Talk:Zionism

Colonial project?

@Selfstudier and האופה: Can the two of you please discuss here what you think this should say?

In particular, User:Selfstudier, can you please offer what you think should be said here as a direct quote from a source you cite? And maybe choose verbiage to acknowledge that the term "colonial project" may be interpreted differently by a general audience today than how it was interpreted by Zionists in late 19th century Europe?

If the original was in a language other than English, we should include the quote in the original language. Languages evolve, and a translation that may have been appropriate in the late 19th century may not be appropriate today. If you could use help with translation, we might be able to arrange that.

I think User:האופה has a point that the term "colonial project" may be inflammatory and therefore constitute POV editing in today's political environment. With luck, we might find a way to include that term as a direct quote from some Zionist from late 19th century Europe in a way that User:האופה and others will find acceptable.

DavidMCEddy (talk) 07:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Early Zionists sometimes referred to their project as "colonial" in the sense of establishing agricultural settlements (in Hebrew moshavot) and reviving Jewish life in the ancestral homeland. This quote appears to be used anachronistically in this context, to imply as if the Zionists were adherents of the contemporary sense of colonialism, the control of resources and people by countries, notably imperial powers, in foreign lands. This usage is more political than encyclopedic and totally unnecessary here. HaOfa (talk) 08:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Agricultural land and water sources are resources, so agricultural settlements (or colonies) control resources. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:02, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: The text was added by yourself on 5 June, care to comment? The lead is a summary of the body and I assume you are relying on the material in para 4 of the lead. "Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a colonialist,[26] racist,[27] or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement.[28][29][30][31][32] Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist.[33][34][35]" Selfstudier (talk) 09:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Although it is true that Zionists called their settlements "colonies" (moshavot), it is more relevant here that they called their whole enterprise colonization. They used that word in English, and they used it in German. The minutes of the Zionist Congresses used that word hundreds of times, not for individual settlements but for the overall enterprise designed for mass settlement. Zionism only stopped calling itself colonial when the concept of colonialism developed a bad odor in world opinion. It is simply not true that the meaning of the words has changed in the interim (suppose a century from now the Mormons decide to settle all of Mars—we will call it colonization just the same). Of course one can identify differences between colonization by a nation state and colonization by some other group of people, but those differences were recognised back then in just the same way as they are recognised today. That difference is one of the motives behind modern analyses that distinguish "settler colonisalism" from other types. Zero^talk 11:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, whatever Zionism is believed to be today, it emerged as an expressly colonial endeavour. Hence, the World Zionist Congress established the Jewish Colonial Trust; the Jewish Colonisation Association was established in the UK; and the like. This shouldn't be in the lead as a criticism, but as a basic description of the movement's early formulation. After 1948, the nature and characterisation of Zionism naturally morphed. Much more recently, the conceptual framework of "settler colonialism" has been applied, but that is a distinct label from the basic colonial characterisation, which early Zionism was open and unabashed about. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I support inclusion of the word colonization or colonial in the lead; As others have said, Zionism began as an openly colonial project, aligned geopolitically and in many ways ideologically with European colonialism. We should not leave that out of the article because of a modern day aversion to the attitudes of the past. Unbandito (talk) 22:08, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

And maybe choose verbiage to acknowledge that the term "colonial project" may be interpreted differently by a general audience today than how it was interpreted by Zionists in late 19th century Europe

100% this. Words such as "colonist" / "settlers" / "settlement" have a radically different meaning to people today in 2024 than what it meant to people in the 1800's. Mathmo ^Talk 02:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

What radically different meaning? Don't they both involve settling land/resources by founding colonies consisting of settlers/colonists? Seems pretty consistent across the ages. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that "colonialism" has multiple meanings. There's the way it is most commonly used today - with all the negative value judgment of the colonial enterprise as in the Colonialism article- "maintaining of control and exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group of people. Colonizers monopolize political power and hold conquered societies and their people to be inferior to their conquerors". And there's colonialism in the sense of moving to a new place and establishing a settlement there- a colony - as in Colonization of Mars- migration and establishing long term presence, without any negative associations. Zionists thought of themselves in the latter sense, while the proposed edit will likely be understood in the former.Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 16:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Zionists thought of themselves in the latter sense...

this is just not true. See the writing of the leaders of the movement, and the scholarly discussion on these writings. DMH223344 (talk) 18:39, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I am quite family with thew writings of the Zionist leaders, and none of them thought their project was about conquering, controlling and exploiting inferior people. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 19:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Strawman. Not the issue at hand, which is, was it a "colonial project", yes it was. Selfstudier (talk) 19:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Not in the sense described in our article on "Colonialism" Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 19:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

There is no such link in the material that you reverted in this diff. Selfstudier (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The confusion as a result of multiple meanings I described above is obvious, wether or not a link exists. The text I restored has been in the article for years (with minor variations). I don't think there is agreement here to change it to the version you like, Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 19:19, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

What are the multiple meanings of "colonial project"? Selfstudier (talk) 20:24, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

read above Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 20:30, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I did, answer the question, please. Selfstudier (talk) 20:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

read it again, I am not going to repeat myself. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 20:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

You just did. Selfstudier (talk) 21:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

You've of course omitted the most relevant part of that paragraph which mentions settler colonialism specifically. "While frequently advanced as an imperialist regime, colonialism can also take the form of settler colonialism, whereby colonial settlers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace an existing society with that of the colonizers, possibly towards a genocide of native populations"

Is your point that the early zionists didnt' think they were doing anything negative? DMH223344 (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The early Zionists did not "invade" anything - they emigrated to a land with the authorization of its sovereigns, and the only territory they "occupied" was territory they bought or leased. I don't see anything negative in that, Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

You're citing the fact that Zionists got permission from colonial authorities to settle in Palestine as evidence that it wasn't colonialism?? Unbandito (talk) 22:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the Ottoman Empire colonized Palestine ("The Ottomans neither colonized the territories they conquered nor carried Ottoman Islamic law to all the new settlements" [1]), but let's assume ad argumentum that they did - getting permission from a colonial power to move to Palestine is not the same as colonizing it yourself - or do you think the Ciracassians also colonized Palestine? How about the Templars? Arabs who moved there during the Ottoman rule? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Though I support both renderings in this article, I would point out that my edits changed the phrasing in the lead from a "colonial project" to "colonization" Unbandito (talk) 00:15, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

For the editors who think that Wikipedia should not describe Zionism as "colonialism," can you name one book about Zionism that does not describe it as colonialism? Levivich (talk) 21:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

You could start with המהפכה הציונית (The Zionist Revolution) by David Vital. There are many more. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Is that the same as The Origins of Zionism, written in 1975? Levivich (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so, it was published in 1978, and "The Origins" seems to be part 1 of a trilogy, which this isn't. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

OK that's very old, and WP:AGEMATTERS. And if Google Books is correct, it was published by the WZO. [2] If there are many more as you say, it should be easy to link to a book written in the 21st century, in English, by an independent publisher. Levivich (talk) 22:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Check out this review by Dr. Benny Morris (starting from "Colonialism is commonly defined as"). With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 11:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Benny Morris, in a book review, doesn't agree with Khalidi's The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017.

And? Selfstudier (talk) 12:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, now we are getting somewhere. No doubt Benny Morris is real 21st scholarship. But, a few "buts":

1. I know it's a bit pedantic, but that's not a book about Zionism, and neither is Khalidi's book a book about Zionism. That's Morris reviewing Khalidi's book about the conflict. A book review shouldn't be given as much WP:WEIGHT as a book, and a book about the conflict -- for this article -- shouldn't be given as much weight as a book specifically about Zionism (or the history of Zionism).
2. I'm not sure that either Khalidi or Morris have ever written a book about Zionism? They are experts in the conflict, but I wouldn't call either of these "WP:BESTSOURCES" for this article.
3. Nevertheless, even if we "count" this, we have one scholar (Khalidi) saying Zionism was colonialism, and one scholar (Morris) saying it wasn't. Call it a tie. So that begs the question: which, if either, is the mainstream view?

I assume I don't have to prove that there are, say, three books entirely about Zionism that call it "colonialism," although I can post three if anyone wants. (If we open it up to looking at books about the conflict in general, and not just Zionism specifically, then there will be even more books like Khalidi's.) That leaves the question: are there more books/scholars (and I mean 21st century real scholars like Morris and Khalidi) that share Morris's view that it's not Zionism? I'm going to guess without looking that we'd find something by Efraim Karsh agreeing with Morris's view that Zionism was not colonialism. And some would argue about whether Karsh "counts" but let's skip ahead and say Morris and Karsh are two. I could post like six examples that say "colonialism." So are there like six or more examples like Morris or Karsh that say "not colonialism"? What I'm getting at is that I think "colonialism" is the mainstream view and Morris is in the minority. "Prove me wrong"? Levivich (talk) 12:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Why would Karsh, an academic historian and professor (emeritus) of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College not count? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Extreme bias, still, let's count him, still going to be a minority. Selfstudier (talk) 12:36, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

And Khalidi or Morris are not biased? C'mon, let's be serious. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:41, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Both biased, of course, all sources are biased. Not extreme though. Selfstudier (talk) 12:42, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I find Khalid to be every bit as extreme as Karsh, just from the other side. That's not a serious argument for exclusion. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I totally agree, Khalid is extreme too, I don't see why we give preference to his work over that of Karsh. HaOfa (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Who is Khalid? DMH223344 (talk) 15:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It's an obvious typo - Khalidi Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 18:35, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Bring sources, that's where we are at. Like this one, for example https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-socialism/socialism-zionism-and-settler-colonialism-in-israelpalestine/845325220666E2F7BD373A1271E24060

"It was also a settler-colonial project. Until the Second World War, Zionists commonly referred to their ‘colonization’ of Palestine with no pejorative implications. Selfstudier (talk) 15:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Aside from bias, I don't think Karsh has ever written a book about Zionism (as opposed to a book about the conflict). But I think we'd all agree to "count" Karsh so as not to be distracted by arguing about him, and still, Morris and Karsh would make a minority of two, so the question remains: who else is there among 21st-century scholars who say Zionism was not colonialism? (And note: the number of books about Zionism, meaning BESTSOURCES, that say it's not colonialism is currently 0.) Levivich (talk) 12:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

You are moving the goalposts (slightly, but moving them nonetheless). You first asked for " one book about Zionism that does not describe it as colonialism" and I gave you one, , which you dismissed on a pretext ("not 21st century"). Now you are asking for something else - multiple books that explicitly says it is "not colonialism" - that's not the way academic books on a topic are usually written, as opposed to polemics seeking to prove or disprove a point. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

What was that about moving goalposts? There is no unresolved question here and no real argument against colonization (or colonial project). Selfstudier (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I thought I explained it: Levivich first wrote 'can you name one book about Zionism that does not describe it as colonialism'. When that was done, he switched to "who else is there among 21st-century scholars who say Zionism was not colonialism" - Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 13:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll take a book about Zionism -- 21st century independently written/published -- that either doesn't describe it as colonialism or says explicitly it's not colonialism, but to your point, Morris's book review disproves it: there you see him explicitly say not colonialism, so that is in fact how academic works are written. There are so many books/works about Zionism that say it's colonialism that if the mainstream view was that it wasn't colonialism, we'd have no problem coming up with many modern works that say so explicitly. As an example of this, I can show you modern scholarship that explicitly says the mainstream view is not that it's settler-colonialism, but I'm not aware of any that say it's not colonialism at all. Levivich (talk) 12:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I said books are usually not written this way, not that you can't find an example or two that do. Morris is well known for his polemical style, and that is a book review - not a book. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 13:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I would still count crossing the first goalpost ("doesn't say colonialism") as a score :-) But we're still at zero examples...

You know, 1978 was before the Israeli archives were opened, before the New Historians, anything that old is obsolete when it comes to scholarship on this subject, so that doesn't count. That's why WP:AGEMATTERS. Plus it appears to be out of print, published by the WZO, and in a language I do not know how to read so I can't verify it. Levivich (talk) 13:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Modern Zionism dates to the late 19th century, you think there's some mysteries document hidden in Israel's archives that suddenly exposes the true nature of Zionism as a colonial project that wasn't known before? You will note that the most notable of the New Historians - Morris - is actually one that holds the position that it is not colonialism.

If you keep inventing pretexts (has to be a book, has to be explicitly about Zionism, has to be 21st century, has to be in English, has to be in print, can't be published by WZO[which incidentally is not quite accurate - it was published by Am Oved, an independent publisher, in partnership with WZO]) - then naturally you are going to arrive at the result you want.

But here you go- Sachar's "A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time ", 3rd edition revised and expanded, published in 2007 Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 13:37, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

you think there's some mysteries document hidden in Israel's archives that suddenly exposes the true nature of Zionism as a colonial project that wasn't known before? Yes, actually, that's exactly what the New Historians found in the archives, isn't it, and why people now call the Nakba an ethnic cleansing when they didn't before? Also there are other primary source documents that were declassified or published decades later, such as the diaries of leaders like Hertzl and Ben-Gurion, which caused historians to re-evaluate history. That's how it works, of course: documents get declassified, historians revise history. I'm not familiar with Sachar, thanks for that, I'll take a look. Levivich (talk) 13:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

More goalpost moving. We were not discussing the Nakba, a 1947-1948 event, but the origins of Zionism.

I can certainly see that released archival documents would shed new light on plans and goals of the 1947-1949 war, and whether or not the depopulation of Arab towns was pre-planned - but what has that got to do with the origins of Zionism 70 years earlier? Teh protocols of the 1st Zionist Congress from 1897 were open to all historians in 1975 Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 14:25, 9 June 2024

That one wasn't goalpost moving, it's using the Nakba as an example of something, other than Zionism, that was re-evaluated when archives were unsealed, and as an example of the broader point, which is that as time goes on, historians learn new things about history, which is why we need to look at recent scholarship and not 50-year-old scholarship. This is true in every historical field (hence, Wikipedia has the WP:AGEMATTERS policy), but it's especially true when it comes to the history of Israel/Zionism, because there has been so much re-evaluation in the subject area over the last 50 years.

As a concrete example of this, here is Ilan Pappe writing in 1998 about "Fifty Years Through the Eyes of “New Historians” in Israel," and the first section of that paper is called "Early Zionism Revisited", where he says In the new historiography, Zionism began as a national awakening in Europe but turned into a colonialist movement when it chose Palestine as its target territory. And I'd say that even that paper is outdated because it's 25 years old. Whatever was revisited by 1998 has been revisited again by 2024: Pappe has written many books and papers since, and so have Morris and Karsh and Khalidi and many other scholars. So we look at current scholarship, frankly the more recent, the better. As a kind of rule of thumb, I go with "21st century," it's an easy place to draw a line. Levivich (talk) 14:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't dispute that archival material can shed new light - I am disputing that there's anything in the Israeli archives (or any other archives for that matter) that could shed light on the origins of Zionism, when all the protocols of that movement were previously available. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 16:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I looked and Howard Sachar's A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (Knopff 2007, 3rd ed.) describes Zionism as colonization, many many times in the book. Let me know if you want quotes. Levivich (talk) 15:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

yes, please. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 16:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Zionism is nationalism it's not colonialism. Political Zionism promoted settler colonialism as being necessary to achieve the goal of a Jewish majority state. Eventually this becomes the mainstream.

This article includes the history before that view gained political consensus. The influence of cultural Zionism and non-political Zionists is foundational and precedes and even actively opposed a settler-colonial project. this article should include all content relevant to an encyclopedia article.

Many early Zionists were vulnerable displaced people who were dependent on Israel and did not have any other country where they could live. They were opposed to an open-ended conflict aligned with european colonial ideologies. it was europeans who had displaced them, after all. Of course, it is normal that early zionists in large numbers wanted consensus, stability and meaningful security. When the geopolitical circumstances changed to include more armed support from the United States and Germany the politics of Israel became more aggressive. Nowadays claiming "all teh land" is the norm.

This article is broader in its coverage than to simply dismiss Zionism and its history as settler colonialism (a separate article). Ben Azura (talk) 13:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This discussion has already moved on. Selfstudier (talk) 14:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'm copying and pasting my comment to the new section. Ben Azura (talk) 14:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I have the ebook so references are to "chapter, section" rather than page number. Bold and blue links are mine.

Sachar quotes

Chapter 1 Ch. 1, Forerunners of Zionism: "They were: that the salvation of the Jews, as foretold by the Prophets, could take place through natural means, that is, by self-help, and did not require the advent of the Messiah; that the colonization of Palestine should be launched without delay; and that the revival of sacrifices in the Holy Land was permissible ... Moving so far beyond traditional Orthodoxy that some colleagues branded his views heretical, Kalischer urged: the formation of a society of rich Jews to undertake the colonization of Zion; settlement by Jews of all backgrounds on the soil of the Holy Land; the training of young Jews in self-defense; and the establishment of an agricultural school in the Land of Israel where Jews might learn farming and other practical subjects ... Kalischer’s notion of “practical messianism” in fact was appealing enough to win over a small but influential group of contemporaries who joined him in founding a “Society for the Colonization of the Land of Israel.” ... In later essays, Smolenskin made plain that all methods were legitimate in sustaining the national ideal, not excluding the physical colonization of the Land of Israel ..." Ch. 1, European Nationalism and Russian Upheaval: "Rome and Jerusalem was unique in its prefigurations of later and better-known Zionist doctrines ... Predating Herzl, Hess envisaged the self-interested collaboration of other governments in reviving a Jewish protégé nation in the Middle East, and the active help of the “Jewish princes”—Rothschild, Montefiore, and other millionaires—who would fund and organize Jewish colonization in Palestine." Ch. 1, Chovevei Zion: "Indeed, before his death in 1891, he managed to provide the Chovevei Zion with a coherent ideology and an organizational framework, to strengthen the foundations of Palestine colonization, and to achieve a quasi-legalization for the movement in Russia." Chapter 2 Ch. 2, The First Aliyah: "It was rather a group of youthful idealists that decided finally to take the initiative in establishing a creative foothold in Palestine. In January 1882, thirty young men and women gathered in the Kharkov lodgings of a university student, Israel Belkind, to discuss the “plight of the nation.” Most of them had been reared in middle-class families. All either were attending university or, in some instances, had received professional degrees. They were all imbued, too, with a mixture of ardent Jewish nationalism and fiery Russian populism. In their minds, as in those of most of the Russian students of their generation, social reform and national fulfillment were interlinked. Thus, after extended discussion, the group decided that the revival of Jewish life in the Holy Land on a “productive” basis must begin immediately, without awaiting full-scale support from the wider Jewish community. Then and there they formed an emigration society, later to be known as “Bilu”—a Hebrew biblical acrostic of “House of Jacob, let us go.” In ensuing meetings, nineteen of the youths made the commitment to abandon their studies or professions in favor of immediate departure to the Land of Israel; the others would recruit new members to establish a model agricultural colony in Palestine. “We have no capital,” noted Chaim Chissin, a founding member, in his diary, “but we are certain that once we are [in Palestine] we shall be established. On every side we find an enthusiastic display of sympathy for the idea of the colonization of the Land of Israel and we have already received promises of aid from societies and influential persons.” ... Where were the funds that at least would enable them to develop a model colony of their own—their very raison d’être for having traveled to Palestine? ... Afterward he attended a Chovevei Zion conference in Jassy, where he instantly sensed the potential of the emergent Zionist movement. The indefatigable Englishman thereupon departed for Constantinople in the hope of persuading the Ottoman government to grant the Jews a charter for colonizing the Holy Land." Ch. 2, "The Well-Known Benefactor": "With the passage of time, the Zionist colonies became Rothschild’s major philanthropic interest." Ch. 2, The Bridgehead Widens: "More significantly, he appeared to disengage himself from personal control of the settlements by turning over their management to a separate and ostensibly independent body, the Palestine Colonization Association—the PICA." Chapter 3 Ch. 3, From Theorist to Activist: The Zionist Congress: "In the Zionist Organization, Herzl had created his “Society of Jews.” Now he was determined to organize the “Jewish Company,” a bank to be entitled the Jewish Colonial Trust ... The older methods of piecemeal colonization in Palestine, deprived of international legal recognition, no longer were adequate ... This was simultaneously to improve the coalition of the Yishuv—Palestine Jewry—by colonization and industrialization, and to endorse once again all possible diplomatic efforts to acquire a charter of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land." Ch. 3, The Kaiser and the Sultan: "He still did not have the bank, the financial instrument he had regarded as crucial to both negotiations and colonization ... Afterward, presumably, the issue of colonization would be taken up again. Herzl found the idea appealing. With some effort, he finally secured the Zionist Actions Committee’s reluctant approval to deposit letters of credit totaling 3 million francs in Ottoman banks; the sum would be guaranteed by the Jewish Colonial Trust." Ch. 3, The British Connection: "On February 5, 1902, he summoned the Zionist leader back to Constantinople to “furnish information” on current progress. Upon meeting with Ottoman officials in their capital nine days later, Herzl could only fight for time. In a desperate maneuver, he suggested that before any funding of the Public Debt was possible, the sultan should take the initiative in offering the Jews the general concession of a land colonizing company." Ch. 3, Achad HaAm, Easternesr, and the Democratic Faction: "In “Lo Zeh HaDerech,” we have noted (this page), he urged his fellow Chovevei Zion to reconsider their emphasis upon actual physical settlement in Palestine. Yet his purpose was not merely to postpone colonization until juridical and diplomatic guarantees were secured from the Turks, but to ensure that the national spirit of the Jewish people was fully ignited ... Moreover, while Achad HaAm, no less than Herzl, deplored “infiltrationism” as a technique for reviving the Jewish nation, the former’s disciples—Weizmann, Motzkin, and the largest numbers of east European Jews—still preferred gradual and methodical colonization in the revered Holy Land to a paralysis of suspended animation, waiting breathlessly for Herzl’s diplomatic achievement of a charter. Well prior to the Sixth Zionist Congress in August 1903, it became evident that the al-Arish project had reached a dead end." Chapter 4 Ch. 4, Zionism After Herzl: "As a result, the Seventh Zionist Congress, meeting in Basle from July 27 to August 2, 1905, was obliged to give urgent attention to its future stance. In overwhelming numbers, the delegates rejected any colonizing activities outside Palestine, and voted unequivocally in favor of emigration and settlement there, with active encouragement of Jewish agriculture and industry ... Thus it was that Gegenwartsarbeit—“work in the present,” practical Zionism—embracing both colonization in Palestine and cultural activity in the Diaspora, became a meaningful Jewish force." Ch. 4, The Second Aliyah: "At the turn of the century, we recall, both the “old” Yishuv and the “new” Yishuv still depended mainly on outside help—Chalukkah charity for the old, Rothschild or Zionist philanthropy for the new. Although more than 50,000 Jews were living in the Holy Land by then, only 5,000 were to be found in the twenty rural colonies." Ch. 4, The Collective Settlement: "The onset of the Second Aliyah coincided with a growing momentum of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine. It was helped in considerable measure by Baron Rothschild’s PICA. New colonies included Sejera, Mescha, Menachemia, and Yavne'el founded in 1901–02, and Beit Gan in 1904 ... With land and loans supplied by PICA, the new colonies eventually showed modest profits." Ch. 4, The Conquest of Hebrew: "The Alliance schools, too, were conducting the major portion of their instruction in the Hebrew language, as were the schools in the Zionist agricultural colonies. Additionally, sixty Zionist schools in the towns and outlying farm colonies, comprising 2,600 pupils, were using Hebrew as their sole medium of instruction. This program was decisively augmented by the iron willpower of the Zionist settlers themselves, and notably the immigrants of the Second Aliyah." Chapter 5 Ch. 5, A Crucial Intermediary: "It was only during his travels in Palestine that Sykes had come to admire the Zionist colonies and to sense their potential rejuvenating influence among the Jewish people." Ch. 5, A Declaration Is Issued: "To sustain the momentum, meanwhile, Talaat invited leading German and Austrian Jews to Constantinople to discuss Jewish land colonization and autonomy in Palestine." Chapter 6 Ch. 6, High and Early Hopes in the Holy Land: "As far back as December 1917 the foreign secretary had approved the departure of a Zionist Commission for Palestine to organize relief work and supervise repair of damage to the Jewish colonies." Ch. 6, The "Constitution" of the Mandate: "This major concession to the Arabs evidently registered only slowly on the Zionists. In their earlier correspondence with the British they had expressed at most a perfunctory interest in the Transjordanian area; their colonies were all to the west." Chapter 7 Ch. 7, The Revival of the Zionist Organization: "Each of its members became responsible for a specific facet of the Zionist reconstructionist effort in the Holy Land. Thus, departments were organized for political affairs, immigration, labor, colonization, education, and health ... The colonization department was responsible for the development of new Jewish agricultural villages." Ch. 7, The Growth of Urban Settlement, the Struggle for Labor Unity: "The Labor Zionist leadership watched this development closely. It was persuaded by then that in the cities, as on the soil, labor’s task was to conquer the Palestine Jewish economy and shape it altogether in its image. In fact, rudimentary workers’ organizations had appeared in the Jewish colonies as far back as the 1880s and 1890s, but the PICA directors had managed to stamp out most of them." Ch. 7, The Creation of the Jewish Agency: "A formula acceptable to both Zionists and non-Zionists was worked out as early as the Zionist Congress of 1925. It set as the goals of a Jewish Agency: continuous increase in the volume of Jewish immigration; redemption of the land as Jewish public property; agricultural colonization based on Jewish labor; revival of the Hebrew language and of Hebrew culture." Chapter 8 Ch. 8, Arabs and Jews Before the Mandate: "While Arab banditry was an endless harassment to the Zionist colonies, it signified no particular nationalist animus." Ch. 8, A Failure of Perception, a Renewal of Violence: "For the Labor Zionists, particularly, the economic benefits of Jewish settlement appeared to be the decisive response to Arab nationalism ... For Ben-Gurion, “only the narrow circles of the Arab ruling strata have egotistical reasons to fear Jewish immigration and the social and economic changes caused by it.” The Arab masses, at least, would understand that Jewish immigration and colonization brought prosperity." Ch. 8, The Revisionist Answer: "What Revisionism demanded, he said, was “the systematic and active participation” of the mandatory in the establishment of the Jewish commonwealth. Mass colonization was not a private enterprise, nor a project for voluntary organization; it was state business requiring the active assistance of the state power. Jabotinsky’s idea, in short, was to recruit Britain as a full-fledged partner in the building of the National Home—as opposed to Weizmann’s policy, which regarded colonization in Palestine as essentially the task of the Jewish people."

These are not the only mentions, but should be enough to demonstrate that Sachar describes Zionists as colonizers, and of course Zionists described themselves the same way. Levivich (talk) 20:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this. Go back and read what I wrote above about the multiple meanings of colonization. When someone writes, e.g " establish a model agricultural colony in Palestine" it is the exact parallel of a colony on Mars. This is also exactly what User:האופה wrote at the top of this thread - 'Early Zionists sometimes referred to their project as "colonial" in the sense of establishing agricultural settlements (in Hebrew moshavot) and reviving Jewish life in the ancestral homeland. This quote appears to be used anachronistically in this context, to imply as if the Zionists were adherents of the contemporary sense of colonialism" Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

So tell me which do you think is true:

1. You know something about the multiple meanings of colonization that Howard Sachar doesn't know, and Sachar made a mistake when he used the word "colonization" in his book, OR
2. Sachar knows about the multiple meanings of colonization, and decided to use that word anyway

I think it's #2.

And BTW, you should drop the comparison of colonizing Palestine with colonizing Mars, because there are no people who live on Mars. So even if the Zionists thought they were colonizing a barren, empty land, they were wrong. Either way, this article says "colonization" because the sources say "colonization," and it really doesn't matter if editors think that's not the right word to use, because it's the word the sources use. Levivich (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact that Mars is barren is exactly the point - it demonstrate you can "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it - which is the common, modern connotation of colonization, which was missing from early Zionist use of the term. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Sure, you can "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it ... if there are no people there! Anyway, do you think Sachar doesn't know the modern connotation of "colonization" and made a mistake using the word, or that he knows the modern connotation and used it anyway? Levivich (talk) 21:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

No, you can also an "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it even if there are people there. Do you think The People's Temple colonized Guyana when they established their colony there?

I think Sachar didn't anticipate that 15 years later, wikipedia editors would try to use his choice of words in order to paint Zionists as subjugators. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:28, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, Wikipedia should not call Zionists "subjugators." Let's instead use the exact same word Sachar used: "colonization." Levivich (talk) 22:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Or, we could just say what the article has said for a long time - "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine", without any potentially POV-laden terminology. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPOV says Wikipedia articles should say what mainstream scholarship says. So if mainstream scholarship says "colonization" (and it does), then it would be "POV-laden" to not say "colonization." Levivich (talk) 23:03, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Somehow this article existed for years without this characterization, even as a "featured article" without anyone claiming it violates NPOV. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 23:09, 9 June 2024 (UTC)d

This was a featured article from 2003 until 2004, when it was delisted. The 2003 version that was promoted to FA said (bold mine):

The early Zionists were well aware that Palestine was already occupied by Arabs, who had constituted the majority of the population there for over a thousand years. The Zionist leaders generally shared the attitudes of other Europeans of the period in the matters of race and culture. In this view the Arabs were one of the world's many primitive races, who could only benefit from Jewish colonisation. This attitude led to the opposition of the Arabs being ignored, or even to their presence being denied, as in Israel Zangwill's famous slogan "A land without a people, for a people without a land". Generally though, such myths were propaganda invented by leaders who saw the Arabs as an obstacle to overcome, but not a serious one.

The 2004 version that was delisted from FA changed that line from "Jewish colonisation" to "Jewish immigration."

So the FA version of this article said "colonisation."

After all this discussion, we are still at zero modern books about Zionism that don't describe it as colonization. Levivich (talk) 04:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Sure. And similarly, the current version of the article mentions colonization and colonies, multiple times, in a paragraphs discussing the actions of early Zionists like Montefiori, and if you wanted to include something like the featured article version, about the thinking of early Zionists that the natives would benefit form Colonization, somewhere in the body, that would porbbaly be fine.

But as you obviously realize, that is not the same as describing Zionism as a colonial project in the first sentence of the lead of the article Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 11:52, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Is it feasible to ask the people who list and delist "Featured Articles" what needs to happen to get this again listed as FA -- and whether any use of a term somehow related to "colonial project" or "colonization" can impact that?

To me "colonization" sounds more neutral than "colonial project".

Also, am I correct that we are discussing here exactly where in the lede to introduce a term like "colonial", "colonialism", ...?

I just found 42 matches in this article for "coloni", starting with the last sentence of the lede: "Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a colonialist,[26] racist,[27] or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement.[28][29][30][31][32]"

The Israel-Hamas war was ongoing when this discussion began, and it's still continuing. I think the lede is fine as it is now. What do you think about not changing the lede and focusing on making sure that other uses of terms like "colonialism" and "colonialist" later in the article are used in a way that appears neutral, citing credible sources? ???DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Material under discussion has once again been POV editwarred out of the lead so I'm right out of AGF atm. Selfstudier (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Did you similarly object when material under discussion was POV edit warred back into the artilce, by people who share your POV? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 11:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is concluded in favor of the material, that's the why of it. This article, once an FA isn't even a GA now, quite right, too. Selfstudier (talk) 11:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

What are the obstacles to getting it back to GA? DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Stability in the article. Meanwhile it is written in a manner which encourages disputes over and frequent changes to content, GA and in particular FA, is not going to happen. Since this is primarily a kind of history article for the most part, stability with best sources should not actually be that difficult. Selfstudier (talk) 12:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

This discussion above is not in favor of the material, there's clearly a consensus against it, and @Levivich should revert his last revert. At least five people here are against the recent inclusion, but you are forcing it anyway. HaOfa (talk) 15:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not a head count. Sources or move along. Levivich (talk) 15:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not how consensus is achieved on Wikipedia. This is not a good faith conversation. HaOfa (talk) 15:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It actually is how consensus is achieved on Wikipedia. No matter how many people shout no, the sources are what count here. nableezy - 15:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

So if I find some sources that quote white supremacy or some quotes that support racism, or whatever else you want, we can take them as fact? A source has to come from a reputable source. This is why there's issues when you quote something from a place like Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is a state sponsor journalism outlet of Qatar. Anything that they report is going to be biased towards something like Israel. Just like if you take RT, which is Russian run, and use this as a source for something involving Ukraine. It doesn't make any sense.

It's great to have sources, but you need to back them up with other things. You can't just take some article you found online & using it as fact.

Because if that's how this platform is going to operate, then I'm going to go start a blog or some type of a news website, I'm gonna write up some article articles, and then I'm gonna come back here and I'm gonna edit things in inside all of my articles that I wrote.

As somebody that works in journalism, this website has become a joke. Anything that that's listed I literally have to go through the sources, and I know many journalists that do the same thing, because we cannot take anything for face value on this site. Because a lot of things are twisted. So we have to go to the sources and we have to link through them and see if it's an actual respectable source and what they're getting their information from.

No it never was a good faith conversation. Look, as I recently stated in the message elsewhere I pinged you to, I don't know where you guys got the idea that a handful of new or sleeper accounts pressing the undo button and saying, essentially, "nuh-uh" on talk pages, is going to be enough to influence the content of articles, but that is a very old trick that this entire topic area is engineered to address, more so than anywhere else on Wikipedia. Content disputes are resolved by reliable sources, not by the number of editors, so just give it up. Wikipedia follows sources; if you want to change that, you have to change the sources. It doesn't matter how many accounts you have. I thought we made that point this past fall. Levivich (talk) 15:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Round 2

Above in Round 1, we determined that nobody seems to know of any modern books about Zionism that do not describe it as colonization, although Benny Morris wrote a book review in which he said Zionism was not colonialism. The objection was raised, however, that even if this Wikipedia article should describe Zionism as colonization in the body, this description is not WP:DUE for the lead. So, let's look at how many modern books about Zionism mention colonization or colonialism in their titles. Here are some:

1. Halper, Jeff (2021). Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-4339-6.

   Nutt, S. (2019). Self-determination, Sovereignty and History: Situating Zionism in the Settler-colonial Archive. University of Exeter.

2. Masalha, Nur (2014). The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-54464-7.
3. Masalha, Nur (2007). The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel. Zed Books. ISBN 978-1-84277-761-9.
4. Shamir, Ronen (2000). The Colonies of Law: Colonialism, Zionism and Law in Early Mandate Palestine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63183-9.

And, more broadly, here are some books about Israel/Palestine that mention colonialism in their titles:

1. Zureik, Elia T. (2023). The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-85711-5.
2. Greenstein, Ran (2022). Anti-Colonial Resistance in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: Identity, Nationalism, and Race. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-67075-6.
3. Rabinovich, Silvana (2022). Biblical Figures in Israel's Colonial Political Theology. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-031-03822-8.
4. Todorova, Teodora (2021). Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78699-642-8.
5. Gowans, Stephen (2019). Israel, a Beachhead in the Middle East: From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform. Baraka Books. ISBN 978-1-77186-183-0.
6. Shihade, Magid (2011). Not Just a Soccer Game: Colonialism and Conflict among Palestinians in Israel. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-5111-6.

Seems WP:DUE to me. Levivich (talk) 19:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Jeff Halper is an anti-Zionist activist, a supporter of BDS and not a historian.

Nur Masalha, who for some reason you chose to mention twice, is a Palestinian anti-Zionist.

Ronen Shamir is a far-left anti-Zionist BDS supporter, and also not a historian.

