Jewish students chained themselves to gates at Columbia University Wednesday in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student protest leader now in an ICE jail in Louisiana. On March 8th, federal agents detained Khalil at his university-owned apartment building, even though he’s a legal permanent resident of the United States. They revoked his green card.
That’s the original simpler definition, but as with many words and phrases, time has changed the meaning in real world usage. Modern usage of the term should probably be referred to more as Revisionist Zionism, but everything gets simplified for modern short attention spans.
This is characterized by territorial maximalism and the idea that Israel should conquer more territory, at any cost. This is clearly the modem day Israeli government perspective. Settlements and the denial of Palestinian rights are a core part of Revisionist Zionism because of that. It is not compatible with a two-state solution, much less a one-state equal rights solution. Which is why it needs to be separated from general antisemitism.
I also have to say though that they’ve had nearly 80 years to figure this out with Israel being the de facto leadership because of British decisions post-war, maybe it’s time that the Palestinians had a chance instead. It was those British decisions after all that took the land promised to the Palestinians for their assistance, to create Israel in the first place.
Sort of a side tangent about definitions. I was always taught, by someone that was previously pro Israel, Zionism is simply the desire of return to the homeland. Which is a very watered down dishonest definition hiding the nationalism of a desire for an ethostate. If someone thinks it means just returning home, then their view of others calling it evil makes it feel like antisemitism, even if it’s not. People can’t communicate because the laymen’s words often get used in 100 different ways that don’t match. I think that’s often one source of miscommunication even among well meaning people. Another is that the anti Israel movement is peppered with actual anti-Semites poisoning the well. I’ve protested against Israel, but as a Jew it can be very uncomfortable, I’ve repeatedly met actual anti-Semites that way. I think these things make it very easy for people dug in to see antisemitism everywhere.
I see that reaction from my father all the time. He’s a lefty, progressive, but talk about Israel and you have to tread very carefully. He hates the Likud and present day genocide, but is suspicious of the motives of a lot of the outside criticism.
You should explain to your father that zionism did not emerge in a vacuum within the Jewish community. It was controversial the moment it arose and was as supported as yiddishist movements that were expressly anti-zionist. This was an intense divide that even resulted in violence on both sides by both sides. Nazis and the staggeringly entrenched antisemitism of eastern Europe/Russia ended up sorting it out in favor of the zionist anti-yiddishists, though.
His views have already come a long way, I was more using it as illustrative of communication being a big part of the problem here. He experienced a lot of cruel antisemitism in his life, that makes people see things with blinders on because he is reasonably afraid of history repeating itself.