WHAT IS ZIONISM?

“Zionism” — the word is everywhere at pro-palestinian protests. Lists of rules in campus encampments say “No Zionists.” Signs compare Zionism to racism or fascism. Many Jewish leaders and students say those uses of the word are anti-semitic, that it is being used as a synonym for Jews, or for opposition to the state of Israel.

Some religious Zionists say it refers to the Jewish yearning in the Bible for Zion, or Jerusalem. More secular Zionists saw an unspecific word, meaning Jewish selfdetermination, freedom, the desire to be masters of their own destiny. Today’s settler movement sees the expansion into the West Bank as Zionism.

“What is it today? If you ask 50 people you’ll get 50 different answers, because Zionism never meant any one thing,” said Britt Tevis, a postdoctoral fellow in Holocaust and anti-semitism studies and a lecturer at Columbia Law School.

Many of the protesters, said Tallie Ben Daniel, the managing director of Jewish Voice for Peace, use the word to describe how they see the current policies and leadership of the state of Israel.

JVP sees Zionism as a movement whose aim “is to deny the rights of Palestinians and the humanity of Palestinians,” she said.

“For us, we want to be clear: The form of Zionism that has survived and has power now is an expansionist, right-wing, genocidal form.”

That definition distresses Jewish students who offer a far different definition of the word, like Jordana Levine, a senior at the University of Michigan who co-founded a pro-israel group called Facts on the Ground.

“Zionism just means the right to self-determination in our historic homeland. But a lot of people don’t understand it’s not exclusive from having a Palestinian state,” she said.

“We want self-determination for Palestinians, too. We just need Hamas not to be the authority (in Gaza).”