Pluto Press, which published Halper's book, is self described as "radical", and was kicked out of its relationship with the University of Michigan because it does not peer review its publications. Zed Books, who published Masalha, is also described as "radical" by multiple sources. You are literally advocating for views of radical presses and activists who are opposed to Zionism to be in the lead of this former featured article - perhaps as far from WP:DUE as one can imagine.

Relying on these sources for the lead in Zionism is about as compelling as relying on Tucker Carlson's Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution in an article about the Ruling class, or Ann Coulter's Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America in Liberalism. I think you are actually making my point that this is a radical , non-mainstream view, or else you'd be able to come up with examples from non-partisan historians. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 20:37, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I listed Masalha twice because he wrote two modern books about Zionism that have colonialism in the title. (You realize this list was compiled by searching book titles for "Zionism" and "colonialism" and variations, right?) Because reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective (WP:BIASEDSOURCES), your whole argument about partisan historians is moot. BTW, have you considered that anti-Zionism is the mainstream view, in the same way that anti-colonialism and anti-terrorism are mainstream views? Anyway, I look forward to reviewing your (or anyone's) list of non-partisan modern books about Zionism. Levivich (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

If Masalha had written 5000 books with that word in its title published by a radical press, would that make the argument more compelling? It's still just one person, who is an ideologue opposed to Zionism.

Sources do not need to be neutral, but our presentation of view points does. And if this is the viewpoint anti-Zionists, it may belong in the article body, in a section describing the views of opponents or critics of Zionism, but no way it belongs in the defintion of Zionism as the 2nd or 3rd lead sentence.

By way of analogy, or comparison - Marx wrote quite a few books with "Capitalism" in the title, but we don't use his views on Capitalism in the lead paragraph of Capitalism - we mention his views in the body. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:30, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Still looking for any alternative views, tho, seems to be a shortage of those. Until we see them, then the sourced views are NPOV. Selfstudier (talk) 21:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The alternative view is what was in the article for years, before the recent POV-push: "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition".

Should I compile a list of books with both Zionism and Jewish in the title? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 21:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPOV doesn't mean neutral between anti-Zionism and pro-Zionism, it means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. "Proportionately" means in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources (WP:DUE). So if the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, then that's what Wikipedia's going to say in WP:WIKIVOICE. And if the mainstream view is that Zionism's colonial character was/is a significant aspect of Zionism, then that's what Wikipedia's going to say in the lead.

And I'm not sure why you'd compile a list of books about Zionism with Jewish in the title, since this article already says "Jewish" in the lead.

To Self's point, though, as much fun as this back-and-forth is, your arguments are easily contradicted by quoting from Wikipedia policy pages, so unless your next reply is a list of modern books about Zionism, you're wasting your time.

BTW, of course our article about Capitalism mentions Marx's views in the lead: it links to Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory). (It also mentions the views of Engels, linking to state capitalism.) The reason why? Because the mainstream view is that those are significant aspects of capitalism. Levivich (talk) 21:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

If the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, you'd be able to produce books by Zionists or "neutral" authors saying that, instead of the list of anti-Zionists ideologues you compiled.

Do you seriously not see the difference between linking to the Marxist theory of production (through a pipe that says y"The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production,") and saying "Capitalism is a system that alienates the masses" or "Capitalism will eventually destroy itself", per Marx, in the 2nd sentence of the lead? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Good catch -- the lead of capitalism didn't mention any of the criticisms of capitalism, and so was not in line with WP:NPOV (I fixed it). If the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, you'd be able to produce books by Zionists ..., lol, there are lots of examples of Zionists saying Zionism is colonialism. After all, they gave their organizations names like Jewish Colonisation Association and Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, and their bank was called the Jewish Colonial Trust. Do you want me to quote from Herzl's diary as well? Again, I look forward to reviewing your list of modern books about Zionism by "neutral" authors. Levivich (talk) 22:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Again, there are multiple meaning of colonization - the one meant by Zionists naming their organizations "colonial association" is similar to the meaning of "colonisation of Mars" - we are going to create new communities - colonies - in the new land.

And if you wanted to do something similar to what you just did in Capitalism here - add a paragraph at the end of the lead describing the views of anti-Zionists , and saying that they see it a a colonial movement, that would be fine. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source (preferably about Zionism) that talks about these supposed multiple meanings of "colonization"? (Also, seriously man, Palestine is not another planet or a "new land," it was already inhabited, unlike Mars. As far as we know.) Or, for the third time, do you have any sources of what you call "neutral" or "non-partisan" modern books about Zionism? Levivich (talk) 22:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Are you deliberately being obtuse? I already addressed you Mars complaint, and I understand why it irks you - because it precisely shows that the world "colonization" is commonly used to refer to a situation where no one is exploited, contrary to the POV that you desperately want to push into this article. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 22:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The point is that it's actually a bad analogy because there were people there. The analogy doesn't work. In any case I don't see any work referring to the colonization of palestine as the "non-negative" kind of colonization which you are referring to, if there is indeed such a concept outside the context of uninhabited areas. DMH223344 (talk) 23:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

...and also unless you have a source making this distinction between Zionist/Martian colonialism and other kinds of colonialism, it's WP:OR anyway. Levivich (talk) 23:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Original research refers to article content, not to page discussions.

Perhaps this point sailed over your head, but the Mars example is precisely one case of the multiple meanings of colonialism you asked for, made glaringly obvious by the fact that there were no other people there to exploit.

But if you want other examples, you can look at the German Templer colonies in Palestine. Somehow I don't see a similar determination to call the Templer movement a "colonial project". Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 23:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

We are talking about article content :-) So no, we don't write article content based on WP:OR, such as an editor's opinion that Zionist/Templer/Martian colonization is different from other types of colonization. BTW, you know the Templer article talks about colonies, right? Like at Templer#Templer colonies. If you're just objecting to "colonial project" and not to other forms of the word (e.g. colony, colonization, colonial, etc.), then we're done here, because this article doesn't say "colonial project" anymore. Levivich (talk) 00:00, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No we are not. I am not suggesting we write anything like "there are multiple meaning of colonization" in the article, whcih would be impermissible OR. I am just explaining why we shouldn't write 'Zionism is a colonial project" in the article, and giving my reasoning, which is perfectly acceptable.

And yes of course I know the Templer article talks about colonies- that is precisely the point! That's the reason I brought it up, as another example of the use of 'colonization' (alongside the Martian one) which does not imply a 'colonial project' predicated on exploitation of inferior cultures. The Templers established colonies, but there are no POV-pushers seeking to call the Templer movement a "colonial project" (in the first paragraph of the lead of the Templer article, no less!) - which is just another example of how people can talk about colonies, about establishing colonies, and even describing their inhabitants as "colonists", without coming to the conclusion that they all belonged to a "colonial project".

Similarly, this article can say that Zionists established colonies, it can say they called their organizations "The Colonial Trust" etc.. - but just like the Templer article doesn't call it a colonial project or a movement founded to colonize Palestine in the lead, so should this article avoid that. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 00:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree that the colonization of an empty land, such as Mars, does not involve exploitation of inferior cultures. What I am saying in response is: the colonization of Palestine is not analogous to the colonization of Mars because Palestine was not an empty land like Mars. The colonization of Palestine involved the exploitation of cultures viewed as inferior by the colonists, which is why "colonization" is a perfectly apt description of Zionism.

The reason this Wikipedia article should say that Zionism was a movement founded to colonize Palestine in the lead is because Zionism was a movement founded to colonize Palestine. From the quote of Labor Zionist historian Shlomo Ben-Ami, below, "Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlement in the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent national cause. An enterprise of national liberation and human emancipation that was forced to use the tools of colonial penetration ...".

Because the sources say Zionism was a colonial enterprise, literally the words "colonization" and "enterprise" are in that quote, and because what Ben-Ami is conveying is the mainstream view of Zionism, this Wikipedia article should say the same thing. Because, as Ben-Ami writes, Zionism "was a schizophrenic movement, which suffered from an irreconcilable incongruity between its liberating message and the offensive practices it used to advance it," equating Zionism's "homeland" ("liberating") message and it's colonialism ("offensive practices"), and because that's the mainstream view, this Wikipedia should also equate Zionism's "homeland" message with it's colonialist practices. In other words, if we say in the lead that Zionism was a movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, for WP:NPOV reasons, we must also say that it was a colonial movement. A colonial enterprise. Or a colonial project, if you will. If you won't, there are other variations that would be fine. What's not fine is omitting the colonial part. Levivich (talk) 01:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Did the Templer colonies involve the exploitation of cultures viewed as inferior by the colonists? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 01:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

How the hell should I know? Levivich (talk) 01:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

You can read the article about them in this encyclopedia, or elsewhere. I'll wait. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 01:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

What I see here in a meantime is undue weight for academic figures with former careers in politics, usually left-side politics, I think we should look for teritary sources from major publications that try to define Zionism in contemporary, non-politicized neutral terms. Galamore (talk) 14:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to suggest sources, although Wikipedia articles are built on secondary sources not tertiary. Tertiary might help though. Don't forget to make sure they're modern sources, nobody is going to care about a fifty year old encyclopedia article. Levivich (talk) 14:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Sands-Golden-Oranges-Settlement-ebook/dp/B0791MFD6S Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 18:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

That's a self-published book. You are really bad at this. Levivich (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

There are quite a few sources listed here - Templers_(Radical_Pietist_sect), feel free to peruse any or all of them , if you are actually i terted in Templer history and want to educate yourself a bit, rather than in scoring technical points in this debate. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 19:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

From Shlomo Ben-Ami, who is of course a zionist:

Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlementin the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent nationalcause. An enterprise of national liberation and human emancipation thatwas forced to use the tools of colonial penetration, it was a schizophrenicmovement, which suffered from an irreconcilable incongruity between itsliberating message and the offensive practices it used to advance it. Thecultivation of a righteous self-image and the ethos of the few against themany, the heroic David facing the brutal, bestial Arab Goliath, was oneway Zionism pretended to reconcile its contradictions.

DMH223344 (talk) 22:50, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Nur Masalha is Palestinian (just as Benny Morris is Israeli) and an excellent scholar.

On the other hand, lots of the texts here are a long way short of "best sources", despite Levivich's compelling argument for using such. For instance, Nutt is a PhD thesis, and Gowan is a very fringe non-academic writer, and several are published by radical non-academic presses (such as Zed and Pluto) whose lists mix critical scholarship with activist polemic. Would be better to highlight the actual best sources, and ideally those that are about Zionism at its most general level rather than e.g. about very specific aspects of recent Israeli history. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

You're right about Nutt -- my bad, I just saw University of Exeter and missed that it's a PhD thesis not a book. I've struck that above.

I don't know anything about Gowan but Baraka Books seems like a mainstream publisher; I'm not seeing any reason to discount them (although I know nothing about them besides what's on their website)

As for Zed Books and Pluto Press, take that to WP:RSN if you want to make the case that they are not reliable mainstream publishers. Being progressive doesn't mean they're unreliable, and there are lots and lots of high-quality sources from mainstream scholars published by those two outlets (like Nur Masalha, who is, despite common protestations, a highly-respected, highly-cited scholar in this field). Remember: bias is not unreliability.

I agree with you, though, that this list is not a list of WP:BESTSOURCES for this article -- there are better sources than the ones listed -- but it is a list of RS (modern books about Zionism) with colonial in their titles. Levivich (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Even a casual search throws up a multiplicity of suitable sourcing. Selfstudier (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

E.g., 50,000 Google Scholar results for zionism colonialism. Those won't all be relevant or reliable sources, of course, but still, the order of magnitude speaks for itself. 77 in their titles, and that's without checking variations like "Zionist" and "colonization." Levivich (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The point is not that Masalha is a Palestinian, but that he is an anti-Zionist, just like Halper or Shamir. This is an attempt to use the view of anit-Zionists (Israeli, Palestinians or others) to define Zionism. We don't use Hayek or von Mises to define Keynesian economics in the lead of that article, and we shouldn't rely on anti-Zionists to define Zionism in the lead here. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 18:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you missed the comments about best sources, do try and bring some, sometime. Selfstudier (talk) 18:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I've brought several already, only to be met with repeated goalpost moving, by people offering up PhD theses they have clearly never read, by people they have never previously heard of, as "best sources", based on the fact that they had both the words "Zionism" and "colonialism" in the title. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 19:23, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

It does indeed seem like we are in agreement that "colonialism" is the right word to use. Should we now open up a discussion about the use of "colonial project" in the lead? DMH223344 (talk) 02:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

From the conclusion of Righteous Victims:

Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.

From Ben-Ami (page 3 of his book):

Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlement in the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent national cause.

From Anita Shapira (the conclusion of Land and Power):

One of its (pre­sumably singular) characteristic features stemmed from the fact that it was a national liberation movement that was destined to function as a movement pro­moting settlement in a country of colonization. This incongruity between the lib­erating and progressive message internally and the aggressive message externally acted as a central factor in the shaping of self-images and norms—and, in the end, also patterns of action—in the Zionist movement. Zionist psychology was molded by the conflicting parameters of a national liberation movement and a movement of European colonization in a Middle Eastern country.The Zionist movement was a decided latecomer on the colonial scene: Move­ments of colonization by Europeans were common up to the late nineteenth cen­tury.

All three of these historians are Zionist, and Shapira herself is a traditionalist historian, no less. Of course plenty of non-zionist historians also describe Zionism in similar terms. The word choice here is "movement" rather than "project", but I don't think there is actually a difference between the two in this context. DMH223344 (talk) 05:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Where did you see we are in agreement that colonialism is the right word? I'm totally against it, and from recent edits I see I'm not alone. Galamore (talk) 14:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if you're against it, what matters are reliable sources. They all say this, as we've well proven here. You and the other accounts hitting undo doesn't mean there isn't consensus. You and the others can say you're against it all you want, but without any sources backing up your view, and in the face of so many directly contradicting it, your opinions simply aren't relevant. Levivich (talk) 14:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

They don't "all say this". and in fact we have first-rate, academic reliable sources (e.g. Morris) who say the exact opposite.

Your dismissive attitude here and your forum-like rants below about "seeing the last gasps of Zionism" suggest that you are probably too emotionally invested to be editing here. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 14:33, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Morris's book review makes one. I'm still waiting for a second example. Levivich (talk) 14:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Hell I gave you a freebie second example with Karsh. How about a third? Levivich (talk) 14:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Still playing this game? Try Einat Wilf. And then ask for a fourth, and a fifth, ad nauseum Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 14:44, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Give me a quote and a citation, I'm not going to go searching for it. Levivich (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

"To portray Israel as the outcome of the Holocaust is to engage in Zionism Denial. It robs the Jews of their agency, their history, their historical connection to the land of Israel and their yearning to return to it. It erases all that was dreamt, written, done and achieved by the Zionists before World War II. It turns Israel into a colonial project of guilty Europeans rather than a national liberation project of an indigenous people reclaiming their homeland. In remembering the Holocaust, " [3] Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Peer reviewed, was it? Jeez. Selfstudier (talk) 15:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

And the goal posts move yet again. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Einat Wilf. That your best shot at WP:BESTSOURCES? A 2 page polemic? Selfstudier (talk) 15:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

JFC she's not even an academic? Levivich (talk) 15:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Einat Wolf is an appalling source. To quote Kentucky Rain, citing her is as compelling as relying on Tucker Carlson in an article about conservatism. She's a pundit not a scholar. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This *also* doesn't say that Zionism is not colonialism. It just says that it's not *purely* a project of "guilty Europeans". In any case, there are plenty of sources that describe Zionism as both a colonial project and a nationalist movement (see Ben-Ami and Khalidi). DMH223344 (talk) 15:28, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

And yes of course a fourth and a fifth and more. There are like 10+ sources on this page saying colonialism, so bring 10+ citations saying otherwise. 3 won't cut it anyway. But we're not even at 3 yet. Levivich (talk) 14:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

From an anti-Zionist: "To this day, Zionist apologists 50 (and Kimmerling himself to start with) argue that Zionism was not a colonial project because it was not predicated on the exploitation of Arab labor. 51 This is essentially correct. That is why Zionism was not colonial in an abstract sense, and certainly not a case of metropolitan colonialism. That is also why, precisely because it was from a very early stage exclusive of native labor, the Zionist project was a typical pure settler colony, with its own distinctive trajectory." [4]

How long we play this game? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is still waiting for you to catch on/up. Selfstudier (talk) 15:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Seriously man, get on the level. Modern books about Zionism. I posted 10+ books that have "colonial" in their titles. Believe, there are 10 more where it's not in the titles but it's in there prominently just the same. Books by scholars published by academic or mainstream publishers written in the 21st century.

If you want to start talking about papers instead of books, I can show you hundreds of peer reviewed papers in academic journals about Zionism and colonialism. That's why we look at books instead, papers is too big of a pile.

This is not "moving goalpoasts," we have standards here, it's WP:BESTSOURCES. Meet them or move along. Levivich (talk) 15:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This quote doesnt even say that Zionism is not colonialism DMH223344 (talk) 15:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This isn't hard, find and bring sources that support your position, that's it. Selfstudier (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Righteous Victims is Morris' respected work. His opinions in later book reviews are certainly not representative of his work as a "first rate scholar". He says exactly: "Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.". DMH223344 (talk) 15:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I dont even get how this is in dispute, its a newer thing for Zionists to disclaim any notion that it was/is a colonial enterprise. But even early Zionists were very clear on their goals and the language they used for it was colonization. nableezy - 13:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a natural response to all the recent scholarship about settler-colonialism. Because once you concede it's colonialism, you really have to concede it's settler colonialism, so the only way to fight that is to take the position that it's not colonialism (because you can't dispute the settler part). And if they concede it's settler colonialism, then they look like the bad guy. Even more so than they already do. Six months after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and they're facing a united security council, allegations of genocide being taken seriously by the West, and the very real prospect of ICC arrest warrants. The return of left-wing parties to power is just one election away, and settlement dismantlement will soon follow. We are witnessing the last gasps of Zionism, and like in other topic areas, what's happening in the real world is being mirrored on Wikipedia. Levivich (talk) 14:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

'the return of left-wing parties'. That sounds like the sighting of a dodo, and if so, the Smithsonian should be alerted.Nishidani (talk) 08:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Golan's new heights? Levivich (talk) 12:51, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, Golan, um, golem? He's on record as saying, commendably, the unsayable but . . it's simple: good sentiments and even good ideas will never get sufficient leverage in our political systems to achieve any significant structural change. This is true in particular also of Israel where pure psephological analysis of the makeup of electoral constituencies, and their conflicting interests, together with demographic forecasts, mean a 64 majority in the Knesset for anything identifiably 'left' is unachievable. In 2022, they were scrounging desperately for 7% of votes. Sigh.Nishidani (talk) 13:37, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"return to power" may have been a slight overstatement, perhaps more accurately, a "return to relevancy" 😂 Levivich (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

History is jealous of its prerogatives, and dislikes, with a vengeance, being upstaged by miracles.Nishidani (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah but this isn’t supposed to be about how people feel, it’s supposed to be about what the sources say. This effort to just ignore the sources here makes no sense in a Wikipedia supposedly governed by rules that force us to discuss the sources and not our feelings. nableezy - 15:20, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Tbh I'm just too lazy to collect the diffs for another round of sock sweeping, and I'm guessing everyone else is, too. Levivich (talk) 15:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Golf season >>>> diff collecting. nableezy - 15:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't happen if WP:NOTHERE was taken as seriously as 1RR violations and salty language. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• @Levivich: - time for round 3? Decide what wording to include? starship.paint (RUN) 02:07, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think so. For my part, I'm fine with the wording as is, but open to alternatives. Levivich (talk) 04:13, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Use of term 'colonization' in opening sentence / definition

The inclusion of the word 'colonization' in the lead is being edit warred over [see here] and needs to be discussed.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zionism#Colonial_project?

We eventually agreed on the use of "colonial", but did not reach a complete agreement on the terminology "colonial project".

Consensus is definitely to use "colonization" here. DMH223344 (talk) 21:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

If sometime in the future a peace agreement will be achieved in which the Israeli settlements in the west bank will be evacuated (like happened in Gaza in 2005) and the descendants of Palestinian refugees will come from abroad to live where the settlements were in Gaza and the West Bank, will you call this process "colonization"? Vegan416 (talk) 08:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. This is a highly relevant question. We try to understand if the word colonization is the best word to use here. Comparing to analogies can help clarify the issue. Vegan416 (talk) 08:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

We should be citing and relying on RS for that, not our own reasoning. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

::The repeated movement and rejection of this content clearly demonstrate the opposite, that there is no consensus for the usage of colonization, especially not in the first . If you believe otherwise, you must be defining consensus in a completely different manner, which has nothing to do with how Wikipedia defines it. Actually, it appears that most editors oppose the use of 'colonization' in this context, and we should adhere to WP:ONUS. 916crdshn (talk) 10:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

We can have an RFC on the question, since the matter is clearly supported in multiple scholarly sources, I expect that such an RFC will find in favor of including "colonization" in some form, regardless of whether some editors object on no grounds whatever, other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Otoh, if the issue is the wording/ where it goes in the article, then that can be discussed. Selfstudier (talk) 10:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, allow me to call out the elephant in the room; the three/four editors slightly above 500 edits who have consecutively removed it multiple times. I am assuming good faith so far, but this observation is certainly worth noting. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I would expect someone who assumes good faith to assume good faith. O.maximov (talk) 11:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC) sock strike

Agreed, there is no consensus for this. Agree with the WP:ONUS. O.maximov (talk) 11:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC) sock strike

The consensus is in the sources which provide multiple examples, from Herzl onwards, of Zionist descriptions of what they intended doing as 'colonization'. It is not a consensus to play a numbers game to remove strongly sourced text. That is called WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If the founding father of Zionism thought it the appropriate term, then it remains such for an historical article.Nishidani (talk) 11:49, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Consensus, on Wikipedia, involves an "effort to address editors' legitimate concerns through a process of compromise," to that we can add WP:ONUS: "While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. " ... HaOfa (talk) 05:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It is important to note that this discussion is not only about the suitability of the term "colonization" to Zionism in general, but mainly to the question if it's DUE in the first sentence/definition. So the fact that there are RS that use this term would not be enough to justify its inclusion in the first sentence, unless it can be shown that a majority of RS use this term within their one sentence leading definition of Zionism (that is among those sources who have such a definition). Vegan416 (talk) 12:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Come now. If the use of the word 'colonization' repeatedly occurs in the writings of the core, founding figures of Zionism, as a political project, as a theory, as a technique of restructuring Palestine, and as a economic practice, and if, as is the case, this is invariably noted in the major secondary sources, then waffle about WP:Undue is totally out of place. No policy flagwaving please. Explain why the words of Theodor Herzl, Arthur Ruppin, Franz Oppenheimer, Berl Katznelson and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, not to speak of the way Jewish newspapers pitched this term to their broad audiences (Weizmann Outlines Plan for Colonization of 250,000 Jews in Palestine Within Five Years Jewish Telegraphic Agency 30 June 1933) are 'undue'.Nishidani (talk) 12:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The founding figures of Zionism said many things about Zionism. We cannot put all of them into a one sentence leading definition. So we have to decide which of the many things they said about Zionism should be included into a one sentence leading definition. And the best way to do it without introducing prejudice (or maybe even OR) is to follow the standard of the majority of sources in their definition. Vegan416 (talk) 13:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Listen. Editors do not take authorial precedence over specialized sources. I have provided numerous sources to back up what I wrote. It is not a serious argument to just talk around the evidence by expressing your 'impressions', 'personal views', feelings, as you have done now twice. I asked you to come up with solid textual support, and you come back opinionizing. That kind of response is meaningless for the purposes of composing an encyclopedic article based on scholarship. Nishidani (talk) 13:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say anything at all about my 'impressions', 'personal views', feelings in this discussion, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you are confusing me with someone else. Anyway, when I'll have more time in the next few days I do plan to collect many RS that contain short definitions of Zionism, and check if the majority of them include reference to colonization or not. I'll keep you posted. Vegan416 (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Please reread your own comments. There is nothing in them other than your impressions about the topic. You were given extensive verbal evidence, and simply walked right past it, to make more remarks and claims or, in one case, a hypèothetical analogy. None of this is material to the question.Nishidani (talk) 13:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

please give an example of me talking about my impressions in this discussion. Vegan416 (talk) 14:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The founding figures of Zionism said many things about Zionism. We cannot put all of them into a one sentence leading definition.

This is waffle, your opinion or impression, and unfocused. What evidence does another third party have that you are intimately familiar with the multiplicity of things said about Zionism by Zionists, to the point that you can assert with a sense of authority that this element is being unfairly singled out? What are the many other things these Zionists said about Zionism? Name them? Otherwise, it's empty argufying, leaving fellow editors with nothing to get their teeth into.Nishidani (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, and there are many verifiable things that could go into the first sentence. An obvious candidate would be just a basic definition of Zionism, which generally doesn't mention colonialism. Do you have an argument for why such a prominent mention of colonialism improves the article relative to that? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 14:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani, Being a Zionist myself I am of course by definition "intimately familiar with the multiplicity of things said about Zionism by Zionists" :-) For example that Zionism is the movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people, that Zionism is the fulfillment of the hopes of generations of Jews to return to their ancient homeland, that Zionism is a movement for establishing a Jewish state, that Zionism is to free the Jews from the persecutions of the exile, that Zionism is a movement of decolonization of the Land of Israel from the Arabs, etc. etc..

But having said all that, please note that nowhere in this discussion did I claim "with a sense of authority that this element is being unfairly singled out". I just raised the possibility that it is being unfairly singled out, and promised to check this in the mext few days by examining short definitions/descriptions of Zionism in many RS. This would resolve the question. Just be patient. This kind of discussion is not resolved in one day. But if you can't wait you can visit this link to see the progress of my work, and even contribute sources of your own (so long as you don't mess with the format) Vegan416 (talk) 16:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

If I want to know what Catholicism is, or Islam is, or Chinese communism is, I don't ask what believers in those systems think also because when I have done so, my general impression is that very few are 'intimately familiar with' the history of their belief-system. Your odd premise is that because you are a Zionist, you must know all about Zionism. All you have given me are schoolbook phrases, the most curious one of which is the last:

that Zionism is a movement of decolonization of the Land of Israel from the Arabs

I.e., that the settlement of whites in Australia was 'a movement of decolonization of Terra Australis from the aborigines.

Nothing surprises me anymore, but I admire your boldness in allowing that Zionism is premised on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.

I don't read sandboxes. If I am unfamiliar with something, I read the relevant scholarship on the topic.Nishidani (talk) 17:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I responded to most of your argument here elsewhere, so I'll just comment here about your last lines - do you deny that the Arabs colonized Palestine in the 7th century? And with that I'll end this discussion, before we get accused of bludg. I'll return here after I'll finish my collection of RS. Vegan416 (talk) 17:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep, that's what we need to see, I might take a look around myself as well. Selfstudier (talk) 17:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That reads:

While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

I.e. it is neither here nor there for the present issue, since the matter of colonialism is not some rare incidental element in one or two sources, but something diffusely attested in virtually every major formative figure for early Zionism. Nishidani (talk) 16:08, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

My point is that pointing to reliable sources is not a complete argument, since it's a necessary but not sufficient condition for us to include some information. There has to be an argument for why including some information improves the article.

Clearly references to colonization should be mentioned somewhere, but why emphasize it in the very first sentence? Why is that better than a first sentence that sticks to a simple factual definition of Zionism?

One downside of mentioning colonization in the very first sentence is that there's no space to elaborate on who called it that and why, or how the connotations of the word have evolved, etc. Mentioning it further down would leave more room for a nuanced discussion. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That's an argument about due weight, not ONUS, which is clearly met. I would suggest we haul out a few modern sources and see what they say and where they put it, go from there. Selfstudier (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Has anyone objecting here ever read the founding documents of Zionism? I have the eerie impression this is like discussing the origins of Christianity with people who haven't read the New Testament. Anyone can download and read in a few hours Herzl's Altneuland and verify for themselves that 'colonization' is the default term there (die Kolonisation des Landes/Neue Gesellschaft für die Kolonisierung von Palästina etc.etc.). It is quite pointless gnawing at the bone of policy to decide for inclusion or not, if editors simply don't know much about the topic.Nishidani (talk) 17:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Your entire argument here is irrelevant since this article is not about the "founding documents of Zionism" it is about "Zionism", i.e. about the entire phenomenon from it's birth (and even before that for background) until now. So concentrating about the "founding documents of Zionism" in the one-sentence leading definition may itself be undue, even if proved that the concept of colonization was the most important concept in those "founding documents" (which you definitely didn't so far).

To use your analogy of Christianity. The first sentence in the article about it says: "Christianity (/ˌkrɪst(ʃ)iˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the world population". It doesn't mention the Trinity, or the Resurrection, or the Virgin birth of Jesus, despite their importance in some of the "founding documents of Christianity". Vegan416 (talk) 17:35, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't mention to Trinity, the resurrection and the Virgin Birth, because they were not constitutive elements of the foundation of Christianity, but doctrinal positions assumed centuries later.

"Christianity (/ˌkrɪst(ʃ)iˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

I.e. it puts into relief that Christianity is based on the teachings of an historical figure, just as out text does. Analogically

Zionism is a (Jewish) ideology based on a movement founded by Theodore Herzl to establish by colonization a Jewish state in Palestine.

The founding documents of Zionism are what define its aim and scope. No one is arguing that the whole article is about its foundation, so that is a strawman response. Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Your personal opinion on what defines the "aim and scope" and "constitutive elements" of Zionism are not interesting. As I said we'll to scan the RS to see what their majority thinks should go into the definition sentence. Bye for now. Vegan416 (talk) 18:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Totally undue weight on colonization in this definition, and Zionism was founded BEFORE Herzl. If anything:

Zionism is a (Jewish) ideology aiming for the re-establishment and consolidation of a Jewish homeland/state in the Land of Israel.

Which it did, and still does, through various means. HaOfa (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if ONUS has been met, but that's a separate question about a separate aspect of WP:VNOT. My point is that no argument has been offered for why highlighting this information here would improve [the] article, i.e. why it's better than a simple factual definition as the first sentence. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 17:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

No argument has been given why omitting what was a core motivation and aim of Zionism, i.e.

The Zionist idea provided a base on which all humanitarian Jewish effort could unite. Jewish communities everywhere colonized their own poor in Palestine, and thus relieved themselves of these dependents. Their method was cheaper than the former planless sending of wanderers to some foreign land or other.Theodor Herzl, Altneuland, p.134

Not appropriate to this article. Note that this aspect of Zionism, of transporting Eastern Jews out of Europe, Herzl more or less pitches this, of getting rid of them as a burden on assimilated Jews, gets very little traction in the fairytale version we meet so often.Nishidani (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That's funny. You do realize that you are quoting a work of fiction, and not a historical description of what was core motivation and aim of Zionism either primary source or secondary source? Anyway, you are attacking a strawman. Nobody said that this is not appropriate for the article. The discussion here is only whether it is appropriate in the opening definition. So stop wasting our time. Vegan416 (talk) 19:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Please don't use the royal we ('our time') since the page is not yours, and it is offensive to suggest by its use that the those who disagree with you are wasting everybody else's time (actually they appear to be, given the fact that none of the factual evidence produced has been addressed by all those who dislike the term 'colonization' in the face of the unanimity of Zionism's foundations that this was what they intended to do).

You are not familiar, again, with the literature on Altneuzeit. In it Herzl intended to use his fiction to persuade Jewish sceptics of the feasibility of his proposal and the epigraph states:'wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Märchen' which acknowledges that the work is a fiction which, if one really wants its vision to be realized, is no 'fairy tale'. He chose, if you read the secondary literature, the novel as a vehicle to promote Zionism.

In any case, you have openly declared that, as a Zionist, you subscribe to the idea that Palestine must be decolonized of its Arabs, an admission which, apart from its total unfamiliarity with the scholarly literature on the 7th century transformation, suggests your contributions here are ideologically impelled, rather than based on a careful assessment of evidence. There is nothing wrong with being a Zionist. A good many of our finest books on the I/P have been written by them, but no author among those historians who write competent studies, underwrites the idea that Arabs are invaders and should be expelled. For that kind of antifactual extremism automatically would make anything such a Zionist might write suspect, and the same goes for editors who look only for anything that might underwrite their beliefs.Nishidani (talk) 20:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's stay on topic. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani, this is a lie. But as I really don't want to be accused of bludg, I put my full response to your false claim here. If you want you can reply there. Vegan416 (talk) 21:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I posted in another section about and was told the discussion had "moved on" but it looks like it just moved to another section. imo, "colonization" is inherently unsuitable for the ledes. I'm not going to copy and paste the whole comment here but this is the most important part of it: "This article is broader in its coverage than to simply dismiss Zionism and its history as settler colonialism (a separate article)."

For example, Moshe Sharett is documented by Ruth Gavison as having proposed population transfers like the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey. This isn't within the meaning of "colonization". I' m sorry if it isn't obvious but I don't think enough people were interested in moving to Israel. Ben Azura (talk) 14:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

You can both have a colonial outlook and propose ethnic cleansing schemes at the same time? What's mutually exclusive there? We know that ethnic cleansing was baked into Zionism. Even Benny Morris has stated as much. That's what the Nakba was all about. Unapologetic ethnic cleansing is v. colonial. Almost classic! Iskandar323 (talk) 14:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's keep this discussion about the use of "colonialism" rather than "settler colonialism". Of course it *is* settler colonialism (it is the settler variety as opposed to the franchise variety of colonialism), but the term "settler-colonialism" has become associated with what Wolfe described as the fundamental logic of elimination of the native--so people will of course have complaints about that association. DMH223344 (talk) 02:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

You mentioned cultural zionism in your other comment. As benny morris described it was "ultimately marginal" DMH223344 (talk) 03:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Benny Morris, primarily an expert on the 1948 Independence War, is not necessarily an authority on the history and development of Zionism. HaOfa (talk) 04:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

There are plenty of other sources. Also recall that it had 100-200 supporters. Flapan: Brit Shalom had no popular base nor a political organisation and had neither the intent nor ambition to create them. Gorny describes Brit Shalom as outside the zionist consensus. DMH223344 (talk) 05:17, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

People here need to stop with the original research and cite reliable sources. This is not something for Wikipedia editors to debate or to determine. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

While we waitin on Vegan's sources, I will kick off with this one, A Century of Settler Colonialism in Palestine: Zionism's Entangled Project. Selfstudier (talk) 19:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This has zero relevance to the issue, you are totally confusing Zionism as settler colonialism, the fringe theory that compares Zionism to Settler colonialism, with Colonization, a term used in former times to refer to the establishment and development of settlements, in the Zionist case, agricultural moshavot. HaOfa (talk) 04:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Fringe? Since when? Show me a source saying it is fringe. Selfstudier (talk) 16:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if fringe is the right term, but based on what I'm collecting now it does seem to be a minority view. Vegan416 (talk) 16:48, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

But a significant one, righty? Pretty sure I can source that, in fact I think I did already somewhere, just can't recall where. Selfstudier (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

That depends how you define significant... Anyway you'll see soon what I mean. Vegan416 (talk) 17:20, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

In any case it's still colonialism, can't really dispute the settler part of it, they still doin that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Believe me, I have read numerous books on the matter. Yes, the Zionist movements promoted the construction of moshavot, which can be termed colonies (hence colonization). However, people here are conflating it with other terms and overlooking the fact that Zionism encouraged many things beyond building moshavot: mass aliyah, the use of Hebrew, the establishment of political institutions, lobbying international powers to support a Jewish state, and more. I completely oppose the use of the term colonization in the first paragraph. HaOfa (talk) 04:48, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

However, all these other things you list are aspects of colonization! They are exactly why "colonization" is more correct than just "settlement". Zero^talk 05:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. Historically, colonization referred to settling, constructing settlements, and developing them. Today, the term often implies people sent by a foreign entity to take over another land, which doesn't align with Zionism according to neutral and mainstream scholarship. Jews originally come from Israel, specifically Judea, and the diaspora has always been in relation to Palestine and Jerusalem, ... doesn't sound too foreign to me.

