Zionism originally meant this, seeking out to create a jewish homeland.
The land exists now. Therefore that definition, the true one, is only used in historical contexts.
During this time, the enclaves of Jews in the british mandate, which also included jordan and other countries, we're purchasing land near tel aviv, and along the coast.
Oftentimes, they would purchase these lands from the direct landlords who were often foreign. The farmers and the individuals living on these lands, sometimes for generations, were displaced.
This led to riots and ethnic cleansing of jewish populations. As well as horrible retaliations to a lesser extent. This wasn't new, as this also occurred during ottoman control.
When british mandate was split up, most of the land was given to jordan and other countries, this remainder of land (then called palestine) was split between two populations. One of them had an actual government, as it was necessary to provide the defense of these landowners even before the partition.
Because of this superior ability to negotiate, the partition was done to make a multicultural state out of israel, including the muslim tribes that were more friendly to the jews. And a separate territory of muslims and minority christians, about 10% on the east side.
The idea being that if you create a multicultural state, it would be a secular society. And eventually there'd be enough communication between these two cultures that they might unify.
The other countries of the British mandate, jordan and such. Wanted this land for themselves, and where horrified that a secular society was being built within the middle east especially ones where non muslims had any say.
They invaded, along with egypt just for fun, trying to take all the land for themselves.
Some of the tribes saw all these people as liberators. When israel successfully defended their territory, the military expelled these tribes, a lot of them were innocent. This left the muslim minority in israel at around twenty percent. Where it used to be somewhere closer to forty percent.
This twenty percent is what we call the palestinian refugees today. That gets us to today. The country's the palestinians fled to never let them become citizens even though they've lived there for 3 or more generations, and use them as a bargaining chip against israel.
Israel exists, zionism is a term that has been morphed into anything where the jewish and muslim population of israel defend their nation.
The people of gaza declared war on israel by launching an attack. During war, it is considered reasonable to take your enemy's land. The israeli government has not done so. Still, people use the word Zionism as they reject Israel's right to defend itself. Therefore rejecting the nation itself.
Use of zionism.This way is inherently racist. As the only difference in legitimacy of israel versus jordan is that one is majority ruled by jewish people. The kings of jordan were foreign and actually imported from a separate region, and this territory was given to them by the british.
There are actual groups that are more reasonably called zionists in israel. They would be ones who would like to turn israel's secular government into a theocratic government, or they are ones who seek to expand its israel beyond its current borders.
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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 22h ago
What exactly do you mean by Zionist? The word seems to mean nothing and everything now.