Anti Semitism to increase after the government sides with Islamists

I would say the exact same thing about Islamism or Christian Nationalism. They mean very different things to many different people.

Same here!
The Palestinians deserved so much better than what Hamas gave them.

And @Newbutoldfather I'm not Jewish so have no particular skin in the game as it were. I'm sympathetic to Palestinians of course, but do not see Israel and Jews as evil 'genocidal' monsters this forum like to claim they are.

You are over complicating it. The basis premise of zionism is the same. Some add more on than others, but the idea of a Jewish state remains the same.

But no one is arguing about the basic idea of what a banana is. Some may delve into too deeply and tell you it doesn't grow on trees or is actually a berry, but the basic definition of a banana is still the same.

You seem to be singling out zionism as though making excuses for anti-Israel sentiment.

Yes, the existence of Israel is definitely being questioned by quite a few people nowadays. Enough for it to still be a concern.

I’ve even seen it here on MN - usually carefully wrapped up in ‘I’m definitely not against Jews, but couldn’t they just peacefully live somewhere else?’ or ‘Surely a one-state solution would be possible, why are they insisting on an ethnostate, anyway?

@SharonEllis ,

I think the (upper case) Zionism is pretty obscure. I certainly didn’t know about it until I googled it today. You don’t get a lot of hits when you search for it and I have never heard any Jew that I know make the distinction. How do you specify which one you mean if it is the first word in a sentence? And who debates being a Zionist if it is about my (theoretical) emotional tie to the land of Israel?

I think we have all been debating zionism (lower case) here,

In practical terms, if someone asked me whether I was a zionist, I would be very specific about my beliefs in my answer. Yes, in the sense of Israel remaining Jewish within its original borders, no in the sense that I don’t think Jews have any god-given rights above anyone else, no in the sense that my first loyalty is to the UK and I have no intention to emigrate to Israel unless antisemitism became really really bad here.

The fact that I would be so careful in my answer suggests to me that the term isn’t well defined and that a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ could easily be misinterpreted.

Im not lecturing anyone - but as you know Zionism is different to zionism and ALL of my understanding of zionism comes from talking to Jewish people, those I work with, those who are my friends and those who I read. My point was a slightly different one about the way words are defined in human history, ie through concensus around usage, and I've always understood the idea of zionism as a belief in the self determination of Jewish people in Israel as coming from Jewish people. All the evidence I have ever seen is that the vast majority of Jewish peopke agree with that definition.

BLM is a good example of a movement that means different things to different people because it doesn't have a core meaning beyond the important but ill defined idea that black people's lives matter. Personally I dont think it's equivalent to zionism though there are obvious similarities.

@SharonEllis ,

Given as it started as a Jewish liberation movement, maybe by the Jewish community.

Perhaps listen a little more and lecture a little less?

I wouldn’t tend to lecture a black person on what BLM means do them, but maybe that is just me.

That article I linked to earlier was good and well informed.

Not just Zionism. Defining a banana is easy but how, or more to the point who, defines a word that means so many different things to so many.

How do you think the meaning of words is defined? Are we exceptionalising zionism for some reason?

Then who decides?

Please stop over complicating it. Since when was it up to the government of Israel to decide? Its not in anyway similar to drawing up a constitution.

I know what you mean but who is going to make the decision that this is the specific definition. Let's face it, Israel has still not managed to decide on a codified constitution so how on earth are they going to define something which is already interpreted so differently by so many.

I really cant see what is complicated about having a basic definition that is the one that there has been a consensus around for a very long time. That people have their own takes on it and additional layers to it, is to be expected. The fact that Daniella Weiss adds something different is irrelevant. It doesn't change the core belief it just means the core belief lead her to a set of positions that are not the same positions that @KeepOnCleaning may hold. They are still both zionists and the core definition still has meaning.

That was the point I was also trying to make. Your interpretation of Zionism is very different to that of Daniella Weiss or Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

I think my point may have got slightly lost here. I'm not saying there aren't different strands of Zionism, or that individual Zionists don't hold very different political views.

To me, the core meaning of Zionism is simply the belief that Jewish people are entitled to self-determination in the land of Israel. Everything else – borders, settlements, the Palestinians, religion, the current Israeli government etc – involves additional beliefs on which Zionists can and do disagree. That's actually why I object to Zionism itself being redefined to mean expansionism or support for settlements. Some Zionists believe those things and others strongly oppose them. They aren't inherent in the core belief.