To sum up, in its former usage, colonization describes only some aspects of Zionism, and in its contemporary usage, it usually refers to imperial colonialism, which is a fringe theory in the case of Zionism, totally irrelevant to the first presentation of the article, and already appears down below in the fourth paragraph. HaOfa (talk) 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Theodor Herzl: "Colonization can therefore continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population." ... "Without colonization, Zionism is nothing but a castle in the air." [5] Iskandar323 (talk) 16:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Please strike this comment or provide RS to support these quotes. I believe the first quote is in fact Ze'ev Jabotinsky not Herzl. Not sure about the second one, but not appropriate to cite information based on a non-reliable source. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

True. It does appear that I let the internet prank me. That'll teach me to leave Google scholar and take a shortcut. The first does appear to be Jabotinsky. Can't match the second up. Mea culpa. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a distinction between an aim and the means of attaining that aim, which is partly lost in this conversation. The aim of Zionism was a Jewish polity in Palestine. The means was the colonization of Palestine, which included not just establishing settlements but also establishing the trappings of statehood. Both things need to be described. The means can be described without using the word "colonization", but it isn't possible to describe it without using words having the same meaning as colonization. Since practically every Zionist source was perfectly happy to call it colonization I don't see why we shouldn't. Zero^talk 05:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Round 3

Colleagues, please do not POV push. Please come to an agreement here before adding statements that are only mentioned by select scientists and please do attribute them. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 13:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Excuse me, why have you deleted archive links and changed ref names in your most recent revert? Selfstudier (talk) 14:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello. It was returned to the prior state before the unegreed change. The archive links can be added using bot in one click. Let me do it. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 14:08, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Since a minority of editors are attempting to enforce their POV against a majority and based on the discussion above I have tagged the article accordingly. Selfstudier (talk) 14:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the tag. In the same time please note that POV is usually considered not based on amount of editors but is based on the facts that such editors provide and RS. The majority is not always right. When there is a consensus there should be an agreement to make the change to have a new consensus. And not is 10 people come and force the change it becomes the new consensus. Until there is a decision we should keep the original state of the article. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 14:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I've restored it to its previous state, which reflects the best scholarly sources and early zionist self-description/self-definition.Dan Murphy (talk) 14:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with your change. Please self revert until there is an agreement. The opinion of colonization is clearly a minority. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 14:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

That is currently what a majority of editors agree with, tho. If you do not agree, an RFC is an option for determining consensus. Selfstudier (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I have not done RFC before. Majority based on count of registered accounts that promote one point which they like and not based on analysis of sources that describe that point? With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 14:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

In an RFC, one asks a neutrally phrased question such as "Should (some content) be in the article" and then editors will give arguments and sources in support or opposition. Selfstudier (talk) 14:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

• @Dan Murphy: - your added sources and content have to be in the body too. starship.paint (RUN) 14:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  You may do it on his behalf. He did only about 30 edits since 2021 so might not have time to do so. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

• 1. Has anyone read those articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? Do you still believe that Israel is a colony and why?
  

2. Do you believe that the opinion in such articles can't be present in the article? If so, why? With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

They are either opinion articles or non-independent sources, both of which don't belong to the article. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

In order:

1. op-ed by a Zionist blogger
2. op-ed by an undergraduate student
3. letter to the editor by a professor of Greek and Latin languages
4. self-published think thank article by an Israeli military and government official
5. a newspaper article that is not about Zionism
6. editorial by Canadian Jewish News

I honestly can't believe an admin on another wiki would even suggest that these are WP:RS. Levivich (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Makeandtoss: Don't you think that adding it to led without any explanation is improper? As, for example, Yoav Gelber states that "Economic theories of colonialism and sociological theories of migration movements are also inadequate when applied to the Zionist experience". Next, there is an interesting work of Yoav Peled which can be read here. You can also check the work of Dore Gold here. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

OK, those are actual WP:RS! Let's look at them.

Yoav Gelber's chapter in this book:

• The foreward to the book, written by Sari Nusseibeh, begins with this line: It cannot escape the notice of the reader of this volume that there is an imbalance in the presentations in favour of Israeli scholars. As the editor notes, Palestinian scholars on the whole did not feel inclined to participate.
• Other chapters in the book talk about Zionism as colonialism. For example:
  • p. 139, in Chapter 8 by Avraham Sela: Zionism’s colonial-settler nature and unhidden intention to establish a Jewish state over Palestine depicted the Zionist enterprise as a formidable threat to the Arab-Muslim nature of Palestine.
  • p. 159, in Chapter 9 by Hillel Cohen: Herzl used this theory as a tool to ignoring the claims of al-Khalidi, and pretended to know better than the Jerusalemite leader what were the needs of his community and his country. In this he followed the path of Western colonialism in general.
    • p. 161, H. Cohen quotes a Zionist banker, ... when I visit one of our colonies .... Later on the same page, H. Cohen quotes Ze'ev Jabotinsky's The Iron Wall: ... the realisation of Zionism in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him ...
    • p. 168, in his conclusion, H. Cohen writes As with colonial projects elsewhere, this argument had its factual value also in the unique Zionist case.
  • p. 190, Chapter 11 by Kenneth W. Stein, mentions the 1891 Palestine Colonization Association and the 1899 Jewish Colonial Trust (not mentioned: the 1924 Palestine Jewish Colonization Association)
• Yoav Gelber's Chapter 13 does, indeed, argue that Zionism is not colonialism. But in making this argument, Gelber is arguing against the mainstream view. He acknowledges this. These are the people who, acccording to Yoav Gelber in this chapter, believe that Zionism is colonialism:
  • Palestinian Arabs (p. 220)
  • Israel-baiters (p. 222)
  • Public discourse in the West and Israel since the 1960s (p. 222)
  • French, Jewish, and Arab intellectuals, including Maxime Rodinson and Eric Hobsbawm who contributed to a "massive volume" published in June 1967 in Les Temps modernes (p. 222)
  • Palestinian radicals (p. 222)
  • some Israeli academics (p. 222)
  • The first Palestine Arab Congress in 1919 (p. 223)
  • Rashid Khalidi (p. 223)
  • Baruch Kimmerling (p. 223)
  • Arabs of Palestine (they were not yet ‘Palestinians’) in the 1930s and 40s, However, colonialism was at that time legitimate and their arguments did not attract attention or inspire sympathy. (p. 223)
  • Since the late 1970s, however, anti-colonialist arguments fell on receptive ears, particularly in Western Europe that was haunted by post-colonial guilt feelings. (p. 223)
  • Edward Said (p. 223)
  • Israeli post-Zionists of all creeds (p. 224)
  • Ilan Pappe (p. 224)
  • Jewish communists (p. 224)
  • Palestinian communists (p. 224)
  • Matzpen (p. 224)
  • Israel Beer (p. 224)
  • Uri Avneri (p. 224)
  • Aharon Cohen (p. 224)
  • Eliezer Bauer (p. 224)
  • former Israelis, American, and French Jewish activists of the New Left in the late 1970s (p. 224)
  • several new historians and critical sociologists since the late 1980s (p. 224)
  • Shlomo Sand (p. 225)
  • Yehuda Shenhav (p. 225)
  • Hanan Chever (p. 225)
  • Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin (p. 226)
  • David N. Myers (p. 228)
  • Derek Penslar (p. 229)

By arguing against the mainstream view, Gelber's chapter supports the assertion that it is the mainstream view.

As for Yoav Peled's chapter, he is arguing that Zionism is colonialism. The chapter ends with these two sentences: As I have shown in this chapter, the attempts to use the historical specificity of Zionism in order to argue that it does not fit the colonial-settler model do not stand up to historical scrutiny. Not only that, the insistence on denying the colonial-settler nature of Zionism obscures for the opponents of the colonial thesis major areas of the reality in contemporary Israel as well.

Dore Gold's paper, putting aside that Gold was an Israeli government official and the paper is self-published by his think tank, he still admits that "Zionism is colonialism" is the mainstream view, and like Gelber, he argues against it. Page 84: The argument that Israel is a colonialist entity is often marshaled to undermine the Jewish state’s very legitimacy ... The theme has certainly permeated Western academia, almost uncritically. For decades, it has been employed against Israel in one international forum after another. Page 87: Nevertheless, in recent years, the effort to portray Israel as a colonialist entity has expanded.

So, we can count Benny Morris, Yoav Gelber, and Dore Gold, as three scholars who argue that Zionism is not colonialism. On the other side are dozens of scholars; that's what makes it the mainstream view. Levivich (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for taking time a look. I also must admit that I was quite surprised how the paradigm has shifted. The last time I have read about this topic was over a few decades ago and then such representation was much less common. When I checked the sources today I can see that minority and majority here have drastically shifted for some reason. So, I do admit this part. And it was a surprise to me, to be honest. In the same time my original point remains the same. I do not think that we should just add an entirely new concept to the first sentence in the lead without providing an explanation as at least the sources which I have found show that it's meaning is not similar to how average people define the term colonization. We should check how scholars who thinks it's that colonialism define this therm and if they share the same definition. So far I din't get such understanding. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 18:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for admitting that. Yes, it has absolutely shifted in the last couple decades (in the 21st century), part of the reason in this topic area I am always saying that we should use 21st-century sources and not 20th-century sources (hence, WP:AGEMATTERS). In the words of WP:NPOV policy, there is a "significant minority viewpoint" that Zionism is not colonialism, and this viewpoint can be seen in the works of modern (21st-century) scholars such as Morris, Gelber, and Gold. And I certainly think this viewpoint should be given in the Zionism article. An example is Nakba, where we say it's ethnic cleansing, we say that's the majority viewpoint, but we also say that there is a significant minority viewpoint that it is not ethnic cleansing, and we give as examples of this viewpoint Morris and Gelber (among others). This Zionism article should do the same. And yes, there is a difference between, for example, "colonialism" and "settler colonialism," not all kinds of colonialism are the same, and I agree this is a distinction that the article should also clarify. Levivich (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

You all kind of miss that the topic here is about the use of term 'colonization' in the opening sentence / definition, which is different from the question you are discussing (though of course related to it). I'll expand on this tomorrow with sources. Vegan416 (talk) 20:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Please do. We will appreciate it. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 21:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Admitting was easy. Seeing and realizing the difference was not. :) Another issue is that various sources call that Israel had Settler Colonialism and Lorenzo Veracini claims (1 2) that "Settler Colonialism is not Colonialism". Which adds to the confusion and reinforces my point that the therm must be properly defined. I also got today a book of this person and two more to see their view on the subject. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 21:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Specifically talks about economic theories so not really relevant here. The rest seems fringe, although I haven't read what is in them yet. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

A very fine example here of why I (and many others) do very little editing here anymore. An account throws an out of context source on the talk page and, in effect, says "I win." Then a more diligent editor does the reading and responds at length and in detail, something that takes many multiples of the time and effort expended by the original poster. Then poster number one responds "The last time I have read about this topic was over a few decades ago" and says they were expressing their expectations of what the scholarship has found. And round and round it goes. To my mind, this behavior - either out of ignorance or deliberate bad faith - is the real incivility problem.Dan Murphy (talk) 19:27, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

• There are multiple reliable sources in which Zionists are shown as describing what they intended on doing as being 'colonization'. We should follow the very best sources. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a policy argument. TarnishedPath^talk 04:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Round 4: Should the term colonization/colonialism be used in the opening-sentence/lead-section? A Survey of 21st century Encyclopedias

The discussion here is not about whether we have to include in the article the debate on whether Zionism is "colonialist"/"colonizing". I don't think there is really any objection against describing this debate in the article. The discussion here is whether Zionism should be described as "colonialist"/ "colonizing" in the first defining sentence or in the lead section at all, in wikivoice. This is mainly a question of DUE and NPOV. I present here a policy-based argument against including this description in the lead.

Here is a relevant policy statement from Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources "Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others. Within any given tertiary source, some entries may be more reliable than others." Tertiary sources are defined there as "publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize, and often quote, primary and secondary sources."

So I decided to look at encyclopedias articles whose title is Zionism. Following the policy point that "some tertiary sources are more reliable than others" I used only encyclopedias published by reputable punishers, and also almost all (if not all) of the editors and writers are scholars in relevant fields. Also, following Levivich opinion that only 21st century sources should be used in this discussion, I used only encyclopedia editions that were first published in the 21st century. I collected about 30 such encyclopedias.

The results are pretty clear. The vast majority of encyclopedias do not describe Zionism as "colonialist"/"colonizing" in the first defining sentence or in their lead section at all. It seems clear that most of the scholars that edited and wrote those encyclopedia articles think that the description of Zionism as "colonialist"/"colonizing" is either wrong, or disputable, or simply just not important enough to make the head-lines. I think Wikipedia should follow this majority.

Encyclopedia name and details	Editor name	Article author name	Zionism described as colonial/colonization movement in first paragraph? If yes, how?	Zionism described as colonial/colonization movement in rest of lead section? If yes, how?
Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. Facts on File. 2000. p. 454.	Philip Mattar	Neil Caplan	no	no
The continuum political encyclopedia of the Middle East (2nd ed.). Continuum. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8264-1413-7. p. 928	Avraham Sela	Avraham Sela	no	no
Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. (2nd ed.). Gale. 2004. Vol. 4. p. 2431	Philip Mattar	Donna Robinson Divine; Neil Caplan	no	no
Dictionary of the History of Ideas. (2nd ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons. 2004.	Maryanne Cline Horowitz	Arthur Hertzberg	no	no
Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Macmillan Reference USA. 2004. Vol 2. p. 483	Claude Faure	Claude Faure	no	no
Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. Routledge. 2004. p. 459	Ellis Cashmore	Ellis Cashmore	no	no
Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture. Routledge. 2005. Vol 2. p. 983	Glenda Abramson	Noah Lucas	no	no
Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed.). Gale. 2005. Vol 15.	Lindsay Jones	David Biale	no	no
Europe 1789 to 1914 : Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire. Vol. 5. Gale. 2006. p. 2518	John Merriman; Jay Winter	Steven Beller	no	no
Europe since 1914 : encyclopedia of the age of war and reconstruction. Vol. 5. Gale. 2006. p. 2816.	John Merriman; Jay Winter	Paula Hyman	no	no
Encyclopedia Judaica (2nd ed.) Vol 21. Gale. 2006. p. 539	Fred Skolnik	Numerous scholars	no	no
Encyclopedia of Race And Racism. Vol. 3 (1st ed.). Gale. 2008. p. 240.	John Hartwell Moore	Noel Ignatiev	no	no
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. (2nd ed.) Gale. 2008.	William A. Darity Jr	Jonathan Boyarin	no	no
The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Wiley. 2009.	Immanuel Ness	Shellie K. McCullough	no	? not freely available
Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Lynne Rienner Publishers. 2010. Vol 3. p. 1660.	Cheryl Rubenberg	Zachary Lackman	no	yes, but attributed: "Palestinians have regarded Zionism as essentially a colonial-settler enterprise"
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press. 2010			no	no
International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE. 2011. p. 2765	Bertrand Bradie	Alain Dieckhoff	no	no
The Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE. 2011. Vol 5. p. 1799	George Thomas Kurian	Jerome Copulsky	no	no
Encyclopedia of Global Studies. Vol. 4. SAGE Publications. 2012. p. 1835. ISBN 978-1-4129-9422-4.	Helmut Anheier; Mark Juergensmeyer	Aviva Halamish	no	no
"Sionisme". Larousse (in French). 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-12-20.			no	no
Encyclopedia of race and racism. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). Gale. 2013. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-02-866195-7.	Patrick Mason	Paul Scham	no	no
The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. Wiley. 2013.	David A. Snow	Rottem Sagi	no	? not freely available
Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought. SAGE. 2013. p. 869	Gregory Claeys	Gadi Taub	no	no
Loewenthal, Kate M. (2014), "Zionism", Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, Springer US, pp. 1960–1963, doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_764, ISBN 978-1-4614-6086-2	David Adam Leeming	Kate M. Loewenthal	no	? not in first 2 paragraphs, and these are the only ones freely available online.
The Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Wiley. 2014	Michael T. Gibbons	Tamara M. Zwick	no	? not freely available
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Wiley. 2015.	John Stone	Dafna Hirsch	yes "the Zionist movement promoted the colonization of Palestine"	? not freely available
Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. Routledgde. 2016.	Vassiliki Kolocotroni	Nathan Devir	no	? not freely available
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Freie Universität Berlin. 2018	Ute Daniel	Ofer Idels	no	no
Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Vol. 4. ABC-CLIO. 2019. p. 1376.	Spencer C Tucker	Amy Blackwell	no	no
"Zionism". Britannica. Archived from the original on June 28, 2024. Last Updated: Jun 30, 2024			no	no

Comments:

1. The encyclopedias are ordered by publication date of the edition that is used. This is of course not an exhaustive list of all possibly relevant encyclopedias in the 21st century. There were encyclopedias that were not accessible to me at all, and its very likely there are others that I missed entirely in my searches. However I believe this presents a significant portion, maybe even the majority of relevant encyclopedias that have an article about Zionism. So I think it's unlikely that the results would change significantly when more encyclopedias are found (and anyone is of course free to look for more).
2. I provided links to most of the sources. There were a few that I found offline in my library. For these I supplied the text of the first paragraph in the footnotes. Images can be sent on demand.
3. With regard to opening defining sentence (see MOS:FIRST) specifically it might be useful to also look at reputable dictionaries, which are the experts in defining subjects in one sentence. Looking at 6 of the leading online dictionaries (1 2 3 4 5 6) we find that none of them mentions colonization/colonialism in its definition of Zionism.Vegan416 (talk) 17:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• Maybe sign your work? I will certainly have a look at this but you should understand the Zionism as settler colonialism has independent notability so at a minimum, it is a significant view and therefore lead worthy, although precisely where in the lead could be a subject for discussion.Selfstudier (talk) 17:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that we have an article of the form "X as Y" doesn't necessarily mean that the article on X should mention Y in the lead section. For example the idea that Allah was a lunar deity in pre-Muslim times is deemed sufficiently notable to have an article Allah as a lunar deity, yet it is not mentioned in the lead section of the article on Allah. Vegan416 (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  That's for the editors there to sort out, I am interested in this article right here. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Is there any policy that says that if we have an article of the form "X as Y" then the article on X must mention Y in the lead section? Vegan416 (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  There is a policy that says "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies" in the WP:LEAD. WP:NPOV requires article coverage of "significant viewpoints" and WP:WEIGHT determines how much of what goes where. Selfstudier (talk) 18:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  And this is my suggestion (based on policy recommendation) how to try asses what are deemed as important points for the lead. Vegan416 (talk) 19:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Erm, because that's a hoax! Iskandar323 (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for putting this together. I think it's a worthwhile approach but it needs some refinement. For one thing, 10+ years is old. For another, I don't think this collection is really representative of the encyclopedias we want to be looking at. For example: Encyclopedia of the First World War? That's not really on topic. And forget Britannica altogether (and dictionaries). For another thing, I'm not sure these are entirely accurate. Wiley's Encyclopedia of Political Thought entry does indeed mention colonialism (see WP:TWL link: [6]). Where are the Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, etc., encyclopedias? The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy encyclopedia entry, to take one example, mentions colonialism in the first paragraph: TWL link. Cambridge's History of Socialism, Volume II, has an entry called "Socialism, Zionism, and Settler Colonialism in Israel/Palestine". Cambridge's History of Judaism encyclopedia has an entry on "Zionism and its Critics" that talks about colonialism. I just quickly searched the Cambridge TWL collection to find these. I'm sure Oxford and Harvard and so on all have encyclopedias that cover Zionism. Finally, I don't think the first paragraph of encyclopedia articles is in any way analogous to the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article. What Wikipedia calls its "lead" is essentially the length of an entire encyclopedia entry in a print encyclopedia. We should see if it's mentioned anywhere in these encyclopedia entries, and yes look at how prominently and what's attributed vs. said in the publication's voice, but not cut it off at "first paragraph." And we should really be focusing on last 5-10 years, there's plenty to look at within that time frame. Tertiary sources are always going to lag behind secondary sources, but they can still provide useful information about WP:DUE/WP:ASPECT. Levivich (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I share Levivich's concerns, especially about dictionaries and more generally, well, for lack of a better term, selection effects. I have very slow internet at the moment (our dsl craps out during heatwaves) so don't have the time to go through all of these that are online. But I managed to click through on the first offering, Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. While it's true that the first 95 word paragraph does not mention colonialism, the second graph (without using the word "colonialism") describes very clearly a colonial project.Dan Murphy (talk) 18:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

But it doesn't use the word "colonialism" so you argument here is WP:SYNTH Vegan416 (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not synth since other more recent sources do in fact use this term. DMH223344 (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

First thanks for pointing me to WP:TWL I didn't know we had a free access to Wiley online and other resources. That's great. I'll explore those in the next few days. I disagree with most of the arguments you raised, but I don't have time to write at length. I'll just comment on your claim that "What Wikipedia calls its lead is essentially the length of an entire encyclopedia entry in a print encyclopedia". That's absolutely untrue for many (if not most) of the Encyclopedias in this list. Also I used 2 cut offs, at 1 paragraphs and at 4 paragraphs (which is the size of the lead here). Vegan416 (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich Now I have some time to expand a little about the points I disagree with. First, the date cutoff you wish to set now seems a bit like you are moving the goal posts, after you had in previous discussions agreed to any 21st century book. Second, you say that "Encyclopedia of the First World War" is not relevant to Zionism, although this was the war that moved Palestine from the hands of a largely anti-Zionist empire to the the hands of a largely pro-Zionist empire, and thus enabled the Balfour declaration etc. And then you bring yourself Cambridge's History of Socialism as if this is more relevant to Zionism than WW1. Third, as I already noted, I think that comparing the lead-section/4-first-paragraphs of these encyclopedias to the lead section in Wikipedia is very valid.

I do agree that there is a value in looking for "colonialism" etc. in the rest of the articles beyond the lead section. Though it won't be directly related to the specific question we discuss here (i.e. what to include in the lead), it can be helpful in assessing the wider question of how common is this view. So I'll add another column to the table. I'll also add a count of the words in each lead and article (or estimation where there is no electronic text) since it seems you have completely wrong ideas on this.

I will also continue on adding sources from the TWL which you revealed to me, and maybe I'll find more elsewhere. I will work on it on my sandbox and not here, because editing an existing table in source mode is a typing nightmare for me. I'll import that table back here when finished. Maybe to a Round 5 section. However since I have some commitments in real life I'll take a wikipedia break until the weekend, which means the updated table will be ready only sometime next week. Vegan416 (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

You want to talk about arbitrary cut-offs, you're advocating for looking at the first four paragraphs of encyclopedia articles on the basis that Wikipedia leads are four paragraphs long. :-D I mean that's just stupid. Let's drop the "four paragraphs" criteria.

Yes, I argue for 21st-century, in response to people bringing 20th-century. But really, I generally argue for last-5-years in this topic area.

Here are some (not all) of the books published in the 2020s (last 4.5 years) with the word "Zionism" in their titles:

1. Cohen, Netta (2024). New Under the Sun: Early Zionist Encounters with the Climate in Palestine. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-39723-1.
2. Fleisch, Eric (2024). Checkbook Zionism: Philanthropy and Power in the Israel-Diaspora Relationship. Rutgers University Press. doi:10.36019/9781978819986. ISBN 978-1-9788-1998-6.
3. Inbari, Motti; Bumin, Kirill (2024). Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Opinion on Israel. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-764930-5.
4. Etkes, Immanuel (2023). The Invention of a Tradition: The Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-3709-2.
5. Forriol, Mari Carmen (2023). Development of the Roadmap of Political Zionism in the State of Israel. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5275-1260-3.
6. Hever, Hannan (2023). Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism. University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv30dxxs8. ISBN 978-1-5128-2508-4.
7. Penslar, Derek J. (2023). Zionism: An Emotional State. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-7611-4.
8. Stanislawski, Michael (2023). Zionism and the Fin de Siecle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93575-4.
9. Blackmer, Corinne E. (2022). Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-5000-3.
10. Knorr, Brooke (2022). American Biblical Archaeology and Zionism. Routledge. doi:10.4324/b22935. ISBN 978-1-003-29629-4.
11. Peretz, Dekel (2022). Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-072643-5.
12. Baji, Tomohito (2021). The International Thought of Alfred Zimmern: Classicism, Zionism and the Shadow of Commonwealth. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-66214-1.
13. Farmer, Esther; Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack; Sills, Sarah (2021). A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-931-9.
14. Halper, Jeff; Naser-Najjab, Nadia (2021). Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State. Pluto Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1dm8d20. ISBN 978-0-7453-4339-6. JSTOR j.ctv1dm8d20.
15. Halperin, Liora R. (2021). The Oldest Guard: Forging the Zionist Settler Past. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-2871-7.
16. Lewis, Donald M. (2021). A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-4698-6.
17. Reynold, Nick (2021). The 1945–1952 British Government's Opposition to Zionism and the Emergent State of Israel. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-7936-2926-5.
18. Rich, Cynthia Holder (2021). Christian Zionism in Africa. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-9787-1174-7.
19. Sizer, Stephen (2021). Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-6667-3150-7.
20. Tarquini, Alessandra (2021). The European Left and the Jewish Question, 1848-1992: Between Zionism and Antisemitism. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-56662-3.
21. Zipperstein, Steven E. (2021). Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939-1948. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-48438-0.
22. Goldwater, Raymond (2020). Pioneers of Religious Zionism: Rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, Mohliver, Reines, Kook and Maimon. Urim Publications. ISBN 978-965-524-343-7.
23. Landes, Richard (2020). Salem on the Thames: Moral Panic, Anti-Zionism, and the Triumph of Hate Speech at Connecticut College. Academic Studies PRess. ISBN 978-1-64469-370-4.
24. Levit, Daphna (2020). Wrestling with Zionism: Jewish Voices of Dissent. Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-62371-949-4.
25. Shoham, Hizky (2020). Carnival in Tel Aviv: Purim and the Celebration of Urban Zionism. Academic Studies Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2175qt0. ISBN 978-1-64469-328-5. JSTOR j.ctv2175qt0.

These are not all the books, or even all the academic books, about Zionism published in the last 4.5 years. The point is: it's a lot of books, just in the last 5 years. So if you read an encyclopedia from 10, 15, 20 years ago, that encyclopedia is going to miss 50-100 or more of the most recent academic books about Zionism (and hundreds more journal articles). In other words: out of date. That's not true for all topic areas, but in this topic area -- the I/P conflict, one of the most-studied, most-written-about topics of all topics -- WP:AGEMATTERS, like it really matters, because there is so much being published on this topic, all the time. 10-, 15-, 20-year-old encyclopedia articles are going to be out of date in this topic area. Levivich (talk) 15:37, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

1. No. The cutoff of 4 paragraphs (or other clearly marked lead section if there is such marking, e.g. section titles in the article) is not stupid or arbitrary at all. It is exactly right, because we are after all dealing with the question what should be in the lead section of an encyclopedia article that has 4 paragraphs in the lead! Anyway what is your suggestion? That we have no cutoff at all and give a sentence that appears in the last paragraph of a 100 paragraphs article the same weight as a sentence that appears in the first paragraph? Or should we record for each such appearance the number of the paragraph (or word) it is in and then calculate some sort of average?

2. I am fully aware of the deluge of books and journal articles about Zionism and related issues. That's exactly why I suggested using encyclopedias. In order to make assessment of this deluge at least barely manageable. I believe that's also part of the idea behind the Wikipedia policy I quoted above. That's why we go to tertiary sources.

3. However I would argue that this deluge of books doesn't necessarily adds much new significant historical knowledge. I believe that most of it is repetition of things already discovered in the past, or dealing with minutia, or just political hype. I mean can you point me to some major paradigm-changing discovery that was made regarding the history of Zionism in the last 15 or even 25 years? I mean something that can really change a person view of the question whether Zionism is or isn’t colonialism? Vegan416 (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Think you are on a sticky wicket here, first off this about the 4 paras is just baloney, you can't compare random tertiaries with WP. Age does matter, that's the whole point of research, new insights and whether those insights make any headway among the scholarly community. Penslar is top drawer, how can one argue against him? Whatever way you cut it, it's a significant view and perhaps controversy as well, means it's in the lead, the only question is where. Selfstudier (talk) 17:37, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Your sentence "Penslar is top drawer, how can one argue against him?" is quite telling. It seems you are trying to make here an argument ex cathedra. But the truth is Penslar is just one historian out of many, and there are other historians who argue against him. Vegan416 (talk) 18:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

And none that agree with him? Don't think so. Selfstudier (talk) 18:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Did I say that? Vegan416 (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

"One historian out of many"? I guess so, except he's the one who was the inaugural Stanley Lewis Chair of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford, so he's more like "one historian out of very few" who have reached that level. Levivich (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

And yet there are other historians who argue with him. In the humanities we shouldn't believe in papal infallibility. Vegan416 (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

So far, we've identified three historians who'd argue with him about whether Zionism was some variety of colonialism. Levivich (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I was about to go off when I saw a notification about this new response of yours. So I would say just that your search methods are apparently not so good... I have now in a few minutes found several more names Tuvia Friling, Robert Eisen, Dov Waxman. I let you fill the details as I really have to go. Vegan416 (talk) 19:52, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

We're now up to six scholars who dispute that Zionism is colonialism--seems like a significant minority viewpoint! Of course, these dissenters also recognize that the view of Zionism as colonialism is so common as to be almost taken for granted, especially in academia. But don't take it from me, take it from Dov Waxman:

The most persistent, and perhaps most common, criticism of Zionism is that it is another instance of European colonialism ... Indeed in left-wing circles in Western societies, and especially on university campuses and in academia, it has become not only fashionable, but almost taken for granted, to view Zionism as synonymous with colonialism.
— Waxman, Dov (2019). "Was Zionism a form of colonialism?". The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-062535-1.

Levivich (talk) 21:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

You forgot the qualifier "in left wing circles"... Vegan416 (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

While you may wish to shift the goalposts because the scholarship does not support the counter-assertion, no one is obliged to go along with you. Age matters. Source quality matters. Recent, high-quality academic sources beat crusty old general encyclopedias. As for whether there has been a paradigm shift? Ours is not too reason why. Though maybe it's not a what, but a who – say one politician who has made it his mission of the past two decades to ignore the UN, flout international law and expand illegal settlements. Maybe it's just the sheer unsubtly of Israel's colonial ambitions on the West Bank these days that made the scales fall from at least the eyes of subject specialists. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't shift any goal-posts. The discussion where I started this was about whether this issue should be mentioned at the top of the article or not. Vegan416 (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Please check the publication date of Wolfe's "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native". Yes there have indeed been dramatic changes in how we understand these historical movements, even in the past 20 years. DMH223344 (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Jinx! Levivich (talk) 18:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean can you point me to some major paradigm-changing discovery that was made regarding the history of Zionism in the last 15 or even 25 years? Um, two come to mind: (1) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), and (2) same year, Patrick Wolfe's seminal paper about settler colonialism, often credited with launching the entire field of settler colonial studies (though Wolfe himself disagreed with that accolade), in which he describes Zionism as settler colonialism. In round 3--yesterday--we discussed how the paradigm has shifted over the last 20 years. These two things are examples of that. Levivich (talk) 18:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I asked for discoveries. Not for book names. Can you say what significant historical facts these 2 books revealed that were not known before 2006? Also even taking your claim at face value that would be an argument for putting the cutoff at 2010 not at 2020. Anyway I really have to take a break until the weekend. So last observation before I sign off. I made a search in TWL for "zionism" & "colonialism" in the last 5 years and got ~2000 results. It is impossible (within a reasonable time) to scan all these articles to assess how many of them support this claim, how many object to it, and how many say that this is not an important question. That's why we need to refer to encyclopedias, whose number is much smaller, to make the problem at least barely manageable.

And now I sign off. Over and out. Vegan416 (talk) 19:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

BTW, one of those 25 titles jumped out at me: Derek Penslar's book about Zionism published just last year. Sure enough, Chapter 2 is called "Zionism as Colonialism." "There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism," Penslar writes. Then he traces the history: "Palestnian characterizations of Zionism as a form of European colonialism date to the 1920s ... During the 1960s, associations between Zionism and colonialism gained global currency." He then explores Zionism as settler colonialism in some depth. His conclusion to the chapter begins with: "Our comparative examination of colonial indigenization places Zionism within a settler-colonial matrix while allowing for its particularities, like a celestial body within an eccentric orbit around its sun." Levivich (talk) 15:55, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

To join in the commentary from @Levivich:

Encyclopedias included in original table

1. Encyclopedia of the Palestinians -- refers to Jews moving to the area as settlers in the entry.
2. Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict -- refers to Jewish colonies in Palestine in the first 4 paragraphs.
3. Encyclopedia of Race And Racism -- entry refers to Jewish settlers throughout the establishment of Israel.
4. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, -- Vegan claims that while colonialism occurs in the first paragraph it "doesn't appear to refer to Zionism", but I would argue it places Zionism within the global complex of colonialism. The entry the later mentions how while many Zionists understood themselves as anticolonialists, Zionism is often viewed as at odds with decolonial liberation.
5. International Encyclopedia of Political Science -- calls Zionism a settler movement, in reference to Palestinians in the first paragraph, and then has 3 paragraphs dedicated to Zionism as a colonial process in their own subsection of the entry.
6. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements -- talks of Jewish settlers in the entry.
7. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion -- talks of Jewish settlers in the entry.
8. The Encyclopedia of Political Thought -- the entry discusses the view of Zionism as colonialism.
9. Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection -- refers to Jewish settlers in the first 4 paragraphs. Continues to discuss settlers through the entry.

Other encyclopedias

1. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. 2003. Vol. 2. p. 644 -- refers to Zionism as colonial in it's first 4 paragraphs.
2. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier. 2015. p. 16685 -- the entry "Zionism, History of" refers to Zionism as a project of colonization.
3. The Palgrave Encyclopedia Of Imperialism And Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan. 2021. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. p. 2917 -- the entry deals with Zionism as an expression of imperialism, but provides the synonyms colonialism and settler colonialism
4. Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. Macmillan Reference. 2007. -- Does not have an entry on Zionism, but has resistance to Zionism in the entry on Anticolonialism.

-- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

1. Settlers/settlement is not necessarily colonialism.
2. With regard to mentions beyond first 4 paras I have already started to expand the table in my sandbox to include that. Hopefully will be finished this week.
3. I'll add the new encyclopedias you found to the list, as well as some others I may found.

