How Zionism went from a political philosophy to a loyalty test

A political philosophy cannot survive as a slogan. And no government should be able to hide behind a word that once meant liberation.

Zionism began as something very specific: a political movement declaring that Jews, a stateless and persecuted people, deserved political self-determination in what they viewed as their historic homeland. It was heatedly debated and fiercely opposed, even by Jews, but it was fundamentally about survival and sovereignty.

Today, the word has ceased to function as a political philosophy and has become a loyalty test, an accusation, or a shield, depending on who is wielding it and for what purpose.

Zionism in the 1920s was not a monolithic viewpoint, but a coalition of messianic religious movements, secular socialists, cultural revivalists, and liberal nationalists. Zionism was not synonymous with any single government, army, or political party. It was not automatically expansionist or exclusionary. Nor was it universally supported by Jews. Large Jewish communities in the U.S. and Europe were ambivalent or opposed to Zionism.

After the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the founding of the State of Israel, Zionism gradually became fused with support of the state itself. Criticism of Israeli government policy became confused with arguments about the validity of not just that particular state, but the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination altogether.

Over the decades, wars, security crises, and occupation of neighboring territories, the term Zionism began to serve a number of different, and often conflicting purposes. At its simplest, it has meant believing in Israel’s right to exist. At other times, it has been invoked to defend maximalist territorial policies and settlement expansion. For critics of the Israeli government, it can function as shorthand for those policies. For defenders, it can become a one-size-fits-all shield against external critique.

Jewish identity is not synonymous with the Israeli state. There are more Jewish people living outside Israel than within it. The United States Jewish population is larger than Israel’s, and is not in any way politically uniform. Many support Israeli statehood while opposing specific policies of its government. Some reject Zionism entirely. Others define it narrowly as the right to self-determination and nothing more. The Israeli government, however, has done everything to tie the two together. This, matched with expansionist and inhumane policies have done more to spread anti-semitism globally in recent years than any other act.

And so, Zionism has become a slur in progressive activist spaces. Anti-semitism has become a reflexive accusation to any criticism of Israeli government policy or leadership, and the distinction between criticizing a government and a global community has become blurred. Critics feel silenced. Jewish people feel threatened, and the original philosophy has been buried.

The recent controversy surrounding Hugh Laurie, a beloved actor, has highlighted this. Laurie mourns a lost colleague and ends up embroiled in an argument about rejecting Zionism. Some folks identify it as moral clarity, others feel it is disavowing Israel’s right to exist. The term triggers tribal disagreement. Laurie is only expressing grief over the loss of a life.

A political philosophy cannot survive as a slogan. And no government should be able to hide behind a word that once meant liberation.