I agree with this.

I'd much prefer for the word to have one clear universally agreed upon meaning. In an ideal world the meaning wouldn't shift due to people using it incorrectly, but I do realise we don't live in an ideal world.

I think that's a good way of putting it. Most of my fellow Jews who are Zionists will look at it in terms of 'It's just the desire for a Jewish homeland' and they don't want to look under the hood for the implications of it being somewhere other people already live there.

At the other end of the scale you'll get some leftwing, often antisemitic, people going 'It's a white European colonial ideology that requires the death and subjugation of brown people' and not looking under the hood of why Jewish people might need a homeland (or that not all Jewish people are white, with 40-50% of Jewish Israelis having roots in the middle East or North Africa)

I don't think I agree with your points about there being different definitions of Zionism. I think it is interpreted differently on the individual level. Much like Islamism and Christian Nationalism, it can be interpreted in a benign way but is easily radicalised leading to conflict and persecution.

That's interesting, and I don't disagree that there are multiple forms of Zionism with very different beliefs about what Zionism should look like in practice. But I don't think that supports the point you were making earlier about semantic shift.
In fact, it supports what I was saying. Zionists can disagree about borders, settlements, religion, the Palestinians and Israeli government policy while still being Zionists. My objection is to taking the beliefs of one particular strand of Zionism - such as expansionism - and saying that Zionism itself has now evolved to mean that. “There are multiple forms of Zionism” and “Zionism now means expansionism” are two very different claims.

@Newbutoldfather Really interesting. As a constantly evolving ideology, I think it’s inevitable that perceptions of Zionism will also evolve.
A snip for anyone interested:
As a scholar of Israel studies who teaches about Zionism, what strikes me when I read such statements is how narrowly they define it, reducing Zionism to a single belief in “the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and statehood in the land of Israel.”
This ignores the fact that there are multiple “Zionisms,” rather than a singular “Zionism,” and that the term has more than just one meaning. It is, at best, oversimplified to describe Zionism only as the belief in the right of Jews to have a Jewish state.
What do Zionists believe?
To be sure, this is how mainstream American Jewish organizations define Zionism. The vast majority of Jewish Americans also think that the “right of the Jewish people to have a Jewish state” is a Zionist belief, according to a March 2025 survey by the Jewish Federations of North America.
Nearly 9 in 10 American Jews said they believed that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. Yet only around a third identified as Zionists. Why, then, do these Jews not consider themselves Zionists?
This may be because many Jewish Americans think Zionism includes other beliefs, too – beliefs that they do not share. For example, in the same survey around a third thought that “Believing Israel has a right to the West Bank and Gaza Strip” is part of Zionism. Around a quarter believed that “Supporting whatever actions Israel takes” is also part of Zionism.

Good. Personally I loath all theocracies and ethnocracies. I do not believe, in the 21st century, any country should be defined by a religion whether it is Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or whatever. I believe every country should be totally secular with a total separation of religion from state. Everyone should be able to follow their faith without persecution but that faith should have no impact on other peoples lives. Defining a country by a religion naturally creates division and no matter how much people who advocate for it argue it doesn't, it creates a multi tiered society. To that end, would you call me an antizionist and if you do, is it something I should be ashamed about.

Of course I want people of different faiths to live peacefully together.

Of course language evolves, but I don't think “semantic shift” means that if enough people start using a word to mean something different from both its established definition and what the people who actually identify with that word mean by it, everyone else should simply accept the new meaning.

Zionism is still defined as supporting the existence/development of a Jewish state, not supporting settlements, expansionism or the expulsion of Palestinians. Those are political positions that some Zionists hold and other Zionists strongly oppose.

Words can acquire additional connotations, certainly. But that's different from saying their meaning has simply changed and people who actually identify as Zionists should “be flexible” and accept somebody else's definition of what they believe.

Well I apologise if that is not what you want. It is just that is what I thought you were saying in your post.

Language is constantly evolving, known as semantic shift. Zionism is an obvious example. I think flexibility is best and we need to acknowledge this. Seems silly to cling on to meanings that are in a state of shift, like fighting against a tide - and by ‘silly’ I don’t mean ‘blessed’ as was once its meaning.