Vegan416 (talk) 11:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

• Red herring. Encyclopedias are not necessarily written by experts and can often be out of date. They aren't necessarily the sources that are best for showing due weight. I definitely think colonialism should be mentioned in the article lead. (t · c) buidhe 18:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  That's exactly why I supplied the names and links of the editors and writers of these articles. You can check for yourself that almost all of them are scholars in relevant fields. Vegan416 (talk) 18:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• There are any number of methods one can use to obtain a negative result or the result one desires. The one above has terms of definition so stringently restrictive thathe method will tend to produce the desired result. Namely, (a)the source must be an encyclopedia (b) the subject must be Zionism (c) the only relevant evidence is from the first paragraph in the lead (d) the word to find in that para must be 'colonization' (e) if not in para one, then it must be in para 2 or thereabouts.

• Frankly this looks bizarrely idiosyncratic as a heuristic methodology, designed to elicit a negative result. I happen to have been commissioned to write the entry for a topic related to nationalism for a French encyclopedia. I've just checked it, and the first and second paragraphs nowhere mention what becomes the kernal of what the title alludes to. The first deals with the amplitude of the literature, the second with the historic background, and only then does on start to get to the topic's core itself.
• The justification for this unique procedure, which I've never seen anywhere else, is that using tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight'. But the thrust of the RS policy is that Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources.
• The secondary sources of recent times state and document overwhelmingly that colonization is intrinsic to Zionism. They do so because the Zionist founders used the language of colonialism throughout for the first half century, from Herzl to Ben-Gurion. They did so because, as rational men, they knew that in 1896, when they proposed to create a Jewish majority state in Palestine, the population was 95% Muslim-Christian, and that Zionism could only achieve its ends by massive colonization (Herzl recruited from the outset Otto Warburg because as a co-founder of the Kolonialwirtschaftliches Komitee (German Committee for Colonial Economy his expertise was thought crucial for introducing colonialist models of technocracy into Zionism).
• This open acceptance that Zionist mass colonization required, to work, comparative study of the English and German varieties, wasn't problematic until after 1945, when the wave of decolonializations began. It was then that Israel switched to a non-colonial idiom, one of 'national liberation', esp. in the 50s, to woo backing from those African states in international fora on the basis of an asserted kinship as one of their kind, a people occupied by an imperial colonial power (Great britain) whose shackles the Jews had thrown off. For the details see Yotam Gidron's Israel in Africa: Security, Migration, Interstate Politics, Zed Books. 2020 ISBN 978-1-786-99505-6). While paradigms change over time, the last two decades have witnessed the recursion of scholars to the language of Zionism's formative period, which is colonial. What type of colonialism best fits it is controversial. Colonialism is a category, with subsets like (a) settler-colonialism (b) exploitation colonialism, (c) surrogate colonialism, and (d) internal colonialism (the last again forms a class with a subset, namely sponsored colonization, e.g. Sri Lanka’s replacement of Tamils by Sinhalese people in part directed influenced by the Israeli model of sponsoring settlements in the West Bank).
• In short, the method is defective, tertiary sources like encyclopedias are ancillary to the secondary literature, and, as Levivich notes, the most recent decades show the colonial paradigm ascendent, something difficult to deny given the neo-colonization thrust of Israel's post-67 occupation of the West Bank where colonial and colonizing designs are ongoing.Nishidani (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

While it's not dispositive, I do think this is a useful signal. We are not obligated to follow other encyclopedias, but deviating from a large majority of them should give us pause and cause us to reconsider arguments about due weight.

That said, my main concern is about using "colonization" in an oversimplified statement in wikivoice; I would be less concerned about a more nuanced discussion farther down in the lede. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 22:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, there's been numerous sourcing provided above by Levivich and others which demonstrates that that the settler colonialism is entirely notable as used to describe Zionism and can be thought of as a defining characteristic of Zionism. Per MOS:INTRO it should be in the lead at the very least and given how much of a identifying feature it is of Zionism it should preferably be in the first sentence per MOS:FIRST. Question: Why does this discussion keep getting split into new sections? TarnishedPath^talk 22:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  There are lots of ways to describe Zionism though; what makes this one better than the alternatives? And if this is indeed the best (most succinct, informative, neutral, etc) way to describe it, why aren't other encyclopedias using this description? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 00:33, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  I think I've mostly been the one slicing this discussion off into separate sections. Makes it easier to read on mobile (and I think on desktop too but that's prob a matter of personal preference). Anyone should feel free to refactor if they think it should be arranged differently. Levivich (talk) 01:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• Encyclopaedias are tertiary and are not ideal sources anyway. As presented by other editors, there dozens of RS describing Zionism as at least colonialism if not outright settler colonialism and this of course is due for mention in the lede and particularly in the opening paragraph. The opening paragraph currently describes "what", the establishment of a Jewish state; "where", in Palestine; and "how" is evidently missing. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:38, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I was recently surprised to discover that Shapira uses the term "colonization" to describe Zionist activity in Palestine throughout "Land and Power". Here is a quote where she almost describes it as a colonial project: In the 1920s, nobody was certain that this interesting project—Jewish colonization in Palestine—would, indeed, survive.

It's really only Karsh who argues that it is not colonialism; here is his argument (which is really very weak and relies on a fringe narrative): https://www.google.com/books/edition/Israel_Israel_s_transition_from_communit/z9pGwAEACAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=colonialism%20is%20by%20definition DMH223344 (talk) 17:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Karsh also writes that the literature has by and large subscribed to the image of Zionism as colonialist. Yet another dissenter explicitly stating what the mainstream view is. Levivich (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course we must remember that what is contested is the use of 'colonization' in the lead, and not 'colonialism'. Colonialism is the category, as I said, and it would be highly arguable that just branding Zionism as one more instance of, synonymous with, that broad category, served any useful purpose. All varieties of colonialism (its subsets) share what Marc Ferro described in writing that 'Colonization is associated with the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists. (Marc Ferro, Colonization: A Global History, Routledge. (1997) 2005 ISBN 978-0-203-99258-6 p.1) That Zionism 'colonized' Palestinine is beyond dispute. How it did that, in its own distinctive fashion, is a matter of contention (The parallel is with Apartheid). That began as a term for specifically what South Africa's white government enacted. Analogies often skewed interpretations of Israel, despite a certain cogency in the comparison. Therafter 'apartheid' became the generic category, of which South Africa, Israel, Burma, etc., formed distinctive variants, as subsets, so that one could, theoretically, no longer assume pure identity, even mutatis mutandis, between the subspecies). though in the literature the paradigm of Settler colonialism (I haven't read that wiki article however) is the closest fit. Nishidani (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the distinction you're making between the use of "colonization" and "colonialism" in this context. How could a movement use colonization, but not be considered colonialist (or a form of colonialism)? DMH223344 (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Colonialism historically involved the exploitation of resources and labor from the colonized territory for the benefit of the colonizing power, alongside the imposition of the colonizer's culture, values, and norms on the indigenous population. Zionism does not follow this pattern. Mawer10 (talk) 00:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't? Really!? Show your work, account "Mawer10."Dan Murphy (talk) 01:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

We go with what the very best sources say, not editor's ideas about what things mean. TarnishedPath^talk 03:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

For good measure, from Land and Power (Shapira): Zionist psychology was molded by the conflicting parameters of a national liberation movement and a movement of European colonization in a Middle Eastern country. Karsh's perspective on the nature of Zionism is more fringe than I originally thought. DMH223344 (talk) 23:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

And from the paperback edition of Shafir's Land, Labor and the Origins:

Anita Shapira, in a special 1995 issue of History and Memory devoted to Israeli historiography, acknowledges that the use of the colonial model in studying Israel "is both legitimate and desirable," since "defining a movement as settlement-colonialism may well help to clarify the relations between the settling nation and the native one." As she points out, such an admission would not have been forthcoming in the past.

DMH223344 (talk) 17:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Just commenting, but I just note from the lead itself there's also other mentions of Zionism as "colonisation" in the last paragraph.--ZKang123 (talk) 02:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@DMH223344. If you did not grasp the distinction I made, it's my fault. I'll bullet it in précis. What is contested is the lead that states:

Zionism is an ethnic or ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe

Marc Ferro was quoted to define 'colonization'. 'the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists.' Marc Ferro Colonization: A Global History, Routledge (1997) 2005 978-0-203-99258-6 p. 1.

• Colonialism is a generic category having several subsets or elements (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) etc., which all illustrate the principle of taking over a foreign land/territory and populating it with imported labour. The more familiar forms are
• (a) Settler-colonialism (b) exploitation colonialism, (c) Surrogate Colonialism, (d) Internal colonialism and (e) sponsored colonization.
• Colonialism therefore is the class, whose subsets are (a) (b) (c) (d) and (e) constitute the elements of that class. The edit-warriors here contest the word 'colonization' which they assume is synonymous with the class (Colonialism), rather than being its primary definition. (a)(b)(c) (d) and (e) can be linked and differentiated to each other by Venn diagrams, showing properties that are common and those that are different. None of them alone tell one what Colonialism essentially is. Anymore than a single species can define thegenus to which it belongs, to change metaphors.

Let me illustrate by the latest example of this confusion.

Colonialism historically involved the exploitation of resources and labor from the colonized territory for the benefit of the colonizing power, alongside the imposition of the colonizer's culture, values, and norms on the indigenous population. Zionism does not follow this pattern. Mawer10

Here Mawer defines the class Colonialism in terms of just one of its operative modes, by citing features that apply to one or two of the several types and stating this is what Colonialism is. It fails at first sight because one variety at least, the form Colonialism took in Australia, did not exploit the labour of the indigenous population, nor impose on them 'colonizer's culture, values, and norms'. Rather, it marginalized genocidally the indigenous population and imported convicts en masse from the metropolis to establish its extractive labour force. And neither the convicts nor the aboriginals were inculcated with british culture, norms and values'

There are many varieties of colonialism, as said, and one cannot muddle the concept by defining it variously in terms of the definition for one of its several constituent elements. One cannot define a genus by one of its species. That is why we write 'colonization' rather than 'Colonialism'. Nishidani (talk) 09:04, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is a statement from Chaim Weizmann of what he meant by colonization and how it compared to other examples:

"our colonization in Palestine compares not unfavourably with similar work done by other nations of infinitely greater experience and in more encouraging circumstances. To the quality of our settlers and of their work we have ample and authoritative testimony. And over and above agricultural settlement, we have created in Palestine all the essentials of nationhood. The organism is not yet fully grown, but the embryo is complete. We have our language, our land, our peasants and work-people, our intellectuals; from the smallest cottage or farm right up to the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, everything is our own achievement. By what that achievement is and by what it is to be, we shall be judged in the eyes of the world."

Chaim Weizmann, address to the Jewish Agency, 7 Dec 1931. The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Series B, Volume II, p5.) Zero^talk 14:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Proud of their colonization! And they have their peasants! Jolly good. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Careful about the tone there, dear Iskander.However one prefers to read the history (my views are known), pride in what Zionism was achieving - an unimaginable and improbable exercise in building a state from the ground up where Jews could be Jews freed of the shackles and uncertainties of a history of subordination- was a most natural human response. One should never underestimate the affective power of such an intense perception, relief at, in purely internal terms, having apparently crawled out of the nightmare of the past. A number of prescient historians and thinkers understood quite early what would be the obverse corollary of this miracle, a death-certificate for the people Zionism would displace ineluctably, effectively transferring onto Palestinians as their future fate the whilom destiny that befell Jews - diaspora, immiseration, contempt as an ethnically opprobrious outgroup incapable of anything but terrorism (as 'Jews' had been ostracized and stigmatized as incapable of anything but shady money dealing). But that was so thoroughly removed from the general awareness of most Zionists that we can hardly blame them for this formative euphoria. The identitarian trauma we are witnessing, not so much in Israel as abroad, has destroyed that pride. But, as editors who must try to borrow a lesson from the historian's craft, we should abstain from feelings of Schadenfreude or mockery. Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

And yet the Lord-of-the-Manor-esque pomp and satisfaction at having the "peasants and work-people" ensconsed is very deridable and condescending classism. This is long past the era of Marx. Chaim, like his political fellows, should have chosen his words more carefully. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the analogy is correct, though your point does have a certain cogency. Weizman there is like an urbane very highly placed member of a metropolitan elite, asked by kin in Europe to help do something about a nomadic tribe of their desperate co-religionists. Lords of the Manor would evict their tenants, and deny they had any claim upon the land they worked, other than paying rent to its proper owner. The creation of a 'peasantry' ('mechanical people' in the Italian idiom) had, for Zionists, nothing of the negative connotations it had for the Christian upper classes. It meant providing masses of Jews denied for a millennium access to land and agriculture, the possibility to rehabilitate their lives as petty tradesmen, middle men, schnoorers etc., by the discipline of physical labour infused with a sense of historical redemption. Lords of the Manor would never have undertaken any such mission for their poor. Like Herzl's diaries, Weizman's letters make for unsettling reading. But it is not what he did for immigrant Jews (the source of pride) that shows the man he was: it is what he did when members of the al-Banna, with some 24 sq.kilometres of prime citrus land under cultivation around Ashkelon, turned to him (he had been a neighbour and good friend of Khalil al-Banna) to intercede in 1947-48 and keep them out of the war (as people traditionally on very good terms with Jews). Weizman ignored them, and they lost everything. A core wealth-producing and labour-intense Arab economy was smashed, and the looted territory turned over to immigrants. Weizman and co., were 'proud' they had looked after 'their own' impoverished class. It's less lord-of-the manorly than those Catholics-turned-Protestants under Henry VIII, who became Lords of their Bad Manors by dispossessing their Catholics friends and neighbours to harvest the riches that accrued to them by extending, under royal patronage, their lands. Those men then dispossessed the peasantry over the following centuries, with no sense of obligation to anyone but themselves. Class is still a valid category for me, but for decades we have seen it trumped by ethnocratic values, and the populist leaders who promote the latter do so in the name of securing a future for their poor, even if this is at the cost of obliterating and immiserating those unfortunates who do not pertain to their favoured ethnic group. It is a provincial pride, that sustains itself by erasing all awareness of collateral damage to the chosen outgroup. (one consequence of Weizman's turning his back on his Arab neighbours was Abu Nidal, but he couldn't have foreseen anything so drastic as that. Those generations were temperamentally/culturally different from the criminal hucksters and opportunistic religious caterpillars who proliferate prominently these days. Sorry for the niggle.Nishidani (talk) 19:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich, I don't expect anyone to search diligently for sources that contradict their opinion. While this is the ideal of science and scholarship, we are all human beings and people who never succumb to confirmation bias are very rare indeed. But saying that you have "identified" only X scholars that oppose your view when you have seen more than that, is a different matter. Here is an interesting observation in this regard:

On 18:45, 9 July 2024 you claimed in this discussion that "So far, we've identified three historians" that would argue against the idea that Zionism is some form of colonialism. Later on 21:03, 9 July 2024 after I presented additional 3 scholars, you said "We're now up to six scholars who dispute that Zionism is colonialism". However from your comments in the recent AE discussion about Nishidani’s aggressive behavior we can see that in the days immediately before you made that "3/6 scholars" comments, you have been closely monitoring the articles Settler colonialism and Zionism as settler colonialism. Yet, somehow you "missed" the fact that these articles contain the opinions of several more scholars critical of the idea that Zionism is Colonialism (beyond those mentioned so far in the discussion here): Tom Segev, Ilan Troen, Yuval shany, Jeffrey C. Alexander and Moses Lissak. In fact, some of these names and their opinions appear in two diffs that you yourself brought into that AE discussion on 15:58, 8 July 2024! One titled "adding content for context, opposing views for npov", the other titled "you have removed sourced material without explanation." Vegan416 (talk) 10:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Nothing prevents yourself from bringing sources, wherever they may be found and no matter who found them. Go with that and everything will be fine. If you have some behavioral issue to discuss with another editor that would usually be a matter for that editor's talk page in the first instance. Selfstudier (talk) 11:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

With a 2 minutes search in google and just lookin at the wikipedia articles for (Zionism as) Settler colonialism I have already brought the number of critical scholars in this discussion from 3 to 11. And there are of course more that I'll bring here later as time permits. Vegan416 (talk) 11:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

you have been closely monitoring the articles Settler colonialism and Zionism as settler colonialism 😂 I don't closely monitor any articles. Also, I didn't say that I have identified. Also also, I said "colonialism," not "settler colonialism." Levivich (talk) 11:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

LOL. So the diffs you brought with the critical opinions that you "missed" just fell on you from heaven without you looking for them or looking at them... And your trying to distinguish here between "colonialism" and "settler colonialism" is funny because that whole discussion was in the context of Penslar discussion of "settler colonialism". Anyway, here are 3 more critical names that I found in the last few minutes:

Fania Oz-Salzberger (https://momentmag.com/a-guide-to-zionism-in-hard-times/): What about colonialism? Despite its pioneers’ European origins, Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project.

Ruth Ginio (https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/r1azjsska|): This is not a situation of colonialism according to its historical definition, but rather a situation of two conflicting nations sharing the same territory.

Avi Bareli (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13531040108576162): The Colonialist School creates, then, a historical fiction which it calls "Zionism," but which is not really Zionism.

More will come when I have more time to search later. Bye for now. Vegan416 (talk) 11:34, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

without you looking for them or looking at them 😂😂 You have correctly deduced that I looked for and at them. your trying to distinguish here between "colonialism" and "settler colonialism" is funny Is it also funny when scholars distinguish between the two, or just when I do it?

I do appreciate you bringing sources though, that's what we're here for. Our count is up to 9, although maybe more like 8.5 because Ginio wavers. (And that Bareli article is kind of old for this topic, as we've discussed earlier.)

By the way, remember when I said "modern academic books about Zionism"? That was to filter the pile of sources, so we weren't going at this forever. You're bringing in journal articles, op-eds, and newspaper interviews. You do realize that if we open up the search to include those non-book sources, it also opens the flood gates to the pro-colonialist sources, right? If I can find 10 books saying it's colonialism, I'll be able to find 100 journal articles and probably 1,000 interviews and op-eds. So be careful. 9 is still a very small number, especially if you're searching op-eds and interviews.

More will come when I have more time to search later. No rush. Levivich (talk) 12:16, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich 1. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that you admit now that you had looked at the diffs, and when you said that "so far we have identified 3/6" you were aware of the existence of more scholars that had criticized the colonial description of Zionism in general (not only specific "variants" of colonialism). And your excuse for this misrepresentation is that you said "we" instead of "I". Pardon me, but this excuse looks like sophistry.

2. You also had your math confused. Actually so far we have mentioned in this discussion 15 scholars who are critical of the "colonial" interpretation (11 of whom were brought by me). Nor is there any wavering in Ginio’s interview. Nor did Bareli change his mind since 2001, if anything he became more emphatic about it. Anyway very soon I'll post (in “round 5” section) a list that completes this number to 50.

3. The 50 scholars I’ll soon post are quoted from a variety of sources: Academic books, academic journal articles, opinion pieces and interviews etc. Please note that I am counting here 50 different relevant scholars and not articles by just any person, and as Selfstudier said once – if a scholar writes something related to his fields, he is considered a RS even if he wrote it on toilet paper. Anyway, if you believe you can bring here quotes from 1000 different relevant scholars that had written in favor of the “colonialist” view, in similar sources to the ones I used, then by all means feel free to do that. As for me, although I have more leads like these, I don’t intend to continue in this line in the near future, because I want to go back to working on my main argument here, i.e. the “Encyclopedias project”. Vegan416 (talk) 11:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

1. Is this you trying to trap me in some kind of bullshit? Stop pinging me, we're done. I'm not down for another Vegan bludgeoning. Levivich (talk) 13:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Round 5 regarding the (post-)colonialist interpretation of Zionism

Several editors in previous discussion seem to have wished to create the impression that the number of 21st scholars that are critical of the "(post) Colonial" interpretation of Zionism is only a single digit number (one going even as far as calling it a "fringe" view). To completely debunk this false impression that may have been created I bring here a list of 50 relevant 21st century scholars who are critical of the "(post) Colonial" interpretation of Zionism (most of whom wrote about it in the last 5 years). I actually have more leads like these but I got tired of exploring them and writing them nicely, so I decided to stop at a nice round number. Having made my point here, I don’t intend to continue in this line of randomly collecting scholar opinions in the near future, because I want to go back to working on my more systematic approach here, i.e. the “Encyclopedias project”. News on that will probably come next week on "Round 6".

Scholar Name	year	links	quotes
Yoav Gelber	2020	1	Economic theories of colonialism and sociological theories of migration movements are also inadequate when applied to the Zionist experience
Benny Morris	2020	2	Colonialism is commonly defined as the policy and practice of an imperial power acquiring political control over another country, settling it with its sons, and exploiting it economically. By any objective standard, Zionism fails to fit this definition
Dore Gold	2011	3	The Myth of Israel as a Colonialist Entity: An Instrument of Political Warfare to Delegitimize the Jewish State
Tuvia Friling	2016	4	What Do Those Who Claim Zionism Is Colonialism Overlook?
Robert Eisen	2011	5	Moreover, Zionism was not colonialism. Palestine had no economic attraction for the Zionists because there was nothing in Palestine to exploit.
Dov Waxman	2019	6	Zionist settlers were not European colonialists
Ephraim Karsh	2016	7	It is precisely this early international acceptance of Zionism as national rebirth in an ancestral homeland, rather than colonial encroachment on an indigenous populace, that the Palestinian Authority seeks to debunk by demanding an official British apology for the declaration.
Tom Segev	2023	8	“colonialism is irrelevant to the Zionist experience.” Zionists were motivated primarily by “a historical vision for their future identity in what they considered their ancient homeland” rather than an “imperial strategic or economic vision or a desire to dominate the local population.” “most Jewish immigrants in Palestine and Israel did not come as Zionists but as refugees.”
Ilan Troen	2019	9	Without evidence or argument, it neatly defines Jews as invaders and the Jewish state as an intruding colonial-settler society in the service of an imperialistic mission.
Yuval shany	2023	10	dealing with the establishment of Israel as a colonial enterprise is “a significant category error.” It cannot apply to a conflict involving “two indigenous peoples.” It is misplaced given that the 20th-century influx of persecuted European Jews came from a historically indigenous “population of refugees not sent by any empire.” It cannot be applied to the many other Jews from Muslim North African and Middle Eastern countries who arrived in Israel after they suffered expulsion.
Jeffrey C. Alexander	2023	11	“Wars and social movements need to connect to dominant cultural tropes, and colonialism has become the go-to term for total pollution”,“Branding Israel with this term is seen as effective, ”
Moses Lissak	2009	12	The relation of the Jews to the Land of Israel is not colonial. It is religious and cultural.
Ruth Ginio	2024	13	"there is no real basis for the claim that the entire Zionist project and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 can be equated with European colonialism", "This is not a situation of colonialism according to its historical definition, but rather a situation of two conflicting nations sharing the same territory".
Fania Oz-Salzberger	2024	14	What about colonialism? Despite its pioneers’ European origins, Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project
Avi Berli	2024	15	Post Colonialism as an introduction to Antisemitism: If we remove the national motivations that led Jews to immigrate to the country and to invest in it and leave only the "colonial" ones we wouldn't be able to explain the success of Zionism.
Robert Wistrich	2015	16	"The anti-Zionist mythology of the left", "It is no accident that the confused ideology of the contemporary “post-colonial” left is vulnerable to antisemitism since it no longer has any anchor in the concrete, material realities or the geopolitical, security, and cultural contexts of the Middle East."
Zeev Sternhell	2010	17	the land was thus an existential necessity. Zionism was a stringent nationalism, a radical nationalism; but to claim that the arrivals were white settlers driven by a colonialist mind-set does not correspond to historical reality. The overwhelming majority - the Polish Jews in the 1920s, the German Jews in the 1930s, the displaced persons after the Second World War and the end of the British Mandate - came because they had nowhere else to go. The same applies to the immigrants after 1948, forced out of the Arab countries as a result of the founding of the State of Israel. To speak of a colonialist mentality in their case is absurd. The institutions set up in the inter-war period aimed at ensuring Jewish autonomy in all areas, rather than subjugating the Arabs of Palestine or expelling them.
Susie Linfield	2019	18	Wishful thinking on the Left is combined with a Manichaean world view: extreme animus against Israelis, identified as the evil white colonists, combined with an idealisation of the Palestinians, cast as the oppressed non-white revolutionaries. But what follows from any kind of Manichaean world is falsity, bad politics, and bad political analysis, because the world itself isn’t actually Manichaean.
John Strawson	2019	19	The use of the term “colonialism” by BDS supporters is not historiography but political rhetoric. They also assume that having named Israel as “colonial” that the political logic would be the need to dismantle the state.
Jeffery Herf	2023	20	the Zionist project was never a colonialist one.
Alvin Rosenfeld	2023	21	Today, a particularly virulent strain of antisemitism holds not just the Jews but the Jewish state guilty. Guilty of what? Of the cardinal sin according to many on the Left today: the imperialist oppression of non-whites. According to this view, the “settler-colonialist” Jews arrived from Europe and Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries and set about stripping the indigenous Palestinians of their national rights. Never mind that there had never been a sovereign Arab Palestine or that the Jews returned to Israel to create a state only because their Russian and European “hosts” had made their life unbearable or actively sought to end it. When an independent state was offered to the Arabs in 1947, they rejected it. Nevertheless, the Jews went on to establish a sovereign state of their own, which flourishes 75 years after its creation.
Martin Kramer	2005	22	"Is Zionism Colonialism? The Root Lie", "This is a very great lie, and it is a self-serving lie. Those who believe it can sustain in their hearts the hope that in any given span of a few years, Israel will disappear. America will decide to dismantle it, or the Jews will decide that it is too costly to maintain, and so will go to other countries that are safer and more comfortable. For colonialism is something that is transient and lasts only so long as it is cost-effective. But authentic nations are forever, the ties of nations to their land are never really severed, and nations are bound by ties of solidarity that cross the generations."
Gerald Steinberg	2023	23	Human rights antisemitism is accompanied and amplified by the theology of the neo-Marxist left, which is focused on opposing “racist, capitalist, imperialist, colonial oppressors.” Under slogans such as “intersectional solidarity” and DEI, (diversity, equality, and inclusion — except for Jews) these ideologues have conquered the leading universities, claiming to speak for ostensibly oppressed peoples (many of which are led by terror regimes) in the “global south,” while Israel, particularly after the 1967 war, is branded as the tool of American and European imperialism. In this tortured version of morality and human rights, western nationalism, including Zionism, is automatically “evil,” but Third World nationalism and “liberation” movements are good — the victims can never be unjust oppressors (even when they engage in indescribable brutality), and the “colonialists” cannot be righteous victims.
Alan Dowty	2022	24	But this was not “settler colonialism” as usually defined.
Alexander Yakobson	2018	25	If Zionism Were Colonial It Would Have Ended Long Ago: The Palestinians’ refusal to accept that they are confronting a rival national movement has been disastrous for them.
Allan Johnson	2021	26	An Open Letter to Peter Gabriel et al explaining why Israel is not a ‘Settler Colonial’ society
Irwin Cotler	2013	27	A third manifestation of political Antisemitism is the denial of any historical connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel, a form of Middle East revisionism or ‘memory cleansing’ that seeks to extinguish or erase the Jewish people’s relationship to Israel, while ‘Palestinizing’ or ‘Islamicizing’ the Arab and Muslim exclusivist claim. If ‘Holocaust Revisionism’ is an assault on Jewish memory and historical experience, ‘Middle East Revisionism’ constitutes no less of an assault on Jewish memory and historical experience. It cynically serves to invert the historical narrative so that Israel is seen an ‘alien’ and ‘colonial implant’ in the region that ‘usurped’ the Palestinian homeland – leading to the conclusion that its people are a ‘criminal’ group of nomadic Jews whose very presence ‘defiles’ Islam, and must be expurgated.
Gil Troy	2021	28	Calling Israel racist, apartheid, genocidal, settler-colonialist and white supremacist or Jewish supremacist, is inaccurate and insulting, counterproductive and self-destructive. It encourages war, not peace; Jew-hatred, not reconciliation. It hardens hearts and polarizes positions. And, in demonizing the Jewish state, it encourages hooligans who target the Jews living in that state – and the Jews living everywhere else, too.
Donna Robinson Divine	2024	29	The failure of Middle East scholars to account for developments in the Middle East is not a bug but a feature of the field’s ethos: an exercise in political liberation from Western powers rather than an analytical understanding of the region’s deeper dynamics and complexities. With this ethos, the May 1948 resurrection of Jewish sovereignty in its ancient homeland is described entirely as an act of colonial aggression rather than the actual springtime revolution that it was after generations of mandated Jewish disempowerment.
Milton Shain	2023	30	Israel haters ignore a grievous history: The ‘apartheid’ analogy and the ‘colonial settler’ paradigm are simplistic and unhelpful
Norman Goda	2024	31	how might Jews respond over the long term to those drawing from a linguistic arsenal stocked with lazy, jargon-based, anti-Israel lies about colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, all tied together by righteous fury and rhythmic sloganeering?
Carry  Nelson	2019	32	“Claims that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, that it was an illegitimate colonialist enterprise from the outset, are indeed anti-Semitic in effect.”
Philip Carl Salzman	2023	33	So the claim that Israelis are “colonial settlers” doesn’t hold water. Aside from the small population of Jews who never left the Holy Land, most of the returnees were refugees, half from Arab countries.
Moshe Postone	2010	34	Why is it that people don’t see what the situation is today, and try to see if there is a kind of resolution to what is essentially a national conflict that could free up progressive politics? To subsume the conflict under the rubric of colonialism misrecognizes the situation.
David Hirsh	2007	35	In the middle of the 20th century Israel was not imagined as a European colony. It is strained, to say the least, to believe that Jews in the refugee camps in Europe and in British Cyprus, recovering from starvation and from existences as non-humans, were thinking of themselves as standard bearers of ‘the European idea’. The seamless insertion of the history of ‘Zionism’ into a schematic history of colonialism casts Jews as going to Palestine in order to get rich on the back of the people who lived there. Jews, who are said to embody some European idea of whiteness, also embodied a European idea of rats and cockroaches which was held to constitute an existential threat to Europe.
Abram de Swaan	2004	36	This article seeks to show that such criticism often expresses a very different sentiment, an “anti-Israeli enthusiasm”. A vent for righteous indignation that brings some relief from the still-burning shame of the memory of the Shoah, it employs facile equations reducing the Jewish State to the last bastion of colonialism and thereby conceals the true issues underlying this conflict.
Josef Joffe	2024	37	Taught from Stockton, Calif., to Stockholm, Sweden, the doctrine has at its core white supremacy, which must be crushed. The gist is Western guilt, and it must be exorcised by laying it first and foremost on the colonialist state of Israel, i.e., the Jews.
David Ohana	2012	38	The colonialist discourse is not a new one. The analogy, however, has been disproved by the facts. The Zionist settlement of Palestine took place without military or political assistance from foreign states and so does not resemble any colonialist movement. Zionism was not a religious movement, but a national movement that saw the return to Zion as the modern expression of a people that wished to forge its collective destiny through a return to its historical sources. The Israelis created a rejuvenated homeland and established an identity between a large part of the people and their soil; they developed settlement, science, and technology, achieved a clear national identity with a culture, language, and creativity of its own, and succeeded in maintaining a democratic existence (within the “Green Line”) under the most trying condition there can be for a democracy – a protracted military conflict. Most important of all, the Israelis never felt strangers in their country. They did not apologize for their national existence, but saw it as the historical realization of a universal right supported by international recognition – not as an original sin.
Julia Edthofer	2015	39	it is demonstrated that the de-colonial framing of Israel as a "Western colonial project" can blur with antisemitic stereotypes--for instance when Israel is depicted as a neo-colonial evil par excellence and "Jewish complicity" with Western (neo)-colonialism is postulated.
Brian Klug	2022	40	there is a piece missing from the stock postcolonial discourse, a discourse that folds Zionism completely, without remainder, into the history of European hegemony over the Global South, as if this were the whole story. But it is not; and the piece that is missing is, for most Jews, including quite a few of us who are not part of the Jewish mainstream regarding Zionism and Israel, the centerpiece. Put it this way: For Jews in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s (like my grandparents), the burning question was not “How can we extend the reach of Europe?” but “How can we escape it?” That was the Jewish Jewish Question. Like Europe’s Jewish Question, it too was not new; and it was renewed with a vengeance after the walls of Europe closed in during the first half of the last century, culminating in the ultimate crushing experience: genocide. Among the Jewish answers to the Jewish Jewish Question was migration to Palestine. But, by and large, the Jews who moved to Palestine after the Shoah were not so much emigrants as (literally or in effect) refugees.
Andrew Pessin	2016	41	A brilliant entry on “Settler Colonialism” does the same against that lie and libel, in particular refuting the widely promoted notion that Israeli Jews are “white” and Palestinians are people “of color”—a notion that, other entries show, permits anti-Israel activists to make otherwise bizarre alliances with progressive campus groups and thus greatly fuels Israel-hatred across Western campuses.
Mitchell Cohen	2024	42	The anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881 were not about settler colonialism. The Dreyfus Affair was not about settler colonialism. Zionism was not settler-colonialism but a response to the Jewish question.
Gabriel Noah Brahm	2024	43	“Critical race theory” brands Jews not only as “white” (a term used on campus to mean “structurally racist”) but “hyper-white” (the whitest, therefore most racist of all). Theories of “settler colonialism” misrepresent Jews as colonizers in their own indigenous lands.
Uriel Abulof	2023	44	Yet I find the “Zionism (Israel) = colonialism = apartheid” equation factually false, intellectually lazy, morally wrong and practically counterproductive.
Gideon Shimoni	2007	45	Categorization of Zionism as a case of colonialism, thereby stigmatizing it, may serve the partisan rhetorical ends of the Palestinian cause, but it is fallacious as an analytical tool for impartial comprehension of the Arab–Jewish conflict. In the final analysis, theories of nationalism, which command a vast and profound literature, are far more valuable aids in comprehending the history of Zionism and the nature of the Arab–Jewish conflict than whatever goes by the description of postcolonial theory.
Chaim Gans	2016	46	Some of them claim that Zionism is sheer colonialism. But if we grant that the Jews constituted a borderline case of a nation at the end of the 19th century, and that the European Jewish collective and its members then faced serious and urgent practical problems in Europe, we have to argue normatively about the reasonableness of the nationalist solution proposed and carried out by the Zionists, and not just dismiss it as sheer colonialism as some major post-Zionists (and the Palestinians) do.
Balazs Berkovits	2021	47	"It seems that treating Israel as a settler-colonial state is supposed to provide the ultimate justification for singling it out for criticism and also to legitimize the Palestinian struggle in all its forms as an anticolonial movement. is presentation of Israel is to accentuate that the struggle is not between competitive nationalisms but between the conqueror, on the one hand, and the conquered, the displaced, the occupied, on the other", "This is is precisely the crux of the issue: much academic research on Israel has gradually lost scientific ambi- tion by adopting a solely political objective—the designation of a state as a colony is instrumental in this theoretical-political warfare, as it inherently comprises that state’s illegitimacy and calls for its termination.", "However, one does not have to be a Weberian to value this fundamental distinction and to repudiate the reification of concepts, the binaries and the false analogies in use within critical whiteness studies, settler-colonial stud- ies, and other fields of activist social science. But fallacious methodology has a clear function in these analyses—namely, a certain symbolic usage of the terms whiteness, colony , and settler colony , which inherently comprises an unequivocal moral judgment."
Joshua Cole	2017	48	Tis complexity makes me wonder if the question Penslar poses (is Zionism a colonial movement?) is necessarily the right one to answer persistent ques- tions about possible relationships between the history of Israel/Palestine and the history of European colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If anything, his focus on a particular movement over a broad span of time has shown us that terms such as “colonial” and “anticolonial” have context-specifc valences; these words are more helpful to our understanding when they are understood to apply to dynamic relationships rather than to coherent identities that persist over time, institutions, or political movements.
Rachel Fish	2023	49	On social media, Jews were painted as white-supremacist colonial settlers oppressing an indigenous ethnic minority. Very quickly, we saw that by employing these false labels, Israel wasn’t just accused of apartheid; on Twitter, apartheid came to mean Israel exclusively.
Simon Schama	2024	50	[A lot of the hatred that has erupted has been] “driven by oceanic historic ignorance and refusal to understand the complexity of the situation”. [It is what he calls the] “writing and chattering classes” [who have been] “most prone to grotesque, uninformed, historically ignorant stereotypes of Israel as a colonial settler state", “It is not a colonial settler state. It was a country of refugees, it was continuously occupied by Jews for many millennia.”

Vegan416 (talk) 11:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it to be 10 rounds? Points decision? Wonder if I can produce a source table twice as big as that one? Selfstudier (talk) 11:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

As many rounds as it take till we reach a consensus decision. We might even have an RFC if we cannot reach it. But at this early exploratory stage it is still early to even decide what the options is such an RFC would be. And I think that I probably could produce a source table twice as big as that one, but as I said I don't intend to work on this soon, as I want to concentrate on the systematic Encyclopedias approach. Vegan416 (talk) 11:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 Yoav Gelber is an interesting inclusion, considering he has repeatedly stated that Zionism as colonialism is the mainstream view in the literature, and the view of Zionism as not colonial is a minority view. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 12:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Apart from its irrelevancy, for we have been discussing the use of 'colonization' as an appropriate term in the lead, and there is no other word available to explain what we mean when a programme was undertaken to create a Jewish majority, via immigration, in a country that was 95% Arab, and there is no way to get round the documented fact that the Zionist leadership described this, from 1896 to at least 1948, as colonization, this is a very mixed bag, most of it expressing summarily opinions by Zionists dismissing the settler colonial thesis of Colonialism studies, by challenging the adequacy of the latter general concept, poorly defined. One would expect this in any faith-based belief system. I'm going through these but your very first should be removed. I particularly enjoyed the link to Benny Morris, the son of a Belfast immigrant who, in a book review of the Palestinian historian, Rashid Khalidi, discredits a scion of the Khalidi family with its millenial roots in Palestine for his views about colonialism, because he was for a time, a spokesman for the PLO, in 1980s. And because he quotes a definition of colonialism that is no longer in use, in order to rebut it. That is the quality of most of the evidence here (sniping shots from Zionist (nothing wrong with that, but it is an emotional commitment) scholars who, en passant express their distaste for the term which they fail to adequately define, and are mainly concerned with the politics of the debate, and not the merits of the theory. I'll give details when I get the time.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

And that Chaim Gans quote... the very next sentence is: "It might have been justified, as I think it was in fact, to propose solving the European Jewish problem by establishing a Jewish colony in Palestine." Somehow that next sentence didn't make it into the table.

Elsewhere in the piece, he draws a distinction between other Western colonialism and Israel, writing that while Western countries moved away from their colonialist roots over time, Israel moved in the opposite direction. Levivich (talk) 14:38, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Cdjp1 actually, Gelber was one of the only three three scholars in this list that I didn't find myself but rather copied from the discussion that happened here before I got involved, and where it was established that Gelber opposes the colonialist view vehemently. So I didn't really look much into his writings. So tell me where did he say what you attribute to him? Vegan416 (talk) 14:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 his chapter in Cohen's The British Manadate of Palestine to begin with. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I looked at this chapter (I assume it is identical to this, I couldn't find an accessible version of the book itself either in Google Books or TWL) and didn't find anywhere that he claims that the colonialist view is the majority view. Can you refer me to the sentences where he says that? Vegan416 (talk) 17:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

• Yoav Gelber. Nope. He edited the book and you attribute to him an anonymous sentence in the abstract attached to it. It is bad practice to just google without reading the source.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Benny Morris, a book review. It defines en passant colonialism as

Colonialism is commonly defined as the policy and practice of an imperial power acquiring political control over another country, settling it with its sons

Palestine wasn't settled by British Jews during the British Mandate, ergo. . . Zionism was not colonialist. Go figure. Nishidani (talk) 14:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

• Dore Gold has a scholarly background, though he is predominantly a political polemicist on behalf of the state. It qualifies as an example of a scholarly Zionist challenge to the thesis of colonialism, though it betrays no knowledge of the literature Levivich and others have cited for use over the past few decades. Its historical references are limp, like citing the fringe conclusions (of Moshe Gil's otherwise impressive book) for 'indigenousness', such that Jews and Samaritans (i.e. non Jews) constituted the demographic majority at the time of the Arab conquest, which he sees as causing the wilting of a Jewish majority. That is nonsense, schoolbook legend. No one would deny that there was a continuous Jewish (and Christian, Samaritan, and I might add, Arab) population from antiquity to modern times. But at the time of Zionism, those indigenous Jewish communities constituted 5% of the Palestinian population, and Gold's argument is that Palestinians had no claim to the kind of indigenousness Jewish immigrants descended from 2000 years of ostensible diaspora could claim, and had no right to brand the massive, guided immigration project flooding their country under British auspices, as 'colonialist'. It's a defensive screed with a highly partisan reading of just a few key points, but nowhere addresses the scholarship, something we are looking for. Nonetheless it qualifies as an Israeli RS challenge to the mainstream view.Nishidani (talk) 15:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Tuvia Friling. Israeli scholar. A very curious article which considers this is an Infra-Israeli debate (Zionism-Post Zionism). Almost all the sources predate the emergence of the studies on settler colonialism which only flourished after that date. Useless.Nishidani (talk) 17:04, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  This is actually false claim. The concept of settler colonialism was invented in the 20th century and all the sources are from the 21st century. Even the so called "seminal" work of Wolfe is from 2006 and almost all of the sources with 2-3 exceptions are from after 2006 (including Frilling). And quite a few of them specifically address the concept of settler colonialism. In fact the majority of sources are from the last 5 years just as Levivich loves... Vegan416 (talk) 17:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  the sources of the friling article are mostly from before 2000 DMH223344 (talk) 17:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  Ok. It seems I misunderstood Nishidani. I thought he was talking about the sources in the table. But if he talks about the sources referred by Friling then isn't he not going into the realm of OR here? I mean starting to analyze the content of expert opinions and arguing with them based on your own personal judgement looks strongly like OR (not to mention the personal arguments he raised against Benny Morris, which are not valid arguments even as OR). Vegan416 (talk) 17:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

• Robert Eisen. Your link doesn't work, at least for me. Eisen is a professor of Judaic studies, and at The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism Oxford University Press 2011 ISBN 978-0-199-79240-5 p.165 he makes the remark you cite. It is an obiter dictum, like all the other armchair or piazza opinions about the conflict on that one page (Jewish violence in Palestine/Israel occurred because they (Jews) were fighting for their lives, (meaning the Palestinians weren't fighting for their livelihoods?)) . Worthless. An opinion isn't significant because a scholar entertains it, but is so when that scholar shows a thorough familiarity with that topic.Nishidani (talk) 20:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Dov Waxman, Are you familiar wtih Waxman's work? That didn't sound like him, and in the next page after the link, he says there is some truth to the settler colonial interpretation.'In this respect the Zionist project was similar to colonial p0roject undertaken by European settlers' etc.Nishidani (talk) 20:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Efraim Karsh In that screed, he thinks Mahmood Abbas should underwrite the balfour Declaration, and drops the remark you cite. He thinks there is no such thing as an occupation. He is a scholar, but his views are all fringe, if not, even among mainstream scholars, often an embarrassment.Nishidani (talk) 20:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Tom Segev. A fine historian, but a personal opinion stated in an email to Jennifer Schuessler writing for the New York Times is evidence for nothing other than his 'take' for which he gives no evidence. I for one would like to see the statistics for the various aliyot from the early 1900s onwards, showing that they were all refugees.Nishidani (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Ilan Troen. he is a scholar and RS. He has very eccentric views, mind you, and apparently believes Maxime Rodinson converted to Islam and ergo went on to develop a theory of Israel as 'settler-colonial' (actually were he familiar with Rodinson, he would have mentioned that that extraordinary man later modified his views, stating that the 'settler colonial' side did not work to render Israel or Israelis inauthentic, but that is another story. So this is an RS from an Israeli scholar who rebuffs, without addressing the scholarship (he mentions Patrick Wolfe only in passing. The remark you quote makes the wild and false caricature of the relevant scholarship, were it applied to the settler-colonial thesis, that it is 'without evidence or argument,' is meaningless, because that literature is all about evidence and argument. Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Yuval Shany, a scholar of international law, disagrees with Rashid Khalidi, who is an historian, and is cited by Roger Cohen in a NYTs op.ed to that effect, and notably you omit what follows:'Israel’s settlement of the occupied West Bank since 1967 is another story. Professor Shany and many liberal Israelis acknowledge marked colonial characteristics: a dominant power sending a half-million settlers into an area through force, accompanied by expropriation, control of the economy and daily humiliation of Palestinians that left little or no room for independent statehood.' I.e.for Shany, post 1967 Israel acts in the territories as a colonial-settler state, which, in his view, it wasn't through the Mandatory Palestine period.Nishidani (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Jeffrey C. Alexander is a distinguished sociologist, who, when asked by Roger Cohen, his opinion, '(colonialism) connects Jews to the very white European colonizers who murdered them by the millions.' That's a nice piece of rhetoric: you have to be white to be a colonizer (tell that to the Tibetans, or Rohingya). The missing premise is 'Jews are not white'. Then Nazis were white colonizers. nazis caused the Holocaust. Therefore, to associate Israel with colonialism is, one must presume, to imply that they are Nazis. This is all very remarkable, no doubt citable, in any course of logic as a text to tease out a meaning where no logical order is observable, but it is totally unengaged with the scholarship-Nishidani (talk) 22:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Moses Lissak barrel-scraping.
• Ruth Ginio. Idem. To assert that there is no evidentiary basis for a claim, when it constitutes a robust field of scholarly studies, means this is just an off-the-cuff assertion, neither here nor there, in a Ynet article.Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
• Fania Oz-Salzberger An historian so RS relevant. But it is an opion patched up with Zionist memes and dumbed down soundbites:'Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project. Jews had lived in the Land of Israel/Palestine in unbroken continuity ever since the Roman Empire sent most of their brethren to exile.' It is quite extraordinary that an historian can sum up diasporic history by arguing that it was the Roman Empire which sent 'most of their brethren in exile'. The demographics tell us that more than half of the Jews in the Ist century (before 70 CE) were beyond the confines of Palestine, and by choice. Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This is getting extremely disruptive, the constantly moving conversations from one place to another. How could one possible publicize the discussion at a project or noticeboard when it moves less than a week later. I'm going to try and refactor some of this. TarnishedPath^talk 14:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I give up for the moment because my browser keeps crashing trying to move round 4. Can someone please try and move part 4 between 3 and 5. I think there are other threads that need refactored as well. TarnishedPath^talk 14:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Ps, @Cdjp1, @Levivich, @Nishidani, @Selfstudier and @Vegan416. The conversation is up here now. TarnishedPath^talk 14:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I moved Part 4. Selfstudier (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that was getting seriously frustrating. TarnishedPath^talk 15:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

almost all of these don't actual dispute that Zionism was colonial or used colonial methods. Instead, they dispute stronger (or different) claims, for example:

• that zionism is/was *only* a colonial movement
• that zionism is specifically a settler colonial movement
• that Jews moving to israel after 1948 are settlers
• that the colonial framework is more suited than the nationalist framework
• that is was a european form of colonialism
• that it came from an imperial power
• that colonialism is bad
• that israel is "the last bastion of colonialism"

DMH223344 (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

What is left of "colonialism" if you remove all of these claims? Vegan416 (talk) 17:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

like i said, these are all either stronger claims than "zionism is a colonial project" or different claims entirely. DMH223344 (talk) 17:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Not really. These are many of the defining characteristics of the claim that Zionism was colonialist project. Also your characterization of the actual claims made in many of these sources is not actually accurate. Vegan416 (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani 1. All your original-research arguments and ad-hominem attacks on the experts in the table are irrelevant to the point I made. As I explained in the beginning, the point of this table was to refute the notion that the opposition to the “colonialist” interpretation of Zionism is a fringe view. The table proves that this view is (at least) not fringe, and no amount of your OR and personal attacks on these scholars can change that fact.

2.     It is also interesting to note that your arrogant and condescending attitude (which led you into trouble in the past) is not reserved only to us humble wiki editors who disagree with you, but also to well-known scholars who disagree with you. It is particularly inappropriate in this case since the people in the table are recognized scholars in relevant fields, whereas you are NOT.

3.     Although most of your claims are in the realm of OR, or irrelevant personal attacks, they cannot be left unanswered. I’ll make a few answers here, and a few on my discussion page here, so that we won’t be accused of bluding here with off-topic and OR discussions.

3.     Regarding Benny Morris’s argument that Zionism is not colonialism. His argument looks like a valid argument. I would also add to it, that not only didn’t Britain send any British citizens (Jews or non-Jews) to settle in the Land of Israel, but in fact it didn’t send any person to settle there. The Jews who chose to immigrate to Palestine (mostly from Eastern and Central Europe and some from the Middle East) did this of their own initiative, and sometimes, particularly in the later period of the mandate, did this against the will of Britain. The Arabs who immigrated to Palestine during that time also did it of their own initiative. Your saying “go figure” doesn’t disprove that fact.

4.     Regarding Dov Waxman. Your comment “it doesn’t sound like him” shows unwillingness on your side to face the truth. He stated explicitly his opinion black on white in this recent book that the Zionist settlers were not European colonialists. The fact that in this book he also admits that there were some aspects in which Zionism is similar to colonialism doesn’t change his conclusion. You can point to many similarities between any 2 things in the world, while claiming that despite those similarities they are still not the same thing, because there are also many differences between them. As an analogy I can mention the current scholarly debate about whether the Hamas are the new Nazis. Some scholars say that while there are definitely aspects of Hamas ideology and practices that are similar to those of the Nazis, Hamas cannot be described as Nazis because there are also differences between them.

5.     Regarding Tom Segev. Tom Segev is definitely one of the leading experts on the history of Zionism, and you are not in a position to argue with experts. This is not what we do here. If you think that Segev made a factual error then bring a reliable source that proves that. Also you have misrepresented what he said. He didn’t say that all immigrants were refugees. Only that most of them were. Just to illustrate very shortly about the Alyahs from 1900 to 1948: The second Aliyah was triggered by the antisemitic pogroms in Tsarist Russia. The third Aliyah was influenced by the civil war in Russia and the antisemitic pogroms that accompanied it. The fourth Aliyah was triggered by what was perceived as economic and political discrimination against the Jews in Poland (via taxation, numerus clausus laws etc.). The fifth Aliyah was triggered by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. The post WW2 Aliyah was of Holocaust survivors.

Just this. 'Refugee' means 'a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution. It does not refer to anyone making a rational calculation to leave their home(lands) for better prospects elsewhere because the dominant culture is hostile to them. The nearly 3 million Ashkenazi who left eastern Europe for the United States (1880-1914 thereabouts) did not do so as 'refugees'. Certainly, Ukrainian Jews fleeing Symon Petliura's genocidal thugstate who came to Palestine, did so as refugees. NJo need to reply Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

6.     As I said the rest of the answer will appear here. I’ll notify you whenever I add something there. Just as a last point here I would like to see evidence for your claim that Troen had said that Rodinson converted to Islam.

7.     I thank you for some technical comments about links that I will correct soon in the table. Vegan416 (talk) 09:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not 'original research', but simply knowing the topic well enough to be evaluate at sight who said what and whether it's a tenable proposition or not. All but two of those names are familiar to me, and almost nothing there has any relevance to the gravamen of our analysis. It's just a ring-around-the-rosie dance of one-liner defensive memes attached to various scholars. Look. I understand the deep attachment Israelis have to their land, the pride etc. And that there is a tendency get nervous/upset at scholarship which makes the received picture of the establishment of the state far more complex, worrisome than most are born up to realize. But pride or fensiveness has no place here. I say that as someone who hails from among the first families to colonize Melbourne, raised to sing The Wild Colonial Boy, and who noticed from early youth how unacceptable to Australian pride in their country any allusion to the dark underside of its establishment was. In the last 2 generations, the pride persists but no longer under any illusions about what really happened to the indigenous people we displaced. This happens in all countries, Israel is no exception. People, even high educated liberals, get nervous, until scholarship's c onclusions filter down into popular perceptions. One anecdote to underline this diffuse ignorance among the highly educated of the whole story. A TAU mathematician had to, as part of his IDF service, be present during the routine beatings that Palestinian prisoners undergo to make them grasp through brutalization who's the boss. He refrained from putting the boot in, and just observed. He noted that the prisoner who received the greatest number of thrashings was the quietest of that category, but more importantly, when he helped the ward up one day from the floor, that his identification number consisted of two Amicable numbers. The became acquainted. Some time later, the Palestinian said Israeli Jews were immigrants into his land. The mathematician corrected him:'No, to the contrary. You Arabs are the settlers here. This is our land.'

Given your response I won't procede with details on each of those entries. It's pointless pointing out how what is patently irrelevant is being churned out to demand a fifth, sixth, seventh, re-examination of an issue already resolved. You think views via emails and phone calls, or occasional remarks giving one's point of view, qualified or not, are proof of something other than the fact that people with degrees have opinions on everything. Nishidani (talk) 12:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani

1. ROFL. Assuming that you know "the topic well enough to decide on you own, without reference to sources, what's "a tenable proposition or not", against the opinion of real scholars in the field, is the essence of bad original research and pretense.
2. Your false characterization of all the sources as "one-liner defensive memes" shows that you didn't even bother to read many of them, which discuss the issue at depth, and that you didn't try at all to answer any of the arguments that you did read (e.g. Morris, Waxman, Friling). You also didn't bring here any sources to refute those scholars. As far as I can see all you did here was only to make unsourced ad-hominem attacks ("He has very eccentric views"), tell unverified anecdotes, and make pseudo-psychological claims about the motives of these scholars. You have to understand that we have no "illusions about what really happened" to the Palestinians. But this has nothing to do with the question of Colonialism. There are simply many good arguments why Zionism doesn't fit the definition of any of the varieties of Colonialism.
3. Speaking of your unverified anecdotes, I see that despite my request you still didn't provide evidence for your claim that Troen said that Rodinson converted to Islam. If you can't supply reliable evidence, you need to delete this remark or be in violation of BLP. Do you want to get into trouble again? You know I would never make a complaint to AE about this kind of things, but others may be collecting evidence against you...
4. As for your refugee remark above I should think that the pogroms in Tsarist Russia in the years 1903-1906, and the threats and treatment of the Jews by the Nazis since 1933, and the holocaust of course, definitely answer the definition of "persecution".
5. My main conclusion from this exchange is that I have to write a systematic summary of all the scholarly arguments (historical, sociological, linguistic etc.) why Zionism doesn't fit the definition of Colonialism (each argument with references to the reliable secondary sources that make it in this table and other sources, so it won't be OR). This is probably more important (and certainly more interesting to write) than the Encyclopedias project, so I'll concentrate on that first.
6. And now I have to take a break again for a few days. See you again sometime next week.

Vegan416 (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

My unverified anecdotes (when not personal) all come from IP RS). If one reads comprehensively these things will be familiar, and hardly require sourcing on talk pages, as opposed to articles. You think it a BLP violation to mention an absurd insinuation about Maxime Rodinson, one of the finest minds of his generation, made by S. Ilan Troen? Well, when you cited him as RS, I immediately recalled reading some years ago his polemical pamphlet Countering the BDS Colonial Settler Narrative, Academic Engagement Network April 2018, where he asserted that Rodinson had converted to Islam, I think adding something like ('though through a Communist lens') whatever that means. He states that on p.7. That remark suggested to me Troen doesn't know anything about Rodinson other than the usual clichés that try, not to address his scholarship, but merely sow suspicions about his politics. Therefore I don't take him seriously.

It's not enough to google info one desires to find. One must at least have a sufficient familiarity with the field, the scholars, their background and record, to evaluate what google throws up. Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

You can keep writing walls of text (very bad habit you have there) and try to bludgeon your POV through but its just not going to work, you are not even making a dent in the pile of scholarship calling this (settler) colonialism. Selfstudier (talk) 10:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

And Nishidani didn't even make a dent in the pile of scholarship which says it isn't... Vegan416 (talk) 10:33, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 Thank you, this is a great summary. Given the expansive scholarly debate on the definition of colonialism and whether Zionism fits within any of these definitions, I suggest we change the lead to

Zionism is an ethnic or ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the settlement of a specific territory.

A mention that Zionism has been described by some scholars as colonialism, with a wikilink to Zionism as settler colonialism, would be sufficient. Amayorov (talk) 21:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Modern Zionism is essentially about ensuring the continued existence of Israel as a state where Jews can exercise self-determination and about the survival of Jewish identity and culture. However, throughout this discussion, Zionism seems to be treated as something from the past (which ended in 1948) or as something in the present that is responsible for the occupation, apartheid, and colonialism in the West Bank and Gaza, even though not all people who identify with Zionism support these practices.

Zionism is a political movement that was initiated in the late 19th century with the aim of actualizing the Jewish sense of peoplehood in a physical nation, leading to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Zionism today informs many Jews’ continued support and commitment to Israel.

— source

Zionism is a variety of Jewish nationalism. It claims that Jews constitute a nation whose survival, both physical and cultural, requires its return to the Jews’ ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Pre-1948 Zionism was more than a nationalist movement: it was a revolutionary project to remake the Jewish people. Zionism’s origins lay in a confluence of factors: physical persecution of East European Jewry, Jewish assimilation in the West, and a Hebrew cultural revival that rejected or transformed traditional Jewish religiosity.

— source

Mawer10 (talk) 14:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Cool, still haven't agreed on what Zionism is. Selfstudier (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I picked the Schama interview in The Jewish Chronicle because it was the last entry in that wall of <waves hands uselessly>. He is clearly arguing against the mainstream view of Israeli colonization. It comes down to "the vast majority of people are wrong."Dan Murphy (talk) 17:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

You have yet to prove that this is the view of the vast majority of scholars. So far nobody here did that.. Vegan416 (talk) 17:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

To the contrary, you have to show why Zionist literature from the outset is crammed with references to its colonial plans for Palestine, and why even scholars of great stature like Schama (who has yet to complete the third volume of his magnum opus covering this period, despite a lapse of 7 years) refuse to take the overwhelming documentary evidence from 1896 to 1948 at its word.Nishidani (talk) 22:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The process by which the meaning of the words are defined is not an exact science, this topic falls within the realm of social sciences so it is not surprising that there is some debate about the meaning of the term. But the basic definition of the term has not changed. Mawer10 (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually philology/glottology is a very exact (and exacting) science, and the subbranch of sociolinguistics equally subscribes to scientific methodology.Nishidani (talk) 12:44, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: I was compiling a list of definitions surrounding Zionism, but after seeing that Vegan416 already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement, I don't understand why that claim hasn't already been removed from the lead as WP:UNDUE. Walls of text filled with personal opinions and original research are also not helping. It may be time for a RFC. Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:41, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

  A list collated by a now topic-banned user is your guiding star? That's extremely confidence-inspiring. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

"already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement." No he didn't, no those sources do not "debunk" the established fact of the colonial underpinnings of Zionism. Please do not misrepresent sources. The claim that others are relying solely on personal opinion in this instance is very cute, though. Dan Murphy (talk) 13:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

"Guiding star"? "very cute"? Sorry, but I will only entertain feedback that WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE. Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

So is that you saying you are unfamiliar with the concept of cherrypicking and how it works? As well as that merely aggregating sources with quotes deemed to be amenable to a certain POV does not in fact determine anything about weight or NPOV without similarly and thoroughly evaluating a wider selection of sources representing all POVs? The simple act of collating a single, POV list is meaningless other than to demonstrate that a POV exists; not that the POV has particular weight or is NPOV. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:48, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

---

References

RFC Workshop: WP:DUE definition of Zionism in the lead

A RFC may be necessary to resolve the above discussion. There should be some agreement about options that are WP:DUE.

• Option 1 (presently in the lead): Zionism is an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe.

• Option 2: Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed at the re-establishment of a national estate in what it considers Jewish homeland. [source list]

What other options could we consider? Hogo-2020 (talk) 08:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

that Vegan416 already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement Then if I bring 100 saying it is then that will debunk your interpretation of Vegan416 sources? Just checking.

Why not ask the question outright? Should the description of Zionism in the lead include reference to colonialism and/or settler colonialism? Selfstudier (talk) 10:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this. Giving a list of options can be constraining. Better just to put the question as "Should the description of Zionism in the lead include reference to colonialism/colonisation?". TarnishedPath^talk 11:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

How are these the only 2 options?

Zionism is thousands of years old. It didn't begin or emerge in the late 19th century. MaskedSinger (talk) 08:43, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Hwhat? nableezy - 08:47, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

What fresh OR dreamscape is this? That will be in exactly 0 RS. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:11, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Opposed to reworking the first sentence of the lead when this article has been receiving so much offwiki attention. Let's work on the body, then we can easily summarize the body into the lead.

Second, there are loads of uninformed editors suddenly interested in this page. It's a waste of everyone's time to engage in the same discussions that could be addressed if everyone who edited here read literally the first chapter of any book on zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 03:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

In the alternative, I think adding the word controversial/controversially (sourced) might resolve the issue here without an RFC, unless of course, you just want the reference gone altogether, in which case ignore this suggestion.Selfstudier (talk) 11:07, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a pointless RfC. Vegan, now permabanned, tried to repeatedly recast the question in order to sow doubt on the established fact that colonization was a core feature of Zionism. Each reframing was rebutted. The last was a mess, easy to rebut but extremely time consuming. There must be a limit to how simple issues can be contested endlessly through new recourses, RfCs etc. Yes, I know. There's no limit, but the RS now recognize what Zionist leaders openly avowed for half a century, that the project to use immigration to establish a majoritarian Jewish state in Palestine was colonial, and was designed and implemented by taking as models the colonial experience of European nations. We cannot rewrite history according to the princiople of political correctness, as that is defined by the state in question, which is now uncomfortable with its past as described by modern scholarship. Nishidani (talk) 12:47, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

At some point up is down, black is white gaslighting like this needs to be shut down. Indulging the blizzard of bullshit on zionism and colonialism with an "rfc" crafted to favor an outcome at odds with scholarship is not the way to do it.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm only interested in WP:EVALUATE and WP:DUE. Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

You're not going to be demonstrably interested in WP:DUE until you show similar signs of interest in sources representing POVs other than present in more than a handful of sources. The current selection of sources you have presented numbers 11, most of them more than a decade old. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:17, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

We may as well make an RfC alone the lines:'Should Zionism be described in the lead as engaging in colonization when for the first half century that is how it described itself, as a colonial project?' Nishidani (talk) 11:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier suggested fairly similar above and I agree. TarnishedPath^talk 08:03, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

But, if one accepts this point, (and it is hard to deny) why after extenuating denials, do we make an RfC. Basically because one editor refused to accept that evidence, was permabanned, and someone else stepped up to represent their viewpoint. Endless talk is okay, I guess, but the amount of effort expended on challenging a talkpage consensus just keeps distracting us from improving the article.Nishidani (talk) 08:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

There does seem to be a bit of theme of relatively new editors, with relatively low edit counts, showing up to argue against the consensus version. You are right to an extent about the usefulness of and RFC given consensus is abundantly clear. TarnishedPath^talk 09:21, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

• If there is a consensus already, then I'll WP:DTS. Hogo-2020 (talk) 11:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
• @ABHammad, @האופה reminding you of this very long discussion in which consensus is fairly clear especially when disregarding the views of topic banned or blocked editors. TarnishedPath^talk 10:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

  Reminding editors that pretty much all the discussions below have been covered in this massively long discussion. Pinging @Andrevan, @Dan Murphy, @DMH223344, @Dimadick, @Selfstudier. @Levivich, @Raskolnikov.Rev, @Stephan rostie. TarnishedPath^talk 13:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I definitely see huge problems with the option 1. First, it uses the term "colonization", which is an obviously loaded term with multiple meanings. Usage of vaguely defined terms that have obviously negative connotation is an intellectually dishonest trick, and it should be avoided. Furthermore, the link redirects to Colonization, which explicitly refers to colonialism. That is wrong and misleading. We know at least two different phenomenae that can be described as colonization: ancient Phoenician or Greek expansion and XIX-XX era colonialism. In the first case, a group of of Phoenicians or Greeks established a new settlement on some new territory, and this new settlement developed into a new state, which was totally independent from its parent city-state. Thus, Carthage was a colony of Tyre, and Syracuse was a colony of Corinth, but both those cities were totally independent states. Of course, both of them formed as a result of colonization, but that colonization was totally different from what we currently see under colonization. A new era colonization is inherently linked to the term "colonialism", which implies the existence of two different entities: a colony and a Metropole, and the former is controlled by the latter. Did Zionists plan to colonize some foreign territories and keep them under an external control as some subordinated land? Obviously, no. They planned to establish a new independent state there (which, as they believed, was supposed to be a continuation, or a successor, of the ancient Jewish state). However, they never planned to convert any land into a colony in a modern meaning of this term. Therefore, although it is correct that "colonization" is a term that can be found in some boors, it is absolutely not obvious to me that this term refers to the modern colonialism. And it would be absolutely correct to say that the option 1 distorts the sources it is ostensibly based on and contradicts to what other sources say. In addition, what does "colonization of a land outside of Europe" means in that context? Although formally correct (Zionists did plan to establish a new colony outside of Europe, although it was supposed to be a "Phoenician-style" colony, i.e. a new independent state), this statement is redundantly broad and, therefore, misleading. Zionists never planned any territorial expansion similar to what French or British empire did, their sphere of interest was a very concrete patch of land: Palestine, a former territory of ancient Judea. I am not an expert in this field, and I wouldn't be surprised if some source says otherwise, but a commonly accepted point of view seems to be that territorial ambitions of Zionists have always been limited with a "canonical territory" of ancient Judea. The potion 1 is misleading and factually incorrect, it violates our core policies, NPOV and NOR. If this sentence stays, I am going to put NPOV and NOR tags on the section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, the next sentence is also incorrect and misleading. It says:

"With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine"

This sentence created a false impression that the rejection was a result of some discussion among Zionists, however, the link redirects us to several unrelated projects that existed before the Zionist movement started, or to some totally unrelated projects (like Soviet or Nazi projects), which were initiated after the Zionists had already selected Palestine as their goal.

I think the idea to split the very concrete statement into two factually incorrect and misleading sentences is very bad. All of that must be fixed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:17, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The fact that "alternate proposals for a Jewish state links to an article doesn't mean the sentence must refer to each and every proposal listed in the article. Let's not assume readers are stupid. Anyone who reads the linked to article can figure out which examples listed are relevant to the sentence. If you seriously think this is an issue wr can pipe the link so it points to Uganda Scheme or Jewish Territorial Organization instead though proposals for a Jewish state also lists other options proposed by Herzl and early Zionists. Wellington Bay (talk) 00:56, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah no objection to removing the link. If anything, it does somewhat imply that the "proposals for a Jewish state" article is about Zionist proposals. I wouldn't think the reader would be confused by this, but apparently at least one is. I wouldn't pipe it to Uganda because Uganda wasn't the only one. I don't think we have an article about Zionist proposed alternatives to Palestine. Levivich (talk) 01:09, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Interesting speech...and completely source free. Selfstudier (talk) 21:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

What part of that "speech" needs to be supported by a source? That Carthage was a colony of Tyre? That Jewish Autonomous Oblast was established after Balfour Declaration?

And, keep in mind that conclusions about violation of NPOV or NOR are made based on the analysis of existing sources, and they do not require new sources. If you don't know our policy, please, read it.

If you have any reasonable objections, please, present them. Otherwise, please, don't waste our time.

Concretely, I would like to see the proof of three things:

First, the sources that explicitly describe Zionism as colonialism (in the same sense as French, British or Russian colonialism).

Second, a proof that the above view is a majority view (I believe I don't have to explain what does it means, per our policy).

Third, the proof that all proposals for a Jewish state were discussed among the Zionists first, and the decision to focus on the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine was made after all other proposals were explicitly rejected by Zionists.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:25, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

The lead says "colonization" not "colonialism." Levivich (talk) 00:38, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Not "colonization", but "colonization", with a direct reference to colonialism. We all perfectly know that the idea of Zionism was to (re)establish a Jewish state, which was seen by them as a successor of the ancient Judea. Technically, that meant to establish a Jewish colony, but "colony" means a Carthage-type colony not, e.g. British India type colony. Since a modern reader understands "colonization" mostly as "the XIX-century-style colonization of Africa or Asia by Western nations", this wording sends the message it is not supposed to send, and, therefore, is deliberately misleading. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

No, it's the same word used in the sources, even the traditionalist or Zionist historians say "colonization." Some also say "colonial," but others distinguish between "colonization" and "colonialism," and reject "colonialism," but not "colonization." That's why the lead says "colonization" in wikivoice (it used to say "colonial" but we changed it after discussion some months ago). Levivich (talk) 01:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Quite a contrary, just read what the link says:

"Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing control over foreign territories or peoples for the purpose of exploitation and possibly settlement, setting up coloniality and often colonies, commonly pursued and maintained by colonialism."

As you see it explicitly refers to colonialism, and directly imply Zionists were colonialists (in the same way as British imperialists). Paul Siebert (talk) 01:14, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Do I really need to write "Wikipedia is not a reliable source"? Levivich (talk) 01:15, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

If a link to colonization de facto redirects to colonialism, that means the whole sentence implies Zionism was colonialism (concretely, XIX-XX style colonialism).

If the sentence can be understood as Zionism was a XIX-XX century colonialism (and we all agree that it was not, unless we accept the idea of the world Jewish conspiracy), that means the wording is misleading, and it should be fixed. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:26, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

We don't all agree it was not, that's for sure. Many if not most scholars say it was colonialism; others say it was colonization but not colonialism. There is nothing wrong with the linked article; it defines colonization and qualifies "setting up" coloniality, "often" colonies, "commonly" colonialism, but not always, which strikes me as correct. I don't see anything misleading about that, it doesn't say colonization equals colonialism. But all that said, I don't think it needs to be linked anyway. Levivich (talk) 01:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I think mostly, with the point being made by Paul Siebert. NPOV also means not implying something substantially non-neutral. Zionism did indeed have colonization, ie the establishment of colonies, mainly agricultural ones through land purchasing prior to the outbreak of war, which should be contrasted with colonialism as it's generally thought of in the historical imagination. It's an oversight in the current text along with the other concerns that were raised, it plays into a narrative that is mainly critical of Zionism, as opposed to balancing that narrative with less critical ones. Andre🚐 01:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I see no problem with the word "colonization" if it is being used in a proper context (like "colonization of Mars", i.e. establishment of new settlements on some unpopulated or low populated territory). But the current wording implies something else. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:17, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

You can write a book about Zionism and not use that word :-P But we summarize what the books say, and they say "colonization," so we use the word, even if we personally don't think it's the right word. Levivich (talk) 01:23, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, we just summarise what the books say, but we should do that correctly. In this case, I am not sure you've done your job correctly.

