Modern Zionism emerged in the late 1800s as a movement for Jewish self-determination amid rising European antisemitism, most associated with Theodor Herzl's political programme. But the term has never been monolithic — its intellectual history includes Martin Buber's proposal for a binational Arab-Jewish state, liberal and revisionist camps inside Israel, and an emotional resonance for many Jews that exceeds any single political definition. As Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California, has written, for many Jews Zionism represents "Jewish liberation and sovereignty, a safe haven from persecution, a revival of the Hebrew language, and a renewed sense of collective pride, especially after the Holocaust." Critics on the left, in the Arab world, and among anti-Zionist Jews like Green party leader Zack Polanski point to three structural facts: the violent displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba, the system of unequal rights in the occupied territories that multiple human rights organisations have characterised as apartheid, and discrimination against Palestinian citizens within Israel itself. Before 1948, Palestinians maintained a vibrant society across British Mandatory Palestine, but their historical connection has been diminished by significant strands of Zionist thought — epitomised by the contested phrase "a land without people for a people without land." The phrase "Zionism is racism" gained formal international standing in 1975 when the UN passed Resolution 3379, comparing "the racist regime in occupied Palestine" to apartheid South Africa. Sponsored by the Arab League and promoted by the Soviet Union, it passed with developing-world support but was revoked in 1991 under pressure from US president George HW Bush. The resolution's passage and revocation trace cold-war power dynamics as much as any settled jurisprudence on the question. The war in Gaza has sharpened these arguments. Overtly racist rhetoric from senior Israeli political figures toward Palestinian society after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack has provided new ammunition to critics, while proponents of Israel argue that labelling Zionism as racism singles out Jews uniquely to deny them the right to self-determination — functioning as a cover for antisemitism. In the UK, a 2021 employment tribunal found that David Miller's view — that "Zionism is and always has been a racist, violent, imperialist ideology premised on ethnic cleansing" — constituted a protected philosophical belief under the 2010 Equality Act, a ruling upheld on appeal. Miller, a highly controversial figure who has also claimed Zionists have worked as "infiltrators and subversives" with access to UK political parties, media, law, and finance, has links to Greens for Palestine, which proposed the Green party conference motion. The definitional contest is the real mechanism here. Each side is fighting to control what "Zionism" means in order to determine which critiques of Israel are legitimate and which are antisemitic. Proponents argue the word contains the full spectrum from Buber's binationalism to Netanyahu's ethno-nationalism; critics argue its implementation in practice — settlement, occupation, unequal rights — is the only definition that matters. Neither side has an incentive to let the other define the term. What makes this structurally dangerous is that definitional wars produce no winners and many casualties. When the argument is over what a word means rather than what policies should change, the debate becomes self-referential. Palestinian rights advocates get trapped debating nomenclature instead of demanding specific policy outcomes. Jewish communities face the elision of identity with state policy. And political actors on all sides — from Miller to Netanyahu — gain power from the ambiguity rather than from resolution.
