What Does ‘Zionism’ Actually Mean?
In the last 5 months since the outbreak of the Israel/Hamas War, anti-Israel speech has become basically ubiquitous. There is no getting away from it on the Internet and, increasingly, out in public life. None of the rhetoric is new, but the current flare-up throughout the West has been particularly bad. I see it here on Medium, which contains a lot of writers proudly calling themselves anti-Zionists. I believe those writers outnumber the pro-Israel ones (but feel free to prove me wrong on that).
One of the most confounding aspects of the anti-Israel crowd is their gross abuse of the terms ‘Zionism’ and ‘Zionist.’ I would like to correct this misinformation.
The misuses I am referring to include the following:
- Equating Zionism with Nazism.
- Calling oneself anti-Zionist as a point of pride.
- The idea that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are 2 completely different things.
- Saying Zionism is itself racist because it promotes the displacement of other minorities.
If you are using the term ‘Zionism’ or ‘Zionist’ as a pejorative or as a slur, it simply indicates that you do not know what these terms actually mean.