In connection to that, can you prove (without cherry picking) that

The books say that Zionism was a form of colonialism (because the current wording implies that)?

Majority of books describe creation of the Jewish state was a XIX century style colonization?

The sentence is written in such a way that the meaning of the word "colonization" can be understood more like "Carthage-type colonization", not "British-style colonization"?

Paul Siebert (talk) 01:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

OK here's some:

• Benny Morris "the colonizing Zionist influx into Palestine"
• Mordechai Bar-On: "Zionism, in many ways, was a unique colonial phenomenon"
• Yoav Gelber paraphrasing Nahum Sokolow: "In the mid-nineteenth century, it took the form of a small-scale, philanthropic, colonizing endeavour"
• Gelber again: "Ya‘acov Shavit studied the social and colonization ideology of the Zionist revisionist movement"
• Gelber in his own voice: "the colonizing enterprise"
• Gelber, making the colonization/colonial distinction: "Palestinian scholars have been joined by Israeli revisionist sociologists, jurists, geographers, and historians in an attempt to prove Zionism’s colonialist (as distinct from colonizing) nature"
• Draft:Yossi Ben-Artzi discussing Ran Aaronsohn: "Aaronsohn has compared Jewish settlement in Eretz-Israel with colonialism, which is one of the main criticisms leveled at Zionism by critical historians and sociologists, who have drawn analogies with South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and so on. Aaronsohn distinguishes between colonization and colonialism, both of which derive from the word colony and, to his mind, have been confused."

Those are all from Making Israel edited by Morris, which User:Chilltherevolutionist posted on my talk page the other day (he needs 403 more edits before he can say "you're welcome"), and I've only gone through half that book.

Here, a month ago, I quoted Anita Shapira describing Zionism as "colonization" and "colonial".

Here's a link to my comment on this page in June where I listed the people who Gelber identified as saying that Zionism is colonialism. It's a long list.

We've really been over this quite thoroughly these last few months. Now there is no doubt there are scholars who expressly say it's not colonialism -- Gelber is an example -- but do you have any scholars who say it was not colonization? Levivich (talk) 02:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Levivich! Please, do me a favor, no not pretend you are sillier than you are in reality. I believe we both agree that modern Israel was a result of colonization of the territory of British Palestine by Jewish settlers, so the word "colonization" and "colony" must appear in the article. The problem is not in that.

As I already explained (and I doubt you may disagree with that), the word "colonization" has dual meaning, one of them is pretty neutral, and another one has very negative connotations, because it is linked with the word "colonialism" (btw, contrary to your assertion, although Wikipedia does make some distinction between colonization and colonialism, the former is linked with the latter, so it has negative connotations too). In connection to that, the question is as follows: does the current wording clearly explains that the term "colonization" in a context of Zionism refers to the "ancient Greek style" colonization (new settlements without a metropole), not to XIX-century style colonization ("colonies as a tool for oppression of local people by a metroplole")?

Clearly, the answer is "no": a new reader will quickly see the word "colonization", and the immediate conclusion they will draw will be "Zionism = colonialism = imperialism", and that is exactly what some modern leftists are claiming.

Meanwhile, even the sources provided by you do not support it. Bar-On says about Zionist colonisation as some "unique colonial phenomenon", Gerber speaks about " a small-scale, philanthropic, colonizing endeavour". Furthermore, Aaronsohn and Gerber distinguish between "colonization" and "colonialism" (and especially, they criticise attempts to draw analogies between colonization of Africa and colonization of Palestine).

What conclusion can be drawn from your sources? That, whereas the term "colonization" is used by all of them, most sources provided by you carefully distinguish between Jewish "colonization" and "colonialism" (a.k.a. imperialism).

In connection to that, the current wording cherry-picks the term, but totally obfuscates its meaning in the context of Jewish colonization of Palestine. I would way, the wording is deliberately misleading, and it reflects modern anti-Israel sentiments. We may agree or disagree with what modern Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon, but that should not affect our vision of history of Palestine.

Again, the quotes provided by you clearly demonstrate that the sources have been distorted and misused (the term was cherry-picked, but the author's ideas were ignored). The only way to fix it would be to restore the old wording (creation of the Jewish state in Palestine), ad to move the word "colonization" (along with necessary reservations and explanations) to the next sentence. Similarly, a discussion of the geographical issues (where the Jewish state was initially proposed to establish) should be moved closer to the middle of the lead (it has only a historical interest and is not really important). Paul Siebert (talk) 04:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I find this comment as confusing, PS, as you do the specific text you take exception to. It's hard to reply because of likely edit conflicts as opne flies off into the tangent of oblasts. But I will try to in bulleted form here as time allowsNishidani (talk) 09:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Generally the humongous threads on this over the last months have witnessed a clash between extensive RS evidence from recent scholarship, and antipathy by many editors to the idea, in those RS, that Zionism can be approached in terms of colonialism, colonization. This in the face of the fact that the model of colonialism was the default one in early Zionism, and it referred in particular to the German examples per central planning authorities /figures like Otto Warburg and Arthur Ruppin. It is very understandable that many editors, Zionists included, find the term reprehensible, derogatory and personally offensive. I'm Australian and do not consider myself a colonist, as opposed to being a descendant of colonists, just as Israelis of the second generation onwards are not fairly described as colonists (unless they are settlers, which most are not). There are also cultural ideological considerations: the term 'colonization/colonialism' dropped from official favour from the 1950s when the founding fathers' usage became an embarrassment in the new state, which was diplomatically and geostrategically forming alliances with the third world's emerging post-colonial states, and the idea of national liberation movements was exchanged for it.The concept came back into analytic currency for its heuristic utility in the last three decades, with the rise of settler colonial studies, in the wake of the overwhelming evidence that Israel, a metropole, was engaged in extensive settlements of territory beyond its informal, internationally recognized borders, in lands proper to another contiguous people, in daughter colony settlements, very much along the classical pattern though with important differences.Nishidani (talk) 09:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Now to the meat of your arguments.Nishidani (talk) 10:20, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

The gravamen of your argument is, I think, flawed by a common error, that of taking a complex term, defining it only in one of its meanings then denying its wider referential cogency. In many of our recent wiki debates, not only on this page, editors are falling into this same mistake. Rather than simply, as our remit obliges us to do, taken the overall consensus or thrust of RS to define the appropriatness of a term in this or that specific historical context, they quarrel without much source support, for taking a general term in a highly specific reading, and then denying its relevance to, in this case, Israel.

Take the histories of the concepts of Feudalism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism, Genocide, Holocaust, Oriental Despotism, etc.etc. They all arose, and provided thought with powerful instruments, to make historical comparisons, or claim the existence of some general principle. Feudalism as a concept arose to explain certain continuities in European medieval countries, and then was applied more broadly to non-European contexts: fascism denominated the specific form taken by Italy as a response to modernism, and then was extended to apply to many other countries. Initially, much of these applicative extensions proved cogent and productive of insights, but, as each specific analogy was subjected to closer scrutiny, differences emerged to the point that, certainly with feudalism, the idea began to be challenged and weakened by claims it was a Eurocentric construct. The same occurred with fascism – whose analytic power was undermined by its careless adoption as a term of abuse in facile stereotyping, though the later studies of Robert Paxton retrieved its value as a master concept in the analysis of a repetitive type, with variations, of rightwing populist polities. In the present case, the same applies.

• To take one major form of imperial colonialism as the defining concept of modern colonization, that between metropole and the its daughter extensions in foreign countries is to ignore the range of distinctions in the analysis of this varied phenomenon in recent decades.

• (a)Did Zionists plan to colonize some foreign territories and keep them under an external control as some subordinated land? Obviously, no.

One might equally write

(b)Did Zionists plan to colonize some foreign territories and keep them available for the use of an external community as land subordinated to the exigencies of world Jewry? Obviously, yes.’

One could also add that a core thrust of early Zionism was to establish a colony under the protection of a foreign imperial power: without the assent and patronage of the regional dominus, first the Ottoman Empire, and then the British Empire, the project could not advance towards the establishment of a Jewish homeland. So, in this variant, the ‘external control’ of your classic definition would be twofold: (a) the supportive aegis of an Ottoman/British Empire to sanction a protectorate/colony for a minority whose organized presence among the natives it looked favourably upon (b) and the directive agency of official Jewish planning, financial, economic bodies in the diaspora.

I don’t subscribe to b. I merely provide the analogy to show the ineffectiveness of trying to argue within a very restrictive definition. It gets us nowhere.

• You allow that ‘some boors’ (I like that Freudian lapse!) mentioned colonization – namely, that there are very strong indications in the technical literature of the last three decades that the Zionist language of the first half century which described the state project under construction. But your restrictive use of the word leads you to claim there is no evidence of colonialism in this (one) modern sense. You may believe that, but the relevant RS state the opposite, and certainly the phenomenon of Israeli settlements after 1967, pursued relentlessly by a state in Palestinian territories for 57 years, leaves comparativists - those who work in settler colonial studies- with little wriggle room to deny the obvious – that Zionism is certainly now a colonizing power in practice, much as its forefathers conceived it under different conditions.Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a great explanation of the main issue with the lead now, and I think it must change (you described the issue with colonization in the best way one could do). I'm afraid I'm also in agreement with your suggestion that the wording is deliberately misleading. But currently the article is not only misleading but is also false. How can anyone claim that Zionism sought to colonize land outside Europe before deciding on Palestine as its destination? The word 'Zion' is literally in the movement's name... Galamore (talk) 08:22, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert I agree with your comments and would like to add that the current framing was introduced without reaching a real consensus. I believe the best course of action is to restore the original description, which was more aligned with how sources generally describe Zionism and less misleading/wrong, and allow those seeking to change it to start an RfC to gather input from the wider community. ABHammad (talk) 11:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert I agree with your comments and would like to add that the current framing was introduced without reaching a real consensus. I believe the best course of action is to restore the original description, which was more aligned with how sources generally describe Zionism and less misleading/wrong, and allow those seeking to change it to start an RfC to gather input from the wider community. ABHammad (talk) 11:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

It's no use rehashing what has already been discussed in this section once (that's why it is called RFC Workshop). Anyone is welcome to start an RFC at any point but things have moved on already, we are investigating best sources to try and collaboratively deal with the recurrent issues. Selfstudier (talk) 12:07, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

BTW, Wikipedia also distinguishes between colonization and colonialism. Levivich (talk) 02:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

This sentence created a false impression that the rejection was a result of some discussion among Zionists ... like at the World Zionist Congresses? Levivich (talk) 00:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. How can we seriously imply that the idea to create Jewish Autonomous Oblast (1928) was rejected at the World Zionist Congresses (1897)? Paul Siebert (talk) 00:45, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Where does the lead imply that? Levivich (talk) 00:52, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

The text says:

"With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine..."

which means that Zionists switched to Palestine after the idea of Jewish Autonomous Oblast or Madagascar project were rejected by them. However, we all know that Jewish settlers started to arrive from Europe to Palestine long before 1928. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:03, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

No, that sentence says after rejecting alternate Zionist proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on Palestine. It doesn't mean after rejecting every alternate proposal ever made by anyone ever, it focused on Palestine. You do realize the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was not a Zionist idea, but an alternative to Zionism, right? That's from outside Zionism. The sentence is referring to things like the Uganda Scheme, which was rejected at the Sixth Zionist Congress. There were other, less famous proposals besides Uganda. Jewish Autonomous Oblast was not one of them; that was a Soviet thing. Levivich (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Of course, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was rather an anti-Zionist than Zionist idea. But that is absolutely not clear from the text. It is awkward and misleading. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 is WP:SYNTH. Definitions should be near word for word from a source.
  • Merriam Webster: [7] Zionism is an international movement for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.
  • Cambridge dictionary: [8] a political movement that had as its original aim the creation of a country for Jewish people, and that now supports the state of Israel.
  • Dictionary.com: [9] a worldwide Jewish movement that resulted in the establishment and development of the state of Israel and that now supports the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

I prefer Cambridge's.

Kowal2701 (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Dictionaries are not best sources, we won't be using them. Selfstudier (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

And we've already been over this. Please read the page before making a comment. Levivich (talk) 14:41, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

The Cambridge one is a good basis that seems in line with most of the sources. I'm not sure though I understand if we're aiming to start an RfC with option 1 and option 2 or if we want to rephrase option 2 first. Galamore (talk) 14:45, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

We are not actually starting an RFC afaik, the proposal in this section did not proceed and matters have moved on since. Selfstudier (talk) 14:50, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

"that seems in line with most of the sources" - which sources? Levivich (talk) 14:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tertiary-source fallacy. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Precisely, +1. Selfstudier (talk) 14:52, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Strawman argument. I don't think it's fallacious to go to dictionaries for definitions. Of course we can still scrutinise them. Kowal2701 (talk) 14:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Dictionaries are useful on occasion, just not this occasion. Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

We're listing WP:BESTSOURCES elsewhere on this page; you're welcome to contribute to that discussion, please don't waste our time by quoting dictionaries. Levivich (talk) 14:59, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Sources don’t tend to include definitions, either because it’s unnecessary, or to avoid reductionism. If it’s a WP:CIR issue I’m happy to step away, but I think there’s some merit to using the Cambridge definition (mirrored by OR [10]) as a base and use the best sources to put meat on the bone and make it high level. Kowal2701 (talk) 15:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure which end to begin with on that statement. First, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, we don't define words either. Second, if the sources didn't define a word, Wikipedia wouldn't define it either, purely because Wikipedia summarizes what the sources say. But aside from all that, what do you mean, "Sources don’t tend to include definitions"? What sources are you reading? Have you read any of the (many, many) sources posted and quoted all over this page? Which of those don't say what Zionism is? Levivich (talk) 15:40, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Kowal2701, I'd suggest that if you want to start contributing here, you read the talk page first. All 13 discussions are current discussions. Valereee (talk) 16:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

response to Nishidani 12:28, 24 September 2024 (UTC) (arbitrary break)

I am responding here because the discussion is very hard to follow.

Thank you for your post. I believe I know the solution. We should separate non-controversial and controversial parts of the definition, and produce a commonly accepted definition, which we can specify in subsequent sentences.

Thus, we all agree that Zionism is some movement. We also agree that the goal of this movement is to establish (or re-establish) a Jewish state, which is believed to be a successor of an ancient Judea. It is also commonly accepted that that state is supposed to be established in present-days Palestine, which is considered as a historical Jewish land.

All of that is commonly accepted and non-controversial (Note, I didn't say that "present-days Palestine is a historical Jewish land": that claim is not universally accepted. However, the idea that Zionists consider present-days Palestine as a historical Jewish land is non-controversial: even Arab terrorists would agree with that).

Therefore, if we write that, e.g. "Zionism is a movement for (re)establishment of Jewish state in Palestine", that would be correct and non-controversial. But that would be incomplete. In the next sentence, we can specify how exactly this state was supposed to be created, which alternative opportunities were considered, etc. That is how we should act: a general, non-controversial statement goes first, and other nuances (which may be not universally accepted, controversial, ambiguous, etc) go after that.

WRT "Feudalism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism, Genocide, Holocaust, Oriental Despotism, etc." You combine together several totally different cases.

Feudalism appears to be a very clear concept, characterized by a certain type of economy (barter in kind) and a certain type of relationship (personal loyalty in exchange for land).

Capitalism is also a very clear term, which mostly relates to some specific type of economic relationships.

Communism is some very vaguely defined term: nobody knows what it is, and "Marxist" science failed to propose any satisfactory description of how Communist society would be organized. Note, that all states that are described as Communist by Western authors never claimed to be Communist: they were building a Communist society, which was seen as a remote goal. The only exception was Khruschev: he declared Communism would be built in the USSR by 1980, but Brezhnev tacitly dropped this idea and organized Olympiad instead.

Fascism has no universally accepted definition, and I personally avoid any attempt to describe any modern regime as "fascist": vaguely defined terms with an obvious negative connotations should be avoided.

Genocide has two meanings. The first, original, meaning is purely legal: it is a crime, and, accordingly, only a court may make a decision if the event X was a genocide. the second meaning is a pure journalism: it obfuscates the true meaning of this word and trivializes it. But that does not change the fact that "genocide" has a very clear and very concrete meaning.

Holocaust This term has a very concrete meaning, but numerous recent publications are trying to trivialize and obfuscate this term. But that doesn't change the fact that "The Holocaust" is a very concrete and well defined term.

Oriental Despotism is an umbrella term that covers non-democratic societies in the East. It has some more narrow meaning, but I am not sure its discussion is relevant to the topic of this discussion.

In summary, you are mixing totally unrelated things, and that doesn't add credibility to the point you are trying to make

--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:09, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

---

References

Recent additions done against consensus, and request to get collaborative

The presentation of Zionism as "the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe" was introduced through edit warring, and despite ongoing discussions that haven't reached any new consensus. The original definition reflected a long-standing consensus. I'm asking all to be fair. Please restore the previous long standing version since we haven't reached consensus, and if required, start an RFC. Let's respect Wikipedia's policies, and let's respect each other. HaOfa (talk) 14:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Redad the five threads, please. And, out of curiosity, tell me how the expansion of Jewish immigration from Europe to augment the 5% jewish population base from 5% to 31% in a half a century did not constitute, as its leaders and promotors explicitly said it was, 'colonization'. Unless you can explain that, RfCs are pointless, and repeated attempts to overthrow a consensus look like battle ground attrition. Nishidani (talk) 14:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani, the term 'colonization' has evolved in meaning over time, and as @Vegan416 shows, many reputable sources on the subject do not employ it in the context of Zionism. Additionally, the claim that Zionism initially sought territories outside Europe is false. The movement was deeply rooted in a desire for a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, and later considered other options as a compromise, but this was never widely accepted.

But before discussing the content, we must address conduct and good faith. This addition, unfortunately, was not made in good faith but in the face of substantial opposition and through edit warring. I ask editors who wish to engage in good faith to revert this controversial change and restore the original, long-standing framing before the edit warring. We all know that's the right thing to do. Then we can discuss everything collaboratively, and start an RfC. HaOfa (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

This has been discussed exhaustively, and the consensus is for 'coplonization'. The permabanned Vegan's several attempts to show contrary evidence also failed to convince. because it was erratically googled to obtain the results he highlighted, among other reasons. We collaborate here, and if an argument is lost, as happened (and it happens to all editors of whatever POV), endless recourse to other forums, or RfCs by an exiguous minority smacks of attrition and bludgeoning. Most of us have lives to lead.Nishidani (talk) 15:02, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

There is no consensus, I don't know why you keep on saying this. There is clearly no consensus. HaOfa (talk) 15:03, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I reciprocate your impression. I don't know why you persist, and you haven't explained what I asked you to explain: why is mass immigration from 5% to 31% over a half a century under the explicit banner of 'colonization' 'colonial project' not, as our best sources state, a variety of colonization/colonialism? If you can't answer that, and neither could Vegan, then persisting is pointless. So don't shift the goalposts, or dodge the obvious question.Nishidani (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

"This addition, unfortunately, was not made in good faith." Ah, the old "all the people who disagree with me, who happen to be the majority of scholars of Zionism and the editors of this Wikipedia article, are operating in bad faith" trick. Works every time. And in such good faith!Dan Murphy (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The consensus is clearly on making reference to colonisation in regards to Zionism. It has been more than adequately shown that an abundance of high quality sources make reference to colonisation. I'd advise you to not imply that there is bad faith occuring from anyone who has argued it is appropriate to refer to colonisation in relation Zionism. TarnishedPath^talk 06:23, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Zionism (named after Zion or Mount Zion) is the Jewish nationalist movement in the Land of Israel. To frame it as "outside of Europe" in the first sentence is an embarrassing anti-Israel attempt to disconnect Jews from their homeland in the eyes of the readers. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 10:14, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Zionism (named after Zion or Mount Zion) is the Jewish nationalist movement in the Land of Israel Is that the religious definition? Reinvented itself, has it? Isn't Zionism just Jewish nationalism, writ large? An ideology purporting to cater for all Jews everywhere. Pretty sure Zionism was led by European colonists views and actions on colonial settlement at the time of its creation. Selfstudier (talk) 12:10, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Triggerhippie4. The recent changes were not only implemented through edit warring but also contradict the sources and come across as anti-Israel propaganda. As many others have noted, (a) the construction of colonies—originally a neutral term—was just one of many aspects of Zionism, which the new lead emphasizes for apparent reasons; and (b) the assertion that Zionism initially aimed for 'land outside Europe' is incorrect, there's a reason Zionism is named like this - it was always focused on Zion. Given that this new framing clearly lacks consensus, as evidenced by the discussions on this talk page, the original, longstanding version should be promptly reinstated. ABHammad (talk) 05:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

These arguments are so profoundly at odds with commonsense (let alone the literature) that it is difficult to take them seriously

(a) the construction of colonies—originally a neutral term—was just one of many aspects of Zionism,

No one can honestly dispute that Zionism's core principle was to shift the Jews of many European countries away to a foreign land, and that means settling a foreign land, which was done by establishing colonies, i.e. communities of Jews. This is not just an 'aspect'. The whole idea is premised upon this as the fundamental principle driving Zionism itself. To talk of this as just an 'aspect' is to argue that a sine qua non of Zionism is contingent, dispensable. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Nishidani (talk) 12:43, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

My reading is that version/s which refer to settler colonialism or colonialism are the consensus. TarnishedPath^talk 05:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

(a) As noted multiple times, the Zionists regarded their "colonization" (a term they used thousands of times) to include establishment of national institutions and other nation-building endeavors. It is simply false that it only meant the establishment of settlements. (b) It also isn't true that Zionism "always focussed on Zion" though no other preference ever achieved the same prominence in Zionist thinking. I've said before that I don't like the way the first two sentences are written and wouldn't mind if the other destinations moved down the lead a bit. Zero^talk 06:30, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

There's clearly no consensus here. @TarnishedPath: I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion because, when I count the opposers, I see 9-10 voices against the change. @Zero:, Zionism has always been centered on Zion—yes, there was the brief Uganda phase, but it was quickly rejected by most members of the congress and never really took hold in a movement that literally named itself after Zion (Those who didn’t necessarily aim for Zion had a different name and their own article here on Wikipedia at Jewish Territorial Organization). As for colonization, sure, some early Zionists used the term, but, as ABHammad pointed out, it was just one aspect, and it means something very different today. We can't base this claim only on primary sources, and we also have to keep in mind that its usage here is anachronistic. I'm going to restore the original first paragraph because this new version is clearly disputed. If anyone wants to change it back, they should start an RFC. PeleYoetz (talk) 07:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Again, since you take ABHammad's opinion seriously, objectors must address the question as to how a movement whose primary concern was to advocate settlement of Jews in foreign countries, and actively promoted the establishment of Jewish only enclaves/colonies for immigrating Jews to settle in can be understood without reference to colonization. I keep asking this, and no reply is forthcoming. If one can provide a source which states that Zionism did not seek to settle Jews in foreign countries, and did not promote the establishment of Jewish colonies/settlements, I would be extremely eager to read it.Nishidani (talk) 13:24, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Consensus isn't determined by a simple head count. It's determined by which policy arguments are the best. Nishidani has demonstrated over and over that the very best sources reference settler colonialism/colonialism. In any case your numbers are off as this discussion has occurred over many threads. TarnishedPath^talk 08:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

"Nishidani has demonstrated over and over that the very best sources reference settler colonialism/colonialism." This should be decided by an uninvolved editor after an RFC, rather than by those involved. ABHammad (talk) 09:08, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you going to open an RFC? Seems to me we have a consensus without the need for one. Selfstudier (talk) 09:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

No, we don't have a consensus. Please again WP:ONUS: The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. HaOfa (talk) 09:19, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I would point out that early objectors have been topic banned or otherwise no longer involved in this, so it is not apparent there is no consensus, nor does there appear to be any policy based reasons for the recent reversions given the available sourcing, ABHammad, PeleYoetz and yourself are saying there should be an RFC, so go ahead, start one. Selfstudier (talk) 09:31, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Completely agreed, especially given discussions which occurred on this at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project?. TarnishedPath^talk 10:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Even the "very best sources" can be misused if editors have read their own biases into the use of terms like colonialism. See Zero's above comment, colonialism in the context of Zionism has a different context as part of unavoidable nation-building and population displacement that happened after WWI. Ben Azura (talk) 06:56, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

"some early Zionists used the term" — Anyone who thinks that "some" is a reasonable adjective here is invited to find an important early Zionist source that doesn't use it. In fact, this was the standard description. "it means something very different today" — Anyone who believes that is invited to present evidence. In fact, definitions of colonization then and today are essentially identical. Up above I quoted Weismann positively comparing Zionist colonization with that of nation states. The reference to Uganda is also inadequate, since neither Uganda nor the Territorialists are the full story. Above I showed that Herzl preferred Argentina for a time. Here is the most famous pre-Herzl Zionist Leon Pinsker:

"We must not attach ourselves to the place where our political life was once violently interrupted and destroyed. The goal of our present endeavors must be not the “Holy Land,” but a land of our own. We need nothing but a large piece of land for our poor brothers; a piece of land which shall remain our property, from which no foreign master can expel us. Thither we shall take with us the most sacred possessions which we have saved from the shipwreck of our former father-land, the God-idea and the Bible. It is only these which have made our old father-land the Holy Land, and not Jerusalem or the Jordan. Perhaps the Holy Land will again become ours. If so, all the better, but first of all, we must determine—and this is the crucial point—what country is accessible to us, and at the same time adapted to offer the Jews of all lands who must leave their homes a secure and unquestioned refuge, capable of being made productive. (Autoemancipation, 1882)

Zero^talk 11:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I support an RFC to settle this issue once and for all. The previous discussions were not very productive, the editors seemed to be trying to prove whether Zionism is or is not colonialism rather than actually focusing on how the first sentence of the article should be written. Mawer10 (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

And a final point for those few who object here. Analytically, is Israel colonizing or settling the West Bank (in international law not part of Israel), or is what is occurring something that has nothing to do with settler-colonialism? And 'exceptional' situation? It is pointless repeatedly asking for RfCs if clarity on this reality is lacking.Nishidani (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

+1. Colony is just another word for a settlement and colonizing just another word for establishing settlements. Talk about arguing against the obvious.

Israel is a settler colony, annexing native land is what it does

"Simply put: all settler colonies constitute a continuous process of land annexation, whereby native inhabitants are removed and settlers from elsewhere are brought to occupy the land".

Factually, that is what Israel is doing and has been doing ever since the illegal annex of the then East Jerusalem plus a part of the then West Bank. Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

So pre 48, we have Zionist colonialism and/or settler colonialism and after Israel, non stop settler colonialism. To answer my own question, there is no difference between the early Zionists and the later incarnation. Selfstudier (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Israel is colonizing the occupied territories. So what? Israel/Israelis and Zionism/Zionists are not synonymous. Mawer10 (talk) 15:41, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I will leave you to figure out how to connect the dots. If you can't manage it, I will look out some suitable RS. Here's one to be going on with Israel’s Netanyahu calls occupied West Bank 'part of our homeland' Selfstudier (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

If you want something more scholarly connecting Zionism with Israel and settler colonialism over the entire period then

A Century of Settler Colonialism in Palestine: Zionism’s Entangled Project

Throughout the past century, the Zionist movement constructed the most sophisticated settler-colonial project of our age: the State of Israel. The violent birth of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent colonization of the entirety of the land of Palestine after the 1967 war are indeed reflections of Zionism’s successes in fulfilling its settler-colonial ambitions in Palestine. Yet, while this settler-colonial project continues unabated, it is an entangled one, unable to reach the ultimate point of Jewish exclusivity in the land. Zionist settler colonialism, as its historical precedents suggest, is fundamentally based on the operative logic of “eliminating the native” and failing to utterly marginalize and "minoritize" him. The vibrant Palestinian presence in the land, the everyday resistance to the colonial order, and the robust Palestinian adherence to their rights all stand as structural obstacles to the ultimate realization of the “Zionist dream.” Selfstudier (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

You are presenting a one-sided perspective on what Zionism is. Zionism achieved its principal aim in 1948 with the establishment of a state of Israel which acknowledged, in its ‘Law of Return’, the right of all Jews to live within its borders. Since that time ‘Zionism’ can be taken to refer to support for the continued existence of the state of Israel1. The Zionist left has no maximalist goals. Ideologies do not exist in the same way that a stone exists, just like other "isms" Zionism can vary over time, have several branches and have several aspects. Mawer10 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

That does not refute the idea that Zionism (in whatever version) continued a settler colonial modus operandi over the entire period. Selfstudier (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Quote for today:

"Contrary to the accepted Zionist narrative which stressed the centrality of Palestine in Zionist ideology, I shall show that until the Balfour Declaration there were a good many prominent activists within the Zionist Movement who wished to promote initiatives to settle Jews in countries outside Palestine." (Gur Alroey, [11])

Zero^talk 05:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Those activists were a minority then and are virtually non-existent today. To include "Europe" and not "Israel/Palestine" in the first sentence is grotesque. Triggerhippie4 (talk) 12:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Revert

@O.maximov: Explain why have you reverted "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." This is well sourced and additional sourcing is not hard to locate, eg Could Israel Carry Out Another Nakba? "This essential logic—a Jewish state should include as much territory and as few Palestinians as possible—did not end with Israel’s creation in 1948".

You claim the wording is "biased"... how? What does "ways of re-wording this and surrounding the right weight before adding" mean? Selfstudier (talk) 08:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Levivich:, as it was your prose that @O.maximov: reverted.

Ps, I've made a test edit at Special:Diff/1242535070 in which I've used the alternative wording "Zionists wanted to create a state in Palestine with a Jewish majority" and then self-reverted. O.maximov you claimed in your edit summary that Levivich's wording was biased (ps, it's not as it accurately conveys what the sources have to say). Would you say the same about my alternative wording? TarnishedPath^talk 09:34, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

This is a bit too vague to be considered a broadly-supported mainstream view. There are some more specific points along these lines that are more widely agreed on, such as land purchases, or as Morris writes from a certain point during the war, Ben-Gurion let his officers understand that it was preferable for as few Arabs as possible to remain in the new country. The vague version is more of a narrative than a statement of fact, and doesn't feel appropriate for wikivoice, let alone in the first paragraph which should be about defining Zionism. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:02, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

From Slater: "From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state; if all other means failed, they were to be “transferred” by one means or another, including, if necessary, by force." DMH223344 (talk) 16:19, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Morris "from a certain point during the war, Ben-Gurion let his officers understand that it was preferable for as few Arabs as possible to remain in the new country" is not vague but "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" is vague?? How does that work exactly? Selfstudier (talk) 16:25, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Morris 2004 p. 588:

But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority.

You can't have Zionism without displacing the people who lived in Palestine. Inherent, underlying thrust, from the start of the entrprise... these are Morris's words.

Shlaim (2009, p. 56) puts it more clearly:

That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question.

Hardly open to question. It really is hardly open to question because how tf can you have Zionism without removing Arabs from Palestine? You can't. It's time to stop this nonsense POV pushing of trying to rewrite the very nature of what Zionism is to minimize that it's about displacing Palestians to make room for Jews in Palestine, and it was always about that, and it's an inherent part of the entire ideology, which is not open to question. So please stop questioning these basic facts. Levivich (talk) 17:20, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

as few Palestinian Arabs as possible is probably accurate for Ben-Gurion, but of course he doesn't represent all Zionists. Not all forms of Zionism even require a Jewish majority; see Brit Shalom for example.

Herzl and Weizmann envisioned an eventual Jewish majority after a period of Jewish immigration, but that's different from as few Palestinian Arabs as possible; there's no evidence of them having this more extreme objective. Ben-Gurion implicitly supported expulsions, but Herzl and Weizmann never supported any kind of involuntary population transfer.

The as much land ... as possible prong of the statement seems even less precise - there's no unified view on the matter that can be broadly attributed to "Zionists". I don't think any of the more mainstream scholars would attempt to generalize in such a manner. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 19:33, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no need to analyze the intentions and stances of the individual zionists ourselves. That's already been done in RS which essentially all demonstrate that establishing a Jewish majority was "the key issue in the implementation of Zionism" (Gorny) DMH223344 (talk) 20:49, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

How much more mainstream does it get than Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ian Lustick, Hillel Cohen, Ilan Pappe, Ronit Lentin, Nur Masalha, Rashid Khalidi, and the others cited in the article for this sentence? If these scholars aren't mainstream, pray tell, who is? Levivich (talk) 21:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Heck, I'd love to hear of even one scholar who argues that establishing a Jewish majority in Palestine wasn't the point. This is beyond absurd. (Oh, FFS. Brit Shalom. The group recognized that Zionism proposed displacing the people on the land with Jews, but still wanted Jewish settlement. So they argued that an intellectual framework - which they acknowledged had never existed/been used in human history - could be created that somehow would allow a new form of binational coexistence to emerge that would obviate the need to displace the native inhabitants. The dominant/popular Zionist factions in the 1920s and early 1930s hated them. The group failed completely and folded 90 years ago.) Dan Murphy (talk) 21:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Morris would certainly consider the statement oversimplified and misleading. The excerpt is taken out of context; the following paragraph starts with But there was no pre-war Zionist plan to expel ‘the Arabs’ from Palestine or the areas of the emergent Jewish State; and the Yishuv did not enter the war with a plan or policy of expulsion.

Morris' views are much more nuanced than the content in question. He says a "near-consensus" about transfer started to emerge as Arab opposition, including violent resistance, to Zionism grew in the 1920s and 1930s. Obviously Zionism is much older than that, so this near-consensus doesn't reflect the views of earlier Zionists, or minority Zionist viewpoints like that of Brit Shalom.

Morris is also careful to distinguish different views on transfer, such as the view that Arabs might be induced to leave by means of a combination of financial sticks and carrots. Characterizing such views as aiming for as few Palestinian Arabs as possible is misleading. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, he says there was no pre-war plan. But he says it was "inherent in Zionist ideology." I dont see how much more direct and clear cut you can get.

What does saying "as few Arabs as possible" suggest that you think is misleading? DMH223344 (talk) 22:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Morris is one perspective, arguably involved in a thorough simplification of the picture (the evidence is massive to the contrary. But, if you haven't, you should read Nur Masalha,Expulsion of the Palestinians:The Concept of "Transfer"in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, 1994

it should not be imagined that the concept of transfer was held only by maximalists or extremists within the Zionist movement. On the contrary, it was embraced by almost all shades of opinion, from the Revisionist right to the Labor left. Virtually every member of the Zionist pantheon of founding fathers and important leaders supported it and advocated it in one form or another, from Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion and Menahem Ussishkin. Supporters of transfer included such moderates as the “Arab appeaser" Moshe Shertok and the socialist Arthur Ruppin, founder of Brit Shalom, a movement advocating equal rights for Arabs and Jews. More importantly, transfer proposals were put forward by the Jewish Agency itself, in effect the government of the Yishuv. p.2

The rest of the 210 pages documents this minutely.Nishidani (talk) 22:21, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Why are you goal-post-shifting to transfer? The sentence at issue is Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. That's not about transfer. It's not about how Zionists expected to achieve the goal, it's about what the goal was. The goal was, Shlaim put it, That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question. Levivich (talk) 22:51, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Leaders of most countries wouldn't mind more land. Bolivians for example would love to regain sea access. A statement that "Bolivians want to retake as much Chilean territory as possible" would seem a bit misleading though, since there's no particular plan that Bolivians agree on, only an aspiration of sorts.

