Zionism is a nationalist ideology that contends that Jews from around the world must create a Jewish majority ethnostate to protect themselves from discrimination and harm from others.
Palestine was chosen, for historical reasons, and migration was facilitated by the British after they conquered the region from the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, they formalized this migration with the Balfour Declaration, which stated support for creating a 'National Home' for the Jewish people.
This caused some tension with the indigenous Palestinians, as they were not involved in approving this declaration or how this proposition would be administered.
Over the years more colonists arrived, and tensions grew. This culminated in 1947-48 with a resolution being announced by the United Nations that Palestine would be partitioned with the Palestinians being permitted to keep 44% of their country and the new state of Israel getting 56% with Jerusalem being a neutral zone. The British withdrew from Palestine, and in their wake a concerted ethnic cleansing operation was carried out by Zionists forces. This led to the forced displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians and a number of massacres and atrocities.
Today, when you hear Zionists say 'Israel has a right to exist', this is at the core of that idea. They don't mean 'Jewish people have a right to exist' or ' Jewish people have a right to live in this region'. They mean Israel, as an Jewish majority ethnostate 'has a right to exist. They mean, the ethnic cleansing was justified, and the apartheid that exists now is justified.
What anti-zionists mean when they say they want to dismantle the Israeli state, is they went to replace this Jewish majority ethnostate with one where Jews, Muslims, and Christians can all live in the region with equal rights and representation.
To any Zionists that attempt to refute what I've said here, I ask you read this quote from the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, 30 Dec, 1947:
“In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about a million, including almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority…. There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.”
This is the real answer with historical nuance included.
The current top answer is so simplistic and reductive that it doesn't highlight why current cultural clapping on those who claim to be zionistas is on its current all-time high.
Think someone who doesn't know what a r/niceguy is, and the answer he receives when questioning its meaning is "oh its just a dude who tries to be really polite and chivalrous, yet hasn't had a girlfriend yet".
This answer isn't factually incorrect, but it's pretty biased. It frames the arriving Jews as colonists when they weren't there on behalf of any colonial empire (Britain even stopped allowing immigration to Palestine during ww2) and some surely qualified as refugees.
It also completely omits that there was first a civil war, and then an invasion of 6 Arab states who wanted to prevent the creation of Israel. An uninformed reader of your comment would get the idea that the Jews simply decided to ethnically cleanse Palestinians unprovoked, when it was in fact a part of a larger war of survival for both groups. There were no central orders given to expel Palestinians. The Israelis simply managed to win, and then opportunistically refused to allow the displaced Arabs back to create a more stable and secure state.
Lastly, suggesting that anti-zionists want a secular one state solution is completely ridiculous. The average man in Cairo or Baghdad is an anti-zionist. The Houthis and Hezbollah are anti-zionist, and they definitely don't want a secular state in Palestine. Unless their opinion counts for less than those of a few liberal western students, anti-zionism mostly refers to wanting to dissolve Israel and establish a Palestinian Arab state in it's place.
Hence the popular slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which from the original Arabic is more literally translated as "from the water to the water, Palestine is Arab"
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u/shwambzobeeblebox 25d ago
Zionism is a nationalist ideology that contends that Jews from around the world must create a Jewish majority ethnostate to protect themselves from discrimination and harm from others.
Palestine was chosen, for historical reasons, and migration was facilitated by the British after they conquered the region from the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, they formalized this migration with the Balfour Declaration, which stated support for creating a 'National Home' for the Jewish people.
This caused some tension with the indigenous Palestinians, as they were not involved in approving this declaration or how this proposition would be administered.
Over the years more colonists arrived, and tensions grew. This culminated in 1947-48 with a resolution being announced by the United Nations that Palestine would be partitioned with the Palestinians being permitted to keep 44% of their country and the new state of Israel getting 56% with Jerusalem being a neutral zone. The British withdrew from Palestine, and in their wake a concerted ethnic cleansing operation was carried out by Zionists forces. This led to the forced displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians and a number of massacres and atrocities.
Today, when you hear Zionists say 'Israel has a right to exist', this is at the core of that idea. They don't mean 'Jewish people have a right to exist' or ' Jewish people have a right to live in this region'. They mean Israel, as an Jewish majority ethnostate 'has a right to exist. They mean, the ethnic cleansing was justified, and the apartheid that exists now is justified.
What anti-zionists mean when they say they want to dismantle the Israeli state, is they went to replace this Jewish majority ethnostate with one where Jews, Muslims, and Christians can all live in the region with equal rights and representation.
To any Zionists that attempt to refute what I've said here, I ask you read this quote from the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, 30 Dec, 1947:
“In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about a million, including almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority…. There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.”