What Does Zionist Really Mean?
A Q&A for the Zicurious
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“I mean, I’m not a Zionist but…”
Well, of course, you don’t want the kiss of death label. Who would want to be ostracized? Lambasted? Called a “genocide enabler” and “baby killer” and “Nazi?”
But, what if, by its most basic definition, you are a Zionist?
Because you simply accept the right of Israel to exist.
But what if I’m against their government?
So are 70% of Israelis. And many - perhaps most - Zionists around the world.
But I don’t want this war to continue.
Neither do most Israelis and neither do I. We are all still Zionists.
But everyone says Zionists are settler colonialist white supremacist Nazis.
Unfortunately, this is part of a much broader problem of misinformation and propaganda.
Let’s start with everyone’s first stop for basic information: Wikipedia.
Over the past couple years, Wikipedia was infiltrated by anti-Israel editors who entirely changed the definition of Zionism and everything surrounding it. Here’s what that looks like.
Wikipedia’s definition of Zionism back when I was researching for myself in 2022:
Zionism is both an ideology and nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a Jewish state centered in the area roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, the region of Palestine or Eretz Israel on the basis of a long Jewish connection and attachment to that land.
Wikipedia’s definition of Zionism in 2025:
Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish a national home for the Jewish people, pursued through the colonization of Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism with central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.
It’s infuriating. This is what your 9th grader will find when working on her school research paper. And the younger generation has no chance of understanding Israel without a wild amount of bias and, honestly, hatred unless this shit changes.
What if I just don’t want to be associated with a wrong definition?
I get it. This is hard.
I don’t want to be associated with Betar any more than I want to be associated with Neturei Karta.
I stopped calling myself a progressive and even a Democrat because of the way I felt these things were being co-opted. But now I call myself an independent and don’t want to be associated with Rand Paul or Bernie Sanders. However you define yourself, you will always be sharing space with assholes. And you will always be misunderstood.
But what if I have complicated feelings about the establishment of Israel?
You should. It’s actually healthy to have complicated feelings about the establishment of all nations, including the ground where you are standing and the home that you live in.
What happened in 1948 has long been the subject of much debate and strife, even within like-minded communities. Jewish people are indeed indigenous to the land and have been for millennia. So are Palestinians.
In fact, genetic studies have demonstrated that the various Jewish ethnic groups and the Palestinians are related to each other.
Despite the dueling narratives, I suspect that the founding of the modern state of Israel was likely a complicated, shitty mess stemming from centuries of persecution, war, and land theft from everyone involved. No group of people is innocent in the historical and continued pillaging that has landed us where we are today.
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Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that you believe Israel was founded 80 years ago through pure settler colonialism. I do not believe that is an accurate assessment, but again, let’s suppose.
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Uruguay, and, of course, the United States are all examples of nations created or expanded in their contemporary form by settler colonization.
In the same year that Israel was founded, the partition of British India led to the creation of India and Pakistan. The process was marked by violence and displacement, and the two nations continue to face territorial disputes, including wars, which no one in the Western world seems overly concerned with.
My family was chased out of their homes in the 1900s by Russian pogroms, and it has not occurred to anyone to go back and attempt to wage war in Moscow. My husband’s grandfather had his back permanently broken as a child by the Russians and never spoke of any desire to go back and murder their grandchildren.
They built their lives anew from nothing. As did Holocaust survivors, millions of Black Americans, post-internment Japanese Americans, and indigenous Americans who continue to have land dispossessed.
So, even if you believe the worst about the founding of Israel, the white ancestors of slave owners, living on Lenape land, saying that the murder of babies on October 7 was justified resistance is hypocritical, deranged, and morally bereft mental gymnastics.
But I want dignity and peace for the Palestinians.
So do I. I want them free from Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that steal their aid and their freedom. Israel is not entirely innocent of any wrongdoing - no nation is. But they relinquished control of Gaza 20 years ago. This didn’t have to happen.
A Gazan citizen writes in Time Magazine:
Hamas is driven by an ideological stand originating in the concept of annihilating the state of Israel and replacing it with an Islamic Palestinian one. In striving to make this a reality, Hamas has continued to normalize violence and militarization in every aspect of public and private life in Gaza. They have in the process obliterated the chances of a successful Palestinian state alongside Israel, even if the prospect of one had increasingly looked dim amid successive Israeli governments that worked against that.
Whew, that’s a lot! What if I’m confused by the onslaught of information?
I know. It is a lot. And much of what you may be hearing is skewed or even patently false. If I, a Jewish political news junkie, stay confused 24/7, I can’t reasonably expect my neighbors to have any idea what the hell is going on.
But, I suppose in the simplest terms: do you believe America should exist? We were undeniably founded through white settler colonization and built on the backs of slaves. And now we are on the verge of a trade war and ostensibly about to become a disease-ridden poverty stricken fascist Nation.
If you spent your nights holed up in a bunker in with your babies while surrounding nations shot rockets, would that feel justified? If your son was slaughtered at a music festival, would you like to see that celebrated? How would you feel if everyone around the world boycotted you, your family, your business, and your art simply for being born here? Because you are an American.
OK, I get that. I mean, I’m not thrilled to be an American right now. But I don’t want to give up my home and my life here. And I want to stay and fight for a better government and a better future. Because that’s what it means to be an American.
That’s what it means to be a Zionist too.
Courageous post. I'm with you. When I post about it I get so many condescending lectures, like I don't know there is a proprortionality problem, like I never noticed Israel has military superiority fed by the US. While they don't want to hear about the October 7th attack AT ALL. Nor do they think the hostages are a big deal. I have yet to find a mutual exchange of thoughts that doesn't vilify Zionism. But a community where only Zionism is discussed is also very uncomfortable for me. We live in a very binary world. Anyway I am glad I found you.
We can take your thought experiment a step further. Let’s say you lived in the UK and had decided the U.S. shouldn’t exist. What’s your next (reasonable) step? And what’s your plan for the current residents of the U.S. once you’ve achieved your aims and the U.S. no longer exists?
How might we here in the U.S. respond to a growing movement in the U.K. that wanted the U.S. to disappear? A movement that suggested we should go back to our countries of origin, or be absorbed into Mexico or Canada. Would we respond by becoming more introspective and thinking more about how to address the many injustices we’ve perpetrated? Maybe a few people would go in that direction. But I think the majority would respond by digging in their heels and adopting an attitude of “America right or wrong.”
I think it would become more difficult to address the injustices perpetrated by America and to attend to the people who were harmed by them. The “America right or wrong” crowd would be energized and confirmed in their views. Meanwhile, the people harmed by America’s past mistakes would find their lives unchanged, or worse. It’s highly unlikely their lives would improve.
So what, you might ask, should a person in the UK do if they think America shouldn’t exist? They could hold that opinion but perhaps they’d be best off putting their advocacy energies elsewhere. It’s hard for the average UK citizen to influence America from the UK—even though the UK and America are close allies with loads of strategic cooperation. Maybe more good could be accomplished by attending to Ireland.