Similarly most Zionists wouldn't have minded more land and/or fewer Arabs, but there wasn't any particular plan for either than Zionists broadly agreed on. The content in question misleadingly implies that there was. It also misleadingly implies a maximalist agenda (as much/few as possible), which exaggerates the practical objectives of most Zionist leaders. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 23:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Also from Morris: "Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. Realizing Zionism meant organizing and dispatching settlement groups to Palestine. As each settlement took root, it became acutely aware of its isolation and vulnerability, and quite naturally sought the establishment of new Jewish settlements around it. This would make the original settlement more “secure”—but the new settlements now became the “front line” and themselves needed “new” settlements to safeguard them. After the Six-Day War, a similar logic would underlie the extension of Israeli settlement into the Golan Heights (to safeguard the Jordan Valley settlements against Syrian depredations from above) and around Jerusalem (to serve as a defensive bulwark for the districts on the exposed northern, eastern, and southern flanks of the city)."

You really can't get more direct than that. DMH223344 (talk) 23:53, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" does not imply "master plan." The maximalist agenda is the point; the sources say they had a maximalist agenda ("necessarily and elementally expansionist", "an overwhelming Jewish majority", "the largest possible Jewish state"). In fact, if you dig deeper, they even put a number on it: 80% Jewish majority. Your WP:OR does not trump WP:RS. This sentence summarizes the sources being quoted in the citation. Those sources are modern mainstream sources. And there's a lot of them. Levivich (talk) 23:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

There are many authors who offer a more nuanced view on Zionism, emphasizing its many variants (with different attitudes toward expansionism and Arab presence) and its evolution over time. Anita Shapira would be a good mainstream example. I don't have time now, but can find some excerpts later. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 00:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

from shapira: "Preserving a Jewish majority in the country is a prerequisite for maintaining this Jewish and democratic character. From the Jews’ point of view, this is self-evident." DMH223344 (talk) 00:45, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

For those following along at home, that quote is from Shapira 2012 (Israel: A History), p. 461.

She raises this issue early in the book, on p. 4: "Palestine was not an empty country; some half a million Arabs lived there. What would the Zionists do with them? Force them out, or allow them to remain? Would they be declared aliens in their own homeland? And if the Zionists did not discriminate between them and the new immigrants, who could guarantee that in time the Jews would not become a minority in their own country and find themselves once again in the situation they had sought to escape? ... Would it be morally justifiable to transform the Arabs from masters of the land into a minority?"

At the end of the book, at p. 472: "The Jews, too, saw themselves as owners of the land, and while they were prepared to allow the Arabs to live in it, they would not countenance sharing ownership. Eventually it became clear that in the race between fulfillment of the Zionist enterprise and formation of the Palestinian national identity and its violent eruption, Zionism was losing. Only then did the Jews agree to partition the country and establish two states, Jewish and Arab." Levivich (talk) 01:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how this is particularly relevant; I'm not seeing anything similar to the content in question. What's more relevant is Land and Power, where Shapira describes in detail debates and shifts within the Zionist movement, e.g.

• The Seventeenth Zionist Congress took place in Basel in 1931. The debate between the revisionists, who demanded that the struggle against Britain be intensified, and members of Brit Shalom, who demanded that the Zionist leadership should dissociate itself, openly and in public, from the idea of a Jewish state and a Jewish majority in Palestine, was channeled into a polemic over the question of the Zielsetzung (final goal) of Zionism.
• Weizmann gave an interview to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), in which he stated that he had no sympathy or understanding for the idea of a Jewish majority in Palestine and that the Arabs would interpret such majoritarian demands as aggression directed toward them.

"Zionists" isn't a reference to Ben-Gurion, it's a reference to a diverse group which includes Weizmann, Herzl, Brit Shalom members, and so on. Why should we put in wikivoice a broad generalization about "Zionists" which blatantly fails to capture all of the above? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 04:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:IDHT - IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Care to explain why all these other Zionists, who were not seeking "as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible", don't count? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

It's yourself who needs to explain why they do (with sources). Selfstudier (talk) 16:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the excerpts above are fairly self-explanatory? What isn't clear? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Why they count. Selfstudier (talk) 16:45, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand, are you questioning whether these people were Zionists? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:51, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Non responsive, explain why the views of those particular Zionists count against all the reliable sources presented saying that (in effect) they do not count. Selfstudier (talk) 16:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I can collect more sources if you'd like, but the fact that these debates and shifts occurred within the Zionist movement is quite uncontroversial. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 18:51, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There seems to a strong consensus (to which I add my voice) that the version by Levivich accurately summarises what multiple RS say. I suggest it be restored. Jeppiz (talk) 00:00, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm reading consensus for restoration also. TarnishedPath^talk 00:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: Better check with yourself, the enforced BRD (or consensus required) was initiated by editor O.maximov removal of material and that editor has since absented themselves from the D part of BRD, do you agree that we have met the consensus required restriction? Selfstudier (talk) 10:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

You mean "since absented themselves from the D part of BRD" as in they never did it at all I presume? TarnishedPath^talk 11:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Selfstudier (talk) 11:26, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be a rough consensus for something of the sentiment in this thread. But – while I have no expertise or opinion on the sentiment – I might suggest that a slightly different wording might be needed to stand on the RSes quoted here. The quotes from Manna 2022 don't quite support the idea that an overarching goal of Zionism as an ideology is "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible"; it supports that the above is true as of the '48 war and true of major Zionist leaders from the jump. Shlaim similarly talks about Zionist leaders, not Zionism as a whole. Morris talks about Zionism, but "an overwhelming Jewish majority" isn't necessarily numerically equivalent to "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". I'd be happy to go with something like Zionist leaders... as few Arabs as possible or Zionists... as well as a large Jewish majority. I think the first was more what was intended with the citation of Manna 2022. Does that sound good to everyone? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 19:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Looking again at the sources:

• Nur Masalha, whose 1996 book about the history of the conflict from 1949 forward was called Maximum Land and Minimum Arabs [12], wrote in his 2012 book that even from the start of Zionism, "its [the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine] demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs'"
• Ilan Pappe in Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine wrote "the core of Zionism" was "to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible"
• Benny Morris 2004: "the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology ... from the start of the enterprise ... the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority"

IMO when those three agree on something, it's the mainstream view. I think this is what Avi Shlaim 2009 is referring to when he says "That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question." And what Hillel Cohen 2017 says, too: "As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years." Even though Shlaim is talking about leaders and Cohen about leaders and activists, they're giving a specific example of a general principle. They're reference to "leaders" doesn't mean "only leaders."

Others also say this was an inherent part of Zionism:

• Nadim Rouhana and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury 2014: "It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement ... that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible. Following Wolfe, we argue that the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project ..."
• Rashid Khalidi 2020: "This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas ... and the theft of Palestinian land and property ... There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land."
• Adel Manna 2022: "The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers."

I think rather than focus on who wanted this ("Zionists," "most Zionists," "Zionist leaders"), the article should convey that this was an inherent part of Zionist ideology, of Zionism itself. Levivich (talk) 20:39, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich: All right, that works for me. I'll leave it to y'all to decide whether to use your wording or TarnishedPath's rewording, although it looks like consensus is more in favor of the former. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Restored to @Levivich's wording per established consensus. Levivich, I'll leave it to you if you want to add any citations to the sentence. TarnishedPath^talk 23:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

This sentence is fine but may not be necessary. The information is already covered in the lead below: "The common ideology among mainstream Zionist factions is support for territorial concentration and a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine, through colonization". Additionally, it separates the two essential ideas in defining Zionism that are presented after one another. Mawer10 (talk) 17:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• This quote comes from p.27 of the book I recommended above. You are cherrypicking, and then bludgeoning not reading the full quote in context. He was worried that public admissions that Zionism wanted to transfer Arabs off their land were ill-advised, even while, behind the scenes, he was manoeuvring to do precisely that. (pp.31ff.)

On the 6 March 1930

• Weizmann elaborated on the idea of transferring the Palestinian population to Transjordan and Iraq during a meeting with Lord Passfield (Sidney Webb), the colonial secretary.p.32

Weizmann, for instance, who presided over Zionist activities in the west, maintained in 1931 that the Zionists’ public' insistence on creating a majority in Palestine could be interpreted by the world “as an attempt to expel the Arabs from Palestine”-this at the very time when he was actively promoting his plan of transferring the Arabs to neighboring states

• When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs, Weizmann replied: “The British told us that there are there some hundred thousands negroes [Kushim] and for those there is no value.”p.6

• Retrospectively he clarified what he asked the Brits to do about those ‘negroes

• ’For my part, as a life-long Zionist. 1 never had any doubt that the creation of a National Home for the Jews must result in the establishment of the State of Israel and that the consequences of this must be faced. 1 thought, and said long ago, that a steadily increasing immigration of Jews from all over the world to a country the size of Wales, without great natural resources, was quite unrealistic unless accompanied by some resettlement of the Arab population. This could, and should, have been carried out between thirty and forty years ago by the British government, on lavish lines, when they had both the power and the money to do it. How, otherwise, could they hope to implement the pledges they had given? P.16

• Weizmann's assessment, even prior to the British conquest of Palestine, that the Palestinians “could be bought off" their land “or suppressed with a little firmness"-in essence, that they were a negligible factor posing no obstacle to Zionist or British plans p.17

• It is important to note that for Ben-Gurion, as for Weizmann and Shertok, the evacuation of the Palestinian Arabs, or at least most of them, to Transjordan and other neighboring countries was an essential prerequisite for accepting the Peel Commission's partition plan or, for that matter, any other partition of Palestine p.66

So kindly desist from this bludgeoning.Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Masalha is not the most objective source, but yes Weizmann entertained ideas about voluntary transfer. There is no evidence of him or Herzl having maximalist objectives of "as much land and as few Arabs as possible", though. Herzl barely entertained ideas of transfer beyond a diary entry. You didn't mention Brit Shalom, which is the more black-and-white case of Zionists who are glaringly misrepresented by the content in question. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 18:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

"Masalha is not the most objective source" What makes you say that? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:50, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

His views are well-known, I don't think we need to get into it here. He's a reliable source for plain facts, but the broader narratives he advances are not neutral ones. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 19:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Objectivity is subjective, and Masalha is a reliable source, which is what counts here. Benny Morris isn't "objective" either, we use Zionist Israeli historians all over the place here. That isnt one of the criteria for reliability though. nableezy - 19:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Brit Shalom was of course "marginal" (Shapira and Morris use this term). Goldberg puts the number of supporters at 200. Gorny places Brit Shalom outside the Zionist consensus; in his analysis he still speaks of "Zionism" even if some Brit Shalom members had different views or tactics. DMH223344 (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

When I was flipping through Shapira 1992 (Land and Power [13]), some of it jumped out at me given recent discussions:

p. viii: Indeed, the principal facts are generally known: the Jewish colonization of Palestine ...

p. 107: The early days of British rule had spawned hopes and plans about Jewish settlement, systematic and rational, that would ultimately lead to Jewish colonization throughout the length and breadth of Palestine.

p. 131: In the 1920s, nobody was certain that this interesting project—Jewish colonization in Palestine—would, indeed, survive.

p. 355:

In many respects, Zionism was unique as a national movement. One of its (presumably singular) characteristic features stemmed from the fact that it was a national liberation movement that was destined to function as a movement promoting settlement in a country of colonization. This incongruity between the liberating and progressive message internally and the aggressive message externally acted as a central factor in the shaping of self-images and norms—and, in the end, also patterns of action—in the Zionist movement. Zionist psychology was molded by the conflicting parameters of a national liberation movement and a movement of European colonization in a Middle Eastern country.

The Zionist movement was a decided latecomer on the colonial scene: Movements of colonization by Europeans were common up to the late nineteenth century ... The Zionist movement (in particular, its socialist variant) viewed itself as belonging to the forces striving for a better world and could not accept the fact that the framework of its activity was determined by the contours of a country of colonization.

p. 357: In retrospect, the Jewish-Arab confrontation in Palestine takes on the dimensions of Greek tragedy. From the very inception of Jewish colonization in Palestine, the course of ultimate confrontation was inherent in the situation.

Levivich (talk) 20:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Your point is that Shapira uses the term colonization? This would seem to belong in a different discussion. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 01:28, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The editor whose actions started this discussion has been blocked as a likely sock of Icewiz. Refer to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Icewhiz. TarnishedPath^talk 03:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

NPOV balance issue in lead

The lead has WP:UNDUE weight on a particular interpretation of Zionism as a specific form, namely the 19th century through 1930s versions of Zionism which were radical political movements (Political Zionism) or the Jabotinsky types (Revisionist Zionism) and yes, verged into ethnonationalism not so subtly when describing their aims and goals, and of course, there is religious Zionism, the opposite of which would be secular Zionism. One must remember that the history of Zionism includes cultural Zionism, labor Zionism, Progressive Zionism, and much more mainstream versions of Zionism. For more see Category:Types of Zionism. Most Zionists in America, while not all Christian Zionists, largely, according to the recent Harris-Harvard polls, believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish national homeland, and that's probably the common meaning that many people refer to as Zionism. The lead, while impressively sourced, needs to be doing a better job of WP:BALASP of Zionism to explain that Zionism is not one movement but a set of movements, and also has become used as a slur to refer to Jews and Jewish groups according to recent institutional changes such as that at NYU. The groups such as J Street in the United States shouldn't be lumped in with some 1930s research that yes, is indeed a part of the history of Zionism, but is taking undue center stage in the lead as written. Andre🚐 03:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. The thing in itself as described by the best academic sources is the way to go.Dan Murphy (talk) 03:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. But the current lead is cherry-picked to tell a very specific and narrow story about Zionism that isn't NPOV. Consider the following sources from Cambridge.

• Formulated by Theodor Herzl, Political Zionism affirmed the supra-national nature of Jews, holding that all Jews shared a common legacy and tradition... over the course of the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, several varieties of Jewish nationalism emerged. They included Cultural Zionism, which called for a group of Hebrew-speakers to develop a spiritual center in the Land of Israel, Socialist Zionism, which sought to blend Jewish nationalism with utopian socialism, Marxist Zionism, which united class struggle and nationalism, and Mizraḥi, which hoped to stem the secularism of other established varieties of Jewish nationalism.
• Zionism, the Jewish national territorial movement, sought to create a modern Jewish society and polity that would ensure a high cultural standard and a cultural market that would meet all the needs of that society – in Hebrew.
• Zionism is a variety of Jewish nationalism. It claims that Jews constitute a nation whose survival, both physical and cultural, requires its return to the Jews’ ancestral home in the land of Israel. Throughout most of its history, however, Zionism was far more than a nationalist movement: it was a revolutionary project to remake the Jews and their society. It was part of the great political convulsion that wracked the western world during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite the vast differences between them, social democracy, communism and fascism in Europe, anti-colonial nationalist movements in Asia and Africa, and Zionism all strove for a radical transformation of existing political realities, and they espoused utopian visions of social engineering. This was true primarily for Labor Zionism, which arose out of the European leftist tradition, but also characterized bourgeois varieties of Zionism and right-wing Revisionism.
• A complex ideological form, Zionism historically reflected and responded to all early twentieth-century political currents (liberalism, nationalism, socialism, colonialism, and fascism) and cultural styles (art nouveau, expressionism, modernism, Bauhaus).
• Zionism was born out of the drive to find a response to the problems Jews faced as a distinct collective, and its solution was based on defining the Jewish people as a nation with distinctive cultural characteristics entitled to self-determination realized in a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. While Zionism was fundamentally a modernist, dynamic, revolutionary, and secular movement, it recognized the Jewish faith and Jewish history as the source of its formative stories and national cultural symbols. Zionism never entirely suppressed the cultural issue; it rather adopted a moderate stance that manifested itself in several ways. First, the Zionist movement kept the cultural Zionists on a low burner. Second, Zionism spoke in a collective national language and saw itself as speaking for and representing the entire Jewish people, and voicing all its problems and needs. Third, Zionism translated its ethos of unity into democratic procedure. Fourth, the Zionist movement took upon itself to operate in a way that would facilitate civil cooperation and good neighborliness. Fifth, the Zionist movement made a point of stressing the cultural symbols common to and accepted by most Jews.
• anti-Zionism is understood as an opposition not to the policies of the Jewish state but to the existence of the Jewish state. The chapter explains how notions of Holy Land and sacred history are tied to anti-Zionism, how anti-Zionism is tied to a contempt for Judaism, and what this has to do with the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state. Andre🚐 04:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I dont really understand what you're saying. Are you just saying that the lead should describe how the term "Zionism" is used today? DMH223344 (talk) 05:31, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the overview topic of Zionism, the first page, which will have many links to all the various aspects of Zionism, so it should give a balanced and neutral overview of Zionism, the main aspects of Zionism, and a brief summary of its history and impact. Maybe less maybe more. Yes? Right now, the lead is not balancing the aspects neutrally. Andre🚐 05:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, do you have specifing changes in mind? Could you provide an example? Dimadick (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a good question, but I think we're too bogged down with the discussion of editors questioning these apparently reliable sources. I'd love to come back around to something constructive though if we can get past it. Andre🚐 16:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Only two of those sources are specifically about Zionism, 4 and 5 (as in part of the title). As was pointed out in earlier discussions, we should focus our attention only on such sources and there are plenty of them. Selfstudier (talk) 09:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is an arbitrary criterion. What's the policy justification for only using sources with Zionism in the title? Andre🚐 09:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:BESTSOURCES are going to be scholarly material about the topic? Not about other topics, even if indirectly related. As I said, there are plenty of them, why would we need others? Selfstudier (talk) 10:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not a valid argument for excluding scholarly RS about related topics such as the history of Judaism. It's cherrypicking, and there's no policy justification for excluding based on the title of a reliable source that discusses the material in the body, not the title. The many volume Cambridge History of Judaism is eminently reliable and you've not given any valid rational basis for exclusion. Andre🚐 10:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I have, sources that discuss the topic are obviously preferable. Unless there is some specific reason to use less focused sources? What would be in them that are not in the principal sources? Selfstudier (talk) 10:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

History of Israel and History of Judaism are directly related to Zionism, and there are many reasons to use these sources, they are reliable general reference sources which provide a balanced view of the topic, and are in no way novel or polemical. One should expect that in a broad historical topic you will use many sources about the history of the key aspects of the topic. One key aspect of Zionism is that it's Jewish nationalism, so history of Judaism is directly related, which should be obvious. You've offered nothing wrong with the sources, other than a title test which appears nowhere in any policy or guideline. BESTSOURCES says nothing at all about your title test, it is not policy-abiding whatsoever. A much more important policy here is WP:BALASP of WP:NPOV. Andre🚐 10:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

We used the same principle already when reviewing colonialism in earlier discussions up the page. Also you didn't answer my question. That's my 2 cents, not getting dragged into another interminable discussion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

You've not fulfilled the burden of proof for the principle, it appears to fly in the face of any established principle and is arbitrary, and there's no reason to follow it other than justifying what are probably going to be more critical and therefore less balanced usage. Andre🚐 15:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree those aren't the WP:BESTSOURCES (eg, encyclopedia articles are tertiary). Better sources would be secondary sources, academic books focused on Zionism. There is a list at Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict § Zionism. I'd support choosing a few good ones from there and looking at how they frame the typology of Zionism. Levivich (talk) 14:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to take one example, I'm not sure why we'd use, as a source for the Wikipedia article Zionism, Penslar's 2017 article about Israel in a book about Judaism, instead of using Penslar's 2022 book about Zionism. This is what "best sources" means to me: the best source for Penslar's views on Zionism is going to be his 2022 book about Zionism, not his 2017 article about Israel. Levivich (talk) 15:00, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is not what BESTSOURCES mean. Those sources are equally good. See the list here [14] which cites Cambridge History of Judaism as a secondary history. Andre🚐 15:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These aren't encyclopedia articles; they're quite usable here and nobody has furnished an argument that cites anything mentioned in BESTSOURCES. A cherrypicked list is probably how we got these non-NPOV articles. Penslar is one of the authors in the Cambridge sources and also one of the sources you have in that bibliography, also. [WRITING THE LIST ISN't CHERRYPICKING, but demanding REQUESTING WITH INVALID POLICY ARGUMENTS that I use it is [16:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)~]🚐]Andre🚐 15:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)]Andre🚐 15:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, it's literally cherrypicking to say we can't use Cambridge because the BESTSOURCES are a pre-vetted list by a specific editor. There needs to be a policy-based reason not to use Cambridge, not "Zionism isn't in the title." That is clearly cherrypicking. Andre🚐 15:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is missing the point made above multiple times which is that the source should be about Zionism. The history of Zionism is of course NOT the history of Judaism. Is there some overlap? of course, but they are not the same, and anything you choose to include that isnt already discussed as part of a history of Zionism from an RS is OR or SYNTH. DMH223344 (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not OR or SYNTH at all. That is completely not in the policy. Obviously the sources above are ABOUT Zionism, they just don't have Zionism IN THE TITLE. Zionism is a crucial part of the history of Judaism. Andre🚐 15:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Zionism is a crucial part of the history of Judaism sure! I probably agree with this. But is it true that The details of the history of Judaism is a crucial part of the history of Zionisim? Most RS on Zionism would probably not agree since basically every text about Zionism starts in the late 19th century. DMH223344 (talk) 16:08, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Take a look at the quotes from the sources above. They are all about the development of Zionism, not the broader history of Judaism. This is the balance we need. Andre🚐 16:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's look at the second quote you listed above. It emphasizes the cultural aspect of Zionism. The source is "Jewish Cultures, National and Transnational". Of course this source will emphasize the cultural aspect of Zionism, that is the point of the source. Does that mean we should emphasize that same aspect in the lead? Only if it is also emphasized in RS about Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is a chapter of the larger work. It's RS, there's no bounds in policy that RS are not "about" Zionism if the do not have Zionism in the title. That chapter is obviously "about" Zionism. Its exclusion is arbitrary. It is RS as well. Do we have to use that in the lead? Not necessarily. That depends on the discussion and consensus of editors. But is it RS? Yes. Is it usable on the article in general? It should be. Andre🚐 16:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure you can use it in the article in general. But we cant include that same emphasis in the lead if RS about Zionism dont also give the cultural aspect that same weight. DMH223344 (talk) 16:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

For your reference, this is how a book about Zionism describes a cultural aspect of Zionism (from The Zionist Bible, Masalha):

The Zionist movement has appropriated the Jewish religion and regional cultures and traditions of Palestine for its own use. In The Founding Myths of Israel Israeli scholar Zeev Sternhell called the Zionist uses of Judaism “a religion without God” a secular-nationalist religion which has preserved only Judaism’s outward symbols (Sternhell, 1998: 56). Israeli biblical archaeology is a secular-nationalist “civil religion” in Israel. Its nationalist founding godfathers are all secular Ashkenazis and European immigrants to Palestine, who often relied on the Scripture and Written Torah but were unfamiliar with rabbinic Judaism or the anti-literalist interpretation of the Oral Torah, Midrash, Mishna, Talmud and Responsa and thus ignored the rich and complex interpretative traditions of the Midrash – interpretative traditions that encouraged infinite interpretations of the Word of God and eschewed limitations on or definitive interpretations of the Written Torah (Armstrong, 2007: 79–101). As a state-driven “civil religion” designed to create a “scientific high culture” to stand above Talmudic and rabbinical Judaism and supersede two millennia of actual Jewish history and long traditions of rabbinical (Midrash) interpretations.

and from Shimoni: The aspiration towarda renaissance of Jewish culture that was to be accomplished byZionism was predicated on the secularized understanding of Jewishidentity as an outcome of immanent processes in the history of thenation. Religion was neither wholly coextensive with Jewishculture nor its original source; it was merely one of the ingredientsof Jewish national culture.

and Goldberg (A history of zionist thought): A distinctively Jewish culture has yet to emerge in Israel. National art, music, literature and dance are derivative, their several distinguished-practitioners firmly in the tradition of the European or eastern cultures from which they and their parents emerged. Israelis are a well-informed, literate, politic­ally aware, book-buying, theatre-going, music-loving public, whose emphasis on higher education is testimony to the abiding Jewish stress on learning. But such is the all-pervasive influence of cultural imperial­ism in the modern world of mass communication that a small country like Israel can only imitate the tone set by London, Paris or Hollywood. As everywhere else, English is the language of diplomacy, commerce, science, technology and ideas.Significantly, the only specifically Jewish features that distinguish Israeli culture from that of most western societies are atavistic: biblical archaeology; the revival of spoken Hebrew; a proliferation of yeshivot, the traditional Talmudic academies. DMH223344 (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Stanislawski: Crucial, too, is the absence in the Basel program ofany mention of the renaissance of Jewish culture or the Hebrewlanguage, as opposed to “the strengthening and fostering of Jewishnational sentiment and national consciousness”: the former wouldbe objectionable not only to Herzl, Nordau, and the other strictly“political Zionists” but also to the very small minority of delegateswho were traditional Jews or rabbis who rejected any connectionbetween Zionism and any secular, cultural, renaissance DMH223344 (talk) 16:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

"A distinctively Jewish culture has yet to emerge in Israel" surely you must know that other RS will contradict that conclusion, and we must balance that? Andre🚐 20:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should say that in the lead (or even in the article body). I'm just showing you that RS on zionism will emphasize different points than RS on judaism. We should base the lead on what RS about zionism are saying about zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree, and I'd like to understand your policy basis for this, which I would characterize as cherrypicking. Many sources that are specifically about Zionism are more critical. But WP:UNDUE actually says we need to balance the proportion of views in all reliable sources, period, not those which match an arbitrary set of criteria. To continue the discussion though, for the sake of argument, I will go do some research of "Books about Zionism" because I'm sure there are some about what I'm saying, too. Andre🚐 20:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Well I can see very clearly that it's not in all reliable sources "period", it's:

Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.

where "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint" is a key aspect.

Second, the BESTSOURCES to use for a summary of what zionism is are RS about Zionism. That is not controversial. DMH223344 (talk) 20:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

All reliable sources in proportion to their prominence. BESTSOURCES reads: n principle, all articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. When writing about a topic, basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look online for the most reliable resources. If you need help finding high-quality sources, ask other editors on the talk page of the article you are working on, or ask at the reference desk. It in no way supports the principle of only using books with Zionism in the title. Andre🚐 20:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

You think a book about Judaism counts as a better (or even equally good) source for a summary about Zionism as a book about Zionism? DMH223344 (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

How good the source is, is determined by its reliability, how much it is cited, the credentials and reputation of the author and so on. Not the title. So yes, it can be, it depends. Andre🚐 21:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

We are interested in the number of citations by others re Zionism, not something else? We absolutely do want books about Zionism and if those do not contain the material you are trying to rely on from books not about Zionism, that's a big red flag. Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

A lot of great sources seem to have been discovered in 2024. A remarkable coincidence, no doubt. Out of curiosity, what was wrong with the sources prior to October 7 2023? The lede looked a lot different a year ago.

Minor point of clarification, but I am not "requesting ... that [you] use" anything. I do, however, believe this Wikipedia article should be "basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources" (WP:BESTSOURCES) about the topic, which would be books focused entirely about Zionism (as opposed to books about something other than Zionism that mention Zionism). (And, as always, the books should be recent, academic, and written by a recognized subject matter expert.) Levivich (talk) 16:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Lede is fine, RS is used throughout, and NPOV standards are met.

Important also to note that there is an orchestrated campaign on social media by prominent Zionists to change it, unsure if editors arguing for that here are involved in that, but it's important to keep in mind as the page gets flooded with attention. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Unrelated. Andre🚐 20:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron it seems reasonable to consider adding temporary restrictions on the article. What do you think? DMH223344 (talk) 22:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

+1, whole string of disruptive edits lately. Selfstudier (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this, it's being vandalized by those not interested in seeking consensus for any changes and instead driven by the social media coordinated campaign.

Needs a cooldown period for that to blow over, and we can discuss specific change requests in Talk and then move ahead based on consensus. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

All zionism sub-ideologies agree on the core principles of zionism itself, such as the colonization of a land that is inhabited by other pre-dominantly non-jewish population to establish a jewish majority. This is the essence of the zionist project regardless of which kind of zionism sub-ideology you are talking about as stated in reliable sources. the article lead is talking about the core principle of zionism as a whole regardless of the minor differences as between political zionism vs socialist zionism, such differences is to be detailed in the article body, not the lead. Stephan rostie (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Books about Zionism

Although as I explained, the article should reflect the proportion of views relative to their reliability and prominence in all reliable sources, not just "Books about Zionism," and we shouldn't be cherrypicking sources (Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias_in_sources: biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. A neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view.) Here we will search for acceptable "books about Zionism."

• The Zionist idea, recognizing the Jews as a people with rights to establish a state in their homeland,

Thoughts? Andre🚐 20:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I dont understand what you are asking. DMH223344 (talk) 20:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a book source with detailed explanations of all the types of Zionism, take a look at the table of contents. It's a reliable, university press book about Zionism specifically which defines Zionism and its various strains in a more comprehensive and neutral way, to balance with our other existing critical sources. It's by Gil Troy a blue-linked historian. Andre🚐 20:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Add it to The bibliography so that we don't have to constantly repeat what was already previously discussed. Selfstudier (talk) 20:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I just did. So the parts that I think need more fleshing out in this article are stuff like, Jewish renewal revived the national spirit with Israel at the center radiating toward the other Jewish communities. Cultural Zionism not only survived; it became the defining ideology for many Diaspora Jews, especially Americans Andre🚐 20:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Here's my next item. "Anne Perez is an historian of modern Jewish and Israeli history. She earned a PhD in History at the University of California, Davis, and an MA in Theological Studies at Bethel Seminary San Diego" This book is a more Christian perspective rather than a Jewish one. Thoughts? the word “Zionism” initially described a movement to invigorate Jewish cultural, linguistic, and national identity. Zionism has since evolved into a movement with many streams, brought about the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 Andre🚐 21:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Fortress Press is the official publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, so I would expect this to be a christian zionist perspective. This doesn't mean we shouldnt use the source. DMH223344 (talk) 03:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't disagree. But you haven't told me your opinion of the Gil Troy book. Andre🚐 04:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well Gil Troy is not an expert on the topic. But he is of course a Zionist activist. DMH223344 (talk) 04:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Gil Troy, while not the most prolific scholar in this area, certainly is an expert on the topic of Zionism. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 04:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  A historian of US presidents is considered an expert and a BESTSOURCE on Zionism? DMH223344 (talk) 05:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Most historians' work spans multiple areas, and a huge chunk of Troy's work is explicitly about Zionism. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 15:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't cite his book. DMH223344 (talk) 05:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well, is he or isn't he reliable? Or do you believe any Zionist historian is not an expert on Zionism? Andre🚐 05:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• I'll leave one more to chew on before I tear myself away to do something else. Mark Raider, from 1998, I guess it's getting a little old but still seems pretty useful, no? Andre🚐 21:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

In pursuit of a more balanced slate, I've added a number of sources and removed one to the aforementioned bibliography page. Let me know if editors have familiarity with or concerns with these sources.[15] Andre🚐 00:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, fine, how about this one? [16] Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. in the blurb. Andre🚐 05:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

In lieu of discussing individual sources, add them to bibliography, when we're done doing that, I suggest we agree on a subset that we are going to use to settle the various debates, we can't keep on having separate discussions everywhere (some repeated from earlier). Selfstudier (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

This source was already listed in the bibliography in several editions. So, you would agree, it is the BESTSOURCE, right? Andre🚐 11:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would rather wait until we agree on a list and then agree on a representative subset (by vote if necessary). Selfstudier (talk) 11:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

How about we (anyone) pick our top 5 to start with and see if there's any agreement at all? If there is, we could just keep going like that, see where we end up. If there's obviously no agreement, then I guess we will have to vote the list. Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

What's the goal here? We havent even identified a specific npov issue, just general concerns raised by an editor and a bunch of new accounts. DMH223344 (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Same old, same old..."The" definition, colonization/settler colonialism (maybe), the land without Palestinians thing, etcetera...go to the best sources and settle these issues once for all (or for a while at least). Selfstudier (talk) 18:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Only other option is some sort of RFC (or more than one) and we'll end up debating the sources anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

At least improve the citations in the lead. Ideally, the entire lead should be sourced or source-able to five (or however many) best sources. As the saying goes, "write what the sources agree on," and I'm confident that five (or however many) best sources will agree on, eg, what Zionism is, what the key aspects of it are, what the current debates about it are, etc. Improve the citations to where everything is sourced to five (or however many) good sources, and that'll answer the perennial NPOV objections (eg, "that's just what the Arabs/Jews say!"). Levivich (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 September 2024

Please change:

"Zionism[a] is an ethno-cultural nationalist[1][fn 1] movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe.[4][5][6][7] It eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine,[8][9][10][11] a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism,[12][13][14][15] and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.[16] Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became the ideology supporting the protection and development of Israel as a Jewish state and has been described as Israel's national or state ideology.[17][18][1][19][20][21]"

to:

"Zionism is the Jewish nationalist movement, also a settler colonial movement , whose objective was establishing a Jewish homeland. Initially, Zionists sought establishing their homeland within Africa, Asia, or South America. Eventually, they decided upon the historic homeland of the ascendants of the Jewish people, the Israelites and Judaeans. Eastern Europe Jews fleeing persecution settled within Palestine with the aim of establishing a homeland. During the 1936-39 Palestinian Arab revolts, Zionists specifically sought the establishment of a single Jewish state with a majority Jewish population. Palestinian and Israeli New Historian scholars argue that Zionism entailed maximising the number of Jews and minimising the number of Arab Palestinians; whereas, Zionist scholars note a multitude of positions including supporting an Arab-Jewish federation with full minority rights, a Jewish state from the river to the sea, a partitioned Jewish state, or locating elsewhere. In modern times, (Revisionist) Zionism has become the national state ideology of Israel which can be considered either an ethnic democracy, or an ethnocracy." Aaron Ulixēs (talk) 23:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC) Aaron Ulixēs (talk) 23:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It could be worse, honestly, I'd say it's a pretty good version. What are the other side's concerns? Andre🚐 00:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

"The other side"? 🤦‍♂️ IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:53, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Meaning those who disagree, I assume there must be some. Andre🚐 01:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: under discussion. Levivich (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

"Well, centuries are what it meant to me / a cemetery where I marry the sea / a stranger thing could never change my mind / I gotta take it on the otherside."

• Zionism is the Jewish nationalist movement[1][2] - it's a Jewish nationalism movement, not 'the' only one; WP:BRITANNICA shouldn't be used
• also a settler colonial movement[3][4][5][6] - do we have consensus for this in wikivoice? I know it's been discussed before, I'm not sure what the latest consensus is, but Zionism as settler colonialism doesn't say it in wikivoice; the sources cited are weak (papers, not books, making arguments, not describing academic consensus)
• Initially, Zionists sought establishing their homeland within Africa, Asia, or South America. Eventually, they decided upon the historic homeland of the ascendants of the Jewish people[8], the Israelites and Judaeans. - fails verification against source 8 (which is not about Zionism anyway)
• During the 1936-39 Palestinian Arab revolts, Zionists specifically sought the establishment of a single Jewish state[9] - fails verification against source 9, p. 117
• ... with a majority Jewish population. Palestinian and Israeli New Historian scholars argue that Zionism entailed maximising the number of Jews and minimising the number of Arab Palestinians[10][11][12][13][14]; whereas, Zionist scholars note a multitude of positions including supporting an Arab-Jewish federation with full minority rights, a Jewish state from the river to the sea, a partitioned Jewish state, or locating elsewhere[15]. - 5 sources for the first part, 1 source for the second part, that's how you know it's false balance; these two parts don't belong juxtaposed like this, it's WP:SYNTH; and, the second part fails verification against source 15 anyway
• In modern times, (Revisionist) Zionism has become the national state ideology of Israel which can be considered either an ethnic democracy[16][17], or an ethnocracy.[18][19][20] - Not just "in modern times," not just "(Revisionist)", and "either" is WP:SYNTH
• This is too "in the weeds" for a first paragraph; doesn't really follow the guidance of WP:LEAD
• At the same time as it's too specific in some areas, it completely omits other key aspects of Zionism (like, for example, the creation of Israel, or the date when Zionism was established)
• Too many citations (as with the current lead), ideally we should have none

These are some of the other side's concerns. Levivich (talk) 02:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Generally agree with most points. Andre🚐 02:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not appropriate to call Zionism a "settler colonial" movement, especially as the usage of those words / terminology in the 19th Century / early 20th Century sense is completely different to how those words are used today in 2024. Would a single mainstream Zionist in 2024 regard themselves primarily as a "settler & colonialist" such that it's so central to their Zionist entry they'd even include in in their first sentence of their description of themselves?? No, of course not. Because the meaning of those words today in 2024 has zero connection to the modern Zionist identity. So it shouldn't be there in the first sentence of the wikipedia article. Mathmo ^Talk 10:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

What we include will be determined by reliable sources and it is not necessarily the case that we would include how Zionists view themselves unless it is that reliable sources agree with that. As I said in #Books about Zionism above, we need to stop endlessly discussing this and decide on a set of best sources to resolve the different issues. Selfstudier (talk) 10:25, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

At one stage we did get as far, after a lot of discussion, as #RFC Workshop: WP:DUE definition of Zionism in the lead and at that time these was a consensus for the current lead more or less, then we set off on these repetitive discussions once again. Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mathmo, as well, the lead is not NPOV as it reads now. I've been busy working on the bibliography. Andre🚐 11:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

especially as the usage of those words / terminology in the 19th Century / early 20th Century sense is completely different to how those words are used today in 2024.

do you have a source that says “colonialism” in the 20th century means “completely different” thing from its meaning today or thats your personal hypothesis ?

I mean for example Zeev Jabotinsky writes:

“A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else-or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!… Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important… to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot – or else I am through with playing at colonizing.”

it is obvious that what he is referring to “colonialism” is what we know as colonialism today in 2024. He is describing what we today in 2024 identify as colonialism.

Would a single mainstream Zionist in 2024 regard themselves primarily as a "settler & colonialist"

of course not, mainly due to the popularity of Israel’s nationalistic and foundational myths that emerged later, which much of it was refuted by New Historians in academia (Sabbagh-Khoury, 2022). These foundational myths obviously dont change earlier history in 19th and early 20th century which existed before even zionists decide whether they would establish the zionist project in Ughanda or Argentine or Palestine. Stephan rostie (talk) 11:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all points here. I'm not following what the improvements are supposed to be in this new lead. It's far too specific in some instances (possible homelands, ancestry of Jews, 1930s revolts) and mixes tenses too much. I like the current lead a lot and see no reason to replace it. Dan • ✉ 01:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Bat Signal

Noticed page views for this article more than doubled from the average yesterday. Had a look around. Israel Hayom and JNS (of "fighting Israel's media war" fame) both ran an article labeling this article "antisemitic" and Wikipedia at large a "hate site." So it goes, so it goes.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dan Murphy, there's also been a bit of Twitter activity which can be taken as the tweets authors' canvassing people to the article. Ps, do you have links for those articles. TarnishedPath^talk 13:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It's the same article, published at the two sites. This is the JNS link [17]. The two activists making the accusations in the article are Hen Mazzig and Blake Flayton. In the case of the former, the article is quoting him from his twitter account.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

"Blake Flayton, a vocal commentator on Jewish and Israeli issues, responded to the post, calling the changes “egregious” and urging someone with expertise to edit the page to reflect what he considers to be a more accurate portrayal". This frankly makes me slightly less inclined to AGF for any new editors who show up. TarnishedPath^talk 13:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Assume nothing about a new editor seems to be a better strategy in the topic area as far as I can tell. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe this view might provide some reassurance about the latest spike. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

What a lesson in the importance of perspective! Levivich (talk) 16:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

What happened in May? Levivich (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Think maybe that was the start of the colonialism/settler colonialism discussions (Archive 22)? Selfstudier (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it's a delayed signal caused by the publication of the World Jewish Congress report in March and the subsequent reporting. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

See also:

• War over Wikipedia’s Definition of Zionism Pits Provoked Users Against Biased Editors, Jewish Press, 17 September

Contains a link to Keep Wikipedia Honest (I love how they say "Scholarly sources are alright as well"). Andreas JN466 21:20, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, this line is hilarious "I’ll share a secret with you: back when Zionism was established, colonies were not a bad thing." -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Or rather they weren't considered a bad thing. The meaning of the word hasn't changed from then until now, it's rather the perception of the removal of power from local inhabitants and their often displacement which has. TarnishedPath^talk 05:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think they were considered a bad thing by some :-) Levivich (talk) 05:27, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

National self-determination (which colonisation is obvoiusly the antithesis of) was pushed by Lenis and Wilson, during and after WW1, but if memory serves me correctly it only became a big thing in the aftermath of WW2. I guess that's the period we are referring to though. TarnishedPath^talk 05:36, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant it's only the colonizers' perception of colonies that has changed; the colonized always considered colonies to be a bad thing. Levivich (talk) 06:25, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't argue with that. TarnishedPath^talk 06:37, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Best sources

Source list

1. 16 GS cites Amar-Dahl, Tamar (2016). Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine: Jewish Statehood and the History of the Middle East Conflict. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110498806. ISBN 978-3-11-049880-6.
2. [too new] Conforti, Yitzhak (2024). Zionism and Jewish Culture: A Study in the Origins of a National Movement. Academic Studies Press. ISBN 9798887196374.
3. 34 Engel, David (2013) [2009]. Zionism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-86548-3.
4. 1 Forriol, Mari Carmen (2023). Development of the Roadmap of Political Zionism in the State of Israel. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5275-1260-3.
5. 28 Gans, Chaim (2016). A Political Theory for the Jewish People. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-023754-7.
6. 17 Halperin, Liora R. (2021). The Oldest Guard: Forging the Zionist Settler Past. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-2871-7.
7. 75 Masalha, Nur (2014). The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-54464-7.
8. 10 Penslar, Derek J. (2023). Zionism: An Emotional State. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-7611-4.
9. 85 Dieckhoff, Alain (2003). The Invention of a Nation: Zionist Thought and the Making of Modern Israel. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12766-0.
10. 19 Wagner, Donald E.; Davis, Walter T. (2014). Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land. Wipf and Stock. ISBN 978-1-63087-205-2.
11. 31 Brenner, Michael (2020). In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-20397-3.
12. 59 Black, Ian (2017). Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-8879-3.
13. 33 Stanislawski, Michael (2017). Zionism: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-976604-8.
14. 1,021 Sachar, Howard M. (2013) [1976]. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (3rd ed.). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8041-5049-1.
15. 65 Alam, M. Shahid (2009). Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-10137-1.
16. 153 Gans, Chaim (2008). A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534068-6.

Discussion

Here's 8, for discussion. They are (1) overviews of Zionism (2) published in the last 10 years (3) by subject-matter experts (4) by academic presses. These four criteria aren't necessarily the best criteria, and these 8 sources aren't necessarily the only ones that meet it, but I took a crack at putting together objective criteria that gives us a source list under 10. Additions? Removals? Other thoughts? Levivich (talk) 18:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

4 and 8 are on my list. Selfstudier (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd advocate for 3 and 7 based on those authors being very widely cited (same with 8). (No objection to 4 or any of the others of course.) Levivich (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

For sources generally about Zionism (for the details, I would include other sources):

1. Avineri, Shlomo (2017). The Making of Modern Zionism. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-09479-0.
2. Shimoni, Gideon (1995). The Zionist ideology. University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press. ISBN 978-0-87451-703-3.
3. Dieckhoff, Alain (2003). The Invention of a Nation. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12766-0.
4. Flapan, Simha (1979). Zionism and the Palestinians. Croom Helm. ISBN 978-0-06-492104-6.
5. Gorny, Yosef (1987). Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822721-2.
6. Masalha, Nur (2014). The Zionist Bible. Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-54465-4.
7. Sternhell, Zeev (1999). The Founding Myths of Israel. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00967-8.
8. Penslar, Derek J. (2023). Zionism: An Emotional State. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-7611-4.

When discussing the details (is zionism colonialism? what was the conquest of labor? What was zionisms relationship to diaspora jewry? What was the relationship between the zionist movement and the british mandate administration?) we would have to bring in other sources for sure. Some authors I would include are Rabkin, Yadgar, Shapira, Shafir, Khalidi, Roy, Shlaim, Morris. DMH223344 (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for suggesting these! My thoughts:

• I completely agree with you on relying on other sources for the details
• 6 and 8 on your list are the same as 7 and 8 on the #Source list, looks like we have some leaders emerging
• As I always say, I think sources from the 70s, 80s, and 90s are too old to be useful for our purposes. Anything important written in sources of the last century will surely appear in the "best" sources of this century. So, yeah, Flapan's work, as an example, is landmark in this topic area, but literally everybody writing in the topic area already incorporates it, so we don't need to go back that far. I really think we want the modern view, and a 30-year-old book can't give that to us. So I'd strike 2, 4, 5, and 7 as being too old.
• I'm not sure about #1 as being an overview (it's good for details).
  • First, it's really a book written in 1981, with a new preface and epilogue added in 2017 -- so not an actual "2nd revision" that was revised and updated throughout, although the author says updates are in the epilogue.
  • Moreover, Avineri in the 2017 preface: As stated in my original Preface, this volume is not a history of Zionism. My aim is more limited: to delineate a number of aspects of Zionist thought, as expressed through the writings of selected nineteenth- and twentieth-century individuals. I think we want sources that are a history of Zionism, and not sources (for general overview purposes) that are more limited to delineating the thoughts of certain selected individuals. This source is still excellent for many purposes of the body, but I don't think we can say it's one of the best modern overviews of Zionism, given the author expressly says it has a more limited aim.
  • It's not published by an academic press. Now, I know that many established scholars publish academic works via non-academic presses. And even though I chose "academic press" as one of the criteria in putting together my personal list, that doesn't mean we have to all agree with that. It may be that we don't want that as a criteria. But of not, it opens the doors to many more works that then should be listed.
• #3 hits all the criteria and should be on the list, so I'll add it as #9

Thanks again for suggesting more sources! Levivich (talk) 19:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

All of these are probably good for abstract analysis/interpretation, but it should be obvious to any careful reader that #5, #6, and #8 were composed without the benefit of any real ability to read Hebrew, and #8 with the additional handicap of no Arabic whatsoever. So be very careful using them for specific historical claims or quotes that don't match more technical works. I also second the Stanislawski rec in other comments. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Which list are you referring to? IIRC Zionism and the Arabs was sourced largely from primary Zionist sources. DMH223344 (talk) 23:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I meant #3, not #5. I haven't read Zionism and the Arabs. not sure how I messed that up. GordonGlottal (talk) 01:40, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Stanislawski 2017 added as #13. Levivich (talk) 02:24, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think Levivich's list is a good, balanced list. Andre🚐 21:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would submit that we could introduce a source like In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea by Michael Brenner for consideration, even though it doesn't have Zionism in the title, it's clearly mostly about Zionism, it's published by a top tier academic press, and it and he are widely cited. Similarly, Khalidi (The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is his most recent work AFAICT) is AFAIK the most widely-cited writer in his particular niche and field, even though his work is filed under Palestine, I think we are remiss not to include Khalidi. The "title test" AFAIK is synthetic and arbitrary. We should ignore titles, much like we ignore WP:HEADLINEs, and focus on the content of the material regardless of whether the title name-checks the ideology it's analyzing. We may or may not need to use that source and maybe the exercise is cleaner to do without those sources for now and reintroduce them or other sources later. But also, isn't the point of the lead that it will eventually not have citations? Andre🚐 00:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Sources that make the connection between Zionism pre and post Israel would be useful too. Selfstudier (talk) 09:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the business with Zionism in the title arises because of the complaints about "definition" so it seems logical to get that from books about Zionism specifically and in depth. For subsidiary matter, I don't think that's absolutely necessary but I would still be wary of introducing minority viewpoints as if they were mainstream, provided things are well articulated in the article body and then accurately summarized, it would be better in the end to dispense with lead citations and make it clear by notes that the lead has consensus and ought not to be substantially changed without a new one. Selfstudier (talk) 09:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

"Seeming logical" is good, but not if it leads to a cherrypicked list of sources, which can be an unintentional blind spot. For example, in this list, can you identify any historians representing Zionism proper? Which is to say, wouldn't it be logical, if we're compiling a source list of the best sources, to determine representation and balance, and we've included a number of representatives of different academic schools of thought, and Nur ad-Din Masalha, a Palestinian anti-Zionist, shouldn't we also include a mainstream, anti-revisionist Zionist historian? Perhaps several from Israel, given that many of the world's Zionists are in fact Israeli, and many of the world's experts on Zionism are Zionist historians? Don't get me wrong, it's a good list and pretty balanced. I think Yitzhak Conforti is great to include, as I mentioned, he argues that Zionist was a cultural and not just a political project. I proposed two sources in the discussion above, the Gil Troy book and the Anne Perez book, I can see that maybe those don't have as many citations or as prestigious a publisher. I'm sure though if we look hard at all the sources recently added to the bibliography, we could find a few more that we're leaving out. For example the Dmitry Shumsky book. Andre🚐 14:51, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If the list of sources is agreed by consensus, what we are in the middle of doing, it is not cherrypicked, is it? Selfstudier (talk) 14:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Cherrypicking isn't related to consensus, cherrypicking would be a blind spot in our selection of sources. Andre🚐 15:14, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

A consensual blindspot, then. Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's possible for a group of people to collectively cherrypick, even to do so unintentionally and in good faith. But I think as long as our list is compiled based on objective, and content-neutral criteria, then we can avoid that risk of unintentional cherrypicking. This is one of the reasons why when I pick sources, I like to do it without first reading the source (beyond maybe the table of content, preface/intro, or back cover blurb)--so that I'm picking the source based on author, publisher, date, topic... but not based on, e.g., what this book says about colonization or whatever.

I added Brenner 2020 to the list as #11, I think it meets all four criteria.

Perez I didn't include because her book wasn't published by an academic press. I think I said before, "academic press" doesn't have to be a criterion, but if it's not, then there are other books that should be on the list along with Perez. A separate quasi-objection (mild objection) is that Perez's credentials aren't, at least in my view, on the same level as the credentials of the other authors we're looking at, e.g. Engel, Penslar, etc. Maybe I'm judging her too harshly on this point.

Troy's book isn't an overview of Zionism, at least in my view, it's an overview of different kinds of Zionist thought. I think it's a solid source for Types of Zionism, and a solid source for use in Zionism when we talk about types of Zionism, but I'm not sure it meets the "overview of Zionism" criteria (which, again, doesn't have to be a criterion if people don't agree it's a good one to use).

Same with Shumsky's book: it stops at Ben-Gurion, so doesn't give that full end-to-end overview of Zionism from conception until modern day. Again, a good source to use for the topics that it does cover (Zionism up to Ben-Gurion), but I'm not sure it meets the "overview" criteria.

Khalidi's book, I find this to be a difficult case. On the one hand, I'd say it's not really focused on Zionism, so much as it's focused on the I-P conflict. It starts in earnest in 1917, for example, and has very little about Zionism before that (and there's a lot of significance that happened pre-1917 in Zionism). On the other hand, he does cover Zionism pre-1917 to some extent (in the intro, in the beginning of Chapter 1), and then post-1917 there is of course a huge amount of overlap, maybe even 100% overlap, between Zionism and the I-P conflict. So I don't know where to draw the line between Zionism and the I-P conflict, and where Khalidi's book falls on that line. But I do feel like if we include books like Khalidi's, then there are lots of other books that should be included, too, books that may be about the I-P conflict but cover Zionism. I'm thinking about, e.g. works about the history of Israel (e.g. Shapira) or the Nakba (e.g. Manna). I'm curious what others think about this category of books, and where the boundary is between Zionism and Israel and I-P conflict.

BTW, I do not think a book has to have "Zionism" in the title to be about Zionism :-)

Also I want to mention that I don't think, and I don't think anyone else thinks, that this list should be exclusionary -- meaning, we shouldn't use sources not on the list in the article. I think the purpose of the list is to be a starting point -- a list of sources we all agree are among the WP:BESTSOURCES -- but not an end point, e.g. not an exhaustive list of all wp:bestsources. Levivich (talk) 17:19, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Nevertheless, we still need to come up with the scope ie the title plus the opening sentence(s). Maybe we should start lifting out from the selection so far, what their version is of scope/definition. Selfstudier (talk) 18:12, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for adding Brenner. That logic works for me to exclude Perez, Shumsky and Khalidi for now. And I think you are clerking fairly. I'm not sure that Black is writing in an academic press, though. Is he? Andre🚐 21:56, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Good question. I think so; Atlantic Monthly Press is an imprint of Grove Atlantic, which looks like it publishes both academic and non-academic works (including under the Atlantic Monthly Press imprint and its other imprints). At the bottom of their website pages [18] is a section "Academic Info." They publish textbooks. They publish novels, but also history and science books. I'm not 100% sure what makes a particular publisher an "academic press" tbh. But the book has footnotes and it looks like an academic book to me? What do others think? Levivich (talk) 02:36, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Fine to call it an academic press, but then we should include Howard Sachar's A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, which was updated with a 2nd editon in 2013, and while it wasn't put out by Princeton or Yale, it was published by Knopf Doubleday Andre🚐 05:15, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

3rd edition, not 2nd, and 2007, not 2013, according to the title page, unless there's a 4th 2013 edition?

There is nothing magical about "last 10 years," I don't have an objection to including books from 2007, but if we do that, there are several others I would suggest.

The other thing about Sachar's book that kind of perplexes me is that it doesn't have any footnotes. I've always considered footnotes to be one of the hallmarks that separates an academic work from a popular work (history v. pop history). But I feel silly saying that Sachar's 1000-page book that's in its third edition, in print for 30 years, is not an academic book because it doesn't have footnotes. So I guess the lack of footnotes doesn't matter? What do you think, both about this book in particular, and about going back to 2007? Levivich (talk) 05:31, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It has a set of endnotes and a bibliography, which I'd say is good enough (used to be good enough on Wikipedia, too), but if people feel strongly about footnotes, I'm willing to compromise. I would agree though if a book has neither footnotes nor endnotes nor a bibliography, it should be excluded. As far as the year and the edition, hmm, that is an unusual discrepancy. This google books entry lists 2013, which is getting copied to the cite toolbar output, but I see 2007 on Amazon, the page on Penguin's site lists a blurb apparently from 2nd edition, and the year 2007. I'm fine to call it 2007 and extend our reach to 2007. If we do, perhaps we could include Walter Laqueur also which would bring us back to 2003 for an even 20 instead of 10 year. 2003 still feels pretty recent to me, after all, that's when I started editing Wikipedia. If bibliography but not footnotes works, I'd also offer the Martin Gilbert book Israel: A History which was published by an imprint of HarperCollins in 2008. Andre🚐 06:28, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

We must not get too old maybe, Israel, although reluctant still to release pertinent archival documents, has nevertheless released many and we want modernish histories that have taken advantage of that. Gilbert's book was originally printed in 1998 and although updated a bit since, I think it is out of the picture, tbh.

How about we set a cutoff at 2000? For best sources I mean, not others that may suit for subsidiary details, Gilbert might still work for that. Still somewhat arbitrary but we should set one somewhere, I think. Selfstudier (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

2000 is fine with me. Andre🚐 20:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Me too. Levivich (talk) 20:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I added #14-16: Sachar 2013, Alam 2009, and Gans 2008; I don't think we've previously discussed the latter two, pulled them from the main bibliography page. Levivich (talk) 22:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd object to Alam. He's an economist, not a historian, or a Mideast specialist. Andre🚐 22:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Objection noted, but singling Alam out on the given reason is incoherent, because were not being an historian the criterion, then you would have to object to Gans as well, which you don’t. Both have written highly original analyses of Zionism. You do not have to be primareily an historian to write about any ideology’s development. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

In my humble opinion, and others can respectfully disagree, a political philosopher and law professor has expertise to bear on the development of a political ideology, but an economist is a bit outside of the relevant subject area. Alam doesn't seem to be particularly widely cited nor are his credentials particularly impressive, either; I don't see this as a BESTSOURCE comparable to the others. Andre🚐 23:44, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the GS cites Levivich added, Gans has roughly twice as many cites in the same period of time. and some of the cites to Alam are themselves not terribly reliable, or ones that are, are critical of him or at least a non-endorsement, such as this reference in Brenner: , Northeastern University economist M. Shahid Alam, who denies Israel’s right of existence, suggests: “A deeper irony surrounded the Zionist project. It proposed to end Jewish ‘abnormalcy’ in Europe by creating an ‘abnormal’ Jewish state in Palestine. . . . Clearly, the Zionists were proposing to trade one ‘abnormalcy’ for a greater, more ominous one.” Zionists and anti-Zionists, Israelis, and opponents of the Jewish state seem to agree on one thing: Israel is different from other state Andre🚐 00:11, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

First sentence of Alam's preface: Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism? This is easily explained. Whether the explanation convinces anybody is another story, but I added GS cites to the list, and Alam's cite count seems in the same range as everyone else on the list. Qualitatively, Alam's cites includes people like Pappe, and the Brenner 2020 book that's on our list. Gans has more cites, including Penslar 2023 that's on our list, and people like Bashir and Sa'di. In the end, I'm fine with either/both being included or excluded, but I do think we should have objective criteria that applies to the whole list. For example, compare Dieckhoff, Wagner, Engel, or Gans 2016. Economist, sociologist, philosopher, lawyer... none of these are historians, but I'm pretty ambivalent about whether we limit the list to historians or not, and whether we have some sort of minimum citation cut-off or not. (And it's true, being cited doesn't mean being cited with approval, but I haven't looked into any of these deeply enough to form an opinion on the favorability of citations for any of these works.) Levivich (talk) 00:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

What about including someone like Dershowitz, then? Andre🚐 00:18, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh hell no. Levivich (talk) 00:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Completely understand the reaction, but I don't see Alam as different, equally polarizing, and problematic. Andre🚐 00:46, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Dershowitz's work is in no sense an RS. DMH223344 (talk) 03:50, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure it is, in his area of his expertise, which I believe is American constitutional law and criminal defense law. I generally wouldn't cite him for Mideast, and I wouldn't cite economists. Some sociologists, but I'd prefer to cite reputable historians and political scientists. I think political philosophers are OK. But if we agree Dershowitz should be out, we should not include Alam as a BESTSOURCE either. Andre🚐 04:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Did Alam also write a book which is now widely recognized to be a fraud? DMH223344 (talk) 04:44, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

One of my private beefs with the literature is the relative neglect of the King-Crane Commission Report, though this may reflect a poor memory or careless reading over the decades. I am reminded of this by the recent discussions on Zionist intentions, awareness of dispossession etc. To me it is important because King and Crane actually did groundwork on Balfour's proposal, travelling the land, interviewing major Zionist figures about their intentions, the contradiction between Zionism and Wilsonian self-determination, and they also consulting the local population. Their report was finalised in 1919 but under pressure from both the British government and Zionist agencies it was suppressed, and was not made public until the Versailles and Mandate policies had been formalized for implementation, too late. The actual text is as follows:-

• King–Crane Commission Report 1919 (see in particular pp.35ff.

And if the criterion for bibliographic inclusion is work published in recent decades, then the story is recounted in

• Donald E. Wagner, ‘The Mainline Protestant Churches and the Holy Land,’ in Donald E. Wagner, ‎Walter T. Davis (eds.),Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land Wipf and Stock Publishers 2014 ISBN 978-1-630-87205-2 pp.139-174Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Added as #10, thanks. Levivich (talk) 05:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-241-00443-2 is worth considering, despite not a perfect formal fit with the four criteria. Thouigh professionally defined as a journalist, Black had a PhD based also on doctoral work in Israeli archives. He was also bilingual in both Hebrew and Arabic, something few specialists we cite can boast of. It may not have Zionism in the title but it is a history of that movement from its Balfour inception.

While noting that Peter Beinart announced today he'd finished his forthcoming (January 28 2025) Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, PenguinRandom House 2025 ISBN 978-0-593-80389-9, I thought that his

Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism, Melbourne University Press 2012 ISBN 978-0-522-86176-1 should find a place, if not in the primary bibliography. Beinart has the right academic background and is indeed a professor of journalism.

These are only suggestions and, given the extraordinary proliferation of books of quality, there is good writerly reason to select a restricted base or core for a complete redraft. But that done, supplementary works which finesse the details can be culled from works like the above.Nishidani (talk) 16:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I think Black's book hits the criteria, and despite its title, it actually starts at 1882; I'll add it as #12.

I look forward to reading Beinart's new book -- as I look forward to reading the rest of your sentence there :-) ("I thought that his...", what a cliffhanger!)

As for The Crisis of Zionism, it strikes me as too modern-focused to be an "overview of Zionism". Also, no footnotes, I always think of books without footnotes as being "not academic" even if they're published by a publisher that publishes academic works like Henry Holt. Maybe I'm wrong about the no-footnotes thing? Levivich (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I just want to say that although I've been adding to the list and disagreeing with some suggestions, I am volunteering as clerk, not as gatekeeper, so everyone else should please feel free to add/strike items on the list, nothing needs my personal approval, and nobody needs to accept the particular criteria I've suggested. Levivich (talk) 17:33, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Ça va sans dire, Lev, as they would say in my present surroundings. I agree with your exclusion of Beinart's Crisis, and thanks for adding Ian Black's book. A fine scholar and wonderful man by all accounts, apart from being scrupulously neutral and even-handed and I should make a mental note to improve his wikibio when I get back to my study, if the gorgonzola doesn't get the better of my arteries in the meantime.:)Nishidani (talk) 19:36, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

We've occasionally used the following

• Gudrun Krämer, A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest until the Creation of the State of Israel, Princeton University Press, 2008 ISBN 9780691150079

It lacks Zionism in the title but basically covers in a broad brush survey the historical background to the creation of Israel. It's 22 years old, coming out in the original German edition of 2002, i.e., written essentially before the Al-Aqsa Intifada, and reflects her particular specialization in Islamic thinking. If you compare it to the magisterial, in my view (so far) definitive, account of the history of the rise of Zionism and the subsequent conflict, in gritty balanced detail using all of the contemporary Western/Israeli scholarship together with abundant Arabic sources, namely the 5 volume work by Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine Fayard 1999-2015 then Krämer and so many other excellent sources begin to look thin in their selective syntheses. It is so good the Western publishing world has exercised great sedulous alacrity in not undertaking an English version. So it remains there, in 3000 pages of French, with a zillion footnotes, unusable for us because we cannot give as a keynote reference something most readers and editors probably cannot access and check for verification. For those who can but haven't the time to read the original masterpiece, he has just come out (a week ago) with a 700 page synthesis, Question juive, problème arabe (1798-2001), Fayard 2024 ISBN 2213725985, which I have on order.Nishidani (talk) 11:32, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I have a general concern about including books about Palestinian history, Israeli history, and the history of the I-P (or A-I) conflict. I personally have a hard time differentiating between "history of Zionism" and "history of [modern] Israel," and there is no doubt that histories of Palestine and of the conflict would cover the history of Zionism as well. But my fear is "opening the floodgates" in terms of... well, if we include Kramer's history of Palestine, then what about Pappe's, Khalidi's, etc. etc.? Same goes for histories of Israel: there's Morris, Shapira, and many others. I feel like we should make a categorical decision one way or the other? (Brenner 2020, currently on the list, is titled as a history of Israel, but it's clearly the history of "the idea of Israel," a.k.a. Zionism; still, I have a hard time telling the difference between Brenner 2020 and Shapira 2012, to take one example. Check out their table of contents, it seems almost the same.)

As for Laurens book -- I have no objection to including it... as long as someone here has it, and can read it, and has the time/interest in reporting on what it says :-) Levivich (talk) 17:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I can access the book(s) through my libraries if people want stuff from them. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Language in the lead - Consensus??

There's a note claiming that there's consensus about this language, but I don't see that consensus anywhere. I just see an unresolved dispute:

"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible."

This language is very confusing and misleading though technically correct. Yes, at some point in history more than one Zionist had this goal. But early Zionists hadn't even agreed upon Palestine let alone having few Palestinians there. So, It needs clarifying language.

Which Zionists wanted this, and at what point in history?

I suggest this change:

"By 1948, mainstream Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible."

-- ~~ Bob drobbs (talk) 10:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Refer to Talk:Zionism#Revert. TarnishedPath^talk 10:15, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Ps, the note was added by @ScottishFinnishRadish at Special:Diff/1246182977 after a discussion I had on their user talk at User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish#Full protection at Zionism. TarnishedPath^talk 10:18, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bob drobbs: see Biltmore Conference. Wellington Bay (talk) 10:21, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

While it may be true today that "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" it was not until the Biltmore Conference that there was a broad consensus among Zionists for the creation of a separate Jewish state as opposed to a Jewish homeland which isn't necessarily a state with a Jewish majority. The statement " Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" is too absolute and needs to be modified either by indicating a time (ie "by the end of World War II") or by indicting that this was not a unanimous position, or even initially the dominant position. Wellington Bay (talk) 12:54, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) was published in 1896. Uganda Scheme was 1903. Decades before Biltmore. Levivich (talk) 14:31, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you're making my and Wellington's Bay's Point.

If in 1903, Zionists leaders were calling for a state in Uganda, then why does is this sentence at the top of the lead imply that Zionists through history sought to usurp land in Palestine and cleanse Arabs? Uganda isn't in Palestine, and Ugandans aren't Palestinian Arabs.

If this sentence is going to remain at all it does need to be qualified with a timeframe and a clarification of which Zionists had this goal at that particular time.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 20:44, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The answer to "why is it there?" is "because that's what the sources say."

To your substantive point: how many leaders called for a state in Uganda, and how did the Zionism movement respond to those calls? Did they agree, or did they reject it overwhelmingly in favor of Palestine? And if it's the latter, what does that say about whether Palestine was the goal in 1903 or not?

More to the point, we are, right now on this page, in the middle of working on rewriting the first sentence (or confirming it's fine the way it is, if that's how the sources shake out). Check out the thread right above this one, where we're gathering sources for this endeavor.

By the way: the Basel Program was adopted in 1897 and remained in effect through the founding of Israel 50 years later. "In Palestine" was an official goal of Zionism from the beginning, and when one leader (Herzl) suggested otherwise, he was damn near thrown out. Levivich (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The Uganda Scheme was for a Jewish homeland, not a Jewish state per se (and as Bob drobbs points out, Uganda isn't Palestine). While Der Judenstaat called for a state, Herzl was not fixed on a location - the book suggested Argentina or Palestine and in any case, regardless of the name of Herzl's tract, the (World) Zionist Organization's original stated goal was for the creation of a Jewish homeland, not necessarily a state. Wellington Bay (talk) 20:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich: The Basel Program states: "Zionism seeks to establish a home in Palestine for the Jewish people" - note the use of the term "home" rather than "state". Wellington Bay (talk) 20:57, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Shlaim: The Basel Program stated, “The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.” By adopting this program the congress endorsed Herzl’s political conception of Zionism. The Basel Program deliberately spoke of a home rather than a state for the Jewish people, but from the Basel Congress onward the clear and consistent aim of the Zionist movement was to create a state for the Jewish people in Palestine. In his diary Herzl confided, “At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.”3

RS in general describe zionism as aiming for a jewish state from the outset.

To be clear, even the biltmore program didnt use the phrase "jewish state" (it said "commonwealth") but it was understood at the time and is understood by historians now as being the first public and official declaration of the aim of a Jewish state. DMH223344 (talk) 21:02, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Der Judenstaat is literally called "The Jewish State." Also, if you read about Zionism, you'll learn that early Zionists intentionally hid their true intentions to create a state as a political maneuver; there's a reason Basel said "home" and Balfour said "homeland," that was calculated, and there was a particular point where the Zionist leaders decided to publicly start saying "state" instead of "homeland," and reasons why they chose to do so when they did. But their private correspondence, their diaries, letters, etc. -- which we all have access to now, and which secondary sources summarize and analyze -- make it clear that it was always a state. Those sources by the way are the same ones that are cited in the article for the sentence you're questioning.

Interpreting primary source documents is not what editors are supposed to do. We summarize secondary sources, particularly for this reason: so that we don't read and believe that what the primary sources say is true, when there are other primary sources that contradict it. Leave the historical interpretation to the experts. Stick to discussing what secondary sources say. That sentence is cited to 10 sources. If you think it's wrong, please support your argument with some secondary sources. Levivich (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

"even the biltmore program didnt use the phrase "jewish state" (it said "commonwealth")" - A commonwealth is a term for a state. From Wikipedia's article: In the 17th century, the definition of "commonwealth" expanded from its original sense of "public welfare" or "commonweal" to mean "a state in which the supreme power is vested in the people; a republic or democratic state". Conversely a "homeland" or "home" is not synonymous with "state" but is a much vaguer term and within the Zionist movement prior to the Biltmore program (and even after) there were Cultural Zionists who did not advocate for statehood and also binationalists such as Hashomer Hatzair who advocated a joint Jewish-Arab state. The reason the British used the term "home" in the Balfour Declaration and successfully advocated for that term to be used instead of state at the San Remo Conference is because the British did not want to be committed to a Jewish state rather than a homeland. Indeed British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon wrote "[W]hile Mr. Balfour’s Declaration had provided for the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, this was not the same thing as the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish National Home—an extension of the phrase for which there was no justification"[19] and French Prime Minister Millerand wrote after San Remo that France “had never admitted that Palestine could become a Zionist state or that a Zionist regime could be established in Palestine.” To the contrary, it had always made clear, "in the most explicit way, that Jewish groups would not enjoy any degree of political, civil, or religious rights superior to those of other populations or Christians or Muslims. . . . At the San Remo conference, the explanations exchanged between Lord Curzon and myself left me in no doubt on these points." So "national home" is not the same thing as "state". Wellington Bay (talk) 23:02, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That can be your interpretation, on wikipedia we argue with sources, not be providing our interpretation of primary sources. DMH223344 (talk) 23:30, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a talk page, not the article, and I am responding to Levivich's interpretation of primary sources such as Herzl's Judenstaat, the Biltmore Program, and the Basel Program. Wellington Bay (talk) 23:38, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not interpreting primary sources, I'm telling you what secondary sources say about them (if you read about Zionism, you'll learn...). Read about Zionism. If you have questions or concerns about that sentence and its accuracy, the place to start is with the sources cited. That's what the reference are there for. That's what the quotes are there for. Levivich (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

So your misunderstanding of the term "Commonwealth" as not meaning a state and misreading of the Basel Program as advocating a state is based on secondary sources and not your own misinterpretation? Um ok, sure. Wellington Bay (talk) 00:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

You are confusing me with DