (2nd ed. 2 vol. 1994); 1521 pp
* {{cite journal|last=Hirsch|first=Dafna|title=Zionist eugenics, mixed marriage, and the creation of a 'new Jewish type'|journal=Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute|publisher=Wiley|volume=15|issue=3|year=2009|issn=1359-0987|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9655.2009.01575.x|pages=592–609|jstor=40541701|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40541701}}
* {{cite book|last=McGonigle|first=Ian V.|title=Genomic Citizenship: The Molecularization of Identity in the Contemporary Middle East|publisher=[[MIT Press]] (originally a Harvard PhD Thesis, published March 2018)|year=2021|isbn=978-0-262-36669-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1EYIEAAAQBAJ | access-date=2023-07-08}}
* {{cite book|last=Burton|first=Elise K.|title=Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=2021|isbn=978-1-5036-1457-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5FQMEAAAQBAJ | access-date=2023-07-08}}
* {{cite book|last=Abu El-Haj|first=Nadia|authorlink=Nadia Abu El Haj|title=The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology|publisher=University of Chicago Press|series=Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning|year=2012|isbn=978-0-226-20142-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DDXi4kWW4cC | access-date=2023-07-08}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Busbridge |first1=Rachel |title=Israel-Palestine and the Settler Colonial 'Turn': From Interpretation to Decolonization |journal=Theory, Culture & Society |date=2018 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=91–115 |doi=10.1177/0263276416688544|s2cid=151793639 |doi-access=free }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Sabbagh-Khoury |first1=Areej |title=Tracing Settler Colonialism: A Genealogy of a Paradigm in the Sociology of Knowledge Production in Israel |journal=Politics & Society |date=2022 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=44–83 |doi=10.1177/0032329221999906|s2cid=233635930 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Wolfe |first1=Patrick |title=Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2006 |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=387–409 |doi=10.1080/14623520601056240|s2cid=143873621 |doi-access=free }}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{wikisource-inline|Category:Zionism|Zionism}}
* {{wikisource-inline|Zionism an Affirmation of Judaism}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120728191249/http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/ Central Zionist Archives site in Jerusalem]
* [http://www.wzo.org.il/ WZO website]
* [http://www.exodus1947.com Exodus1947.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211218080229/https://www.exodus1947.com/ |date=December 18, 2021 }} – PBS Documentary Film focusing on the secret American involvement in Aliyah Bet, narrated by Morley Safer
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140418025605/http://jewishmag.com/145mag/herzl_hechler/herzl_hechler.htm Reverend William H. Hechler – The Christian minister who legitimized Theodor Herzl] by Jerry Klinger. ''Jewish Magazine'', July 2010
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ffa6qMUX6U&list=WL5ABC371F9A2AC9F7 Is Zionism in Crisis?] A Follow-Up Debate with [[Peter Beinart]] and [[Alan Dershowitz]] at The Graduate Center, [[CUNY]]
* {{PM20|FID=sh/141115,160377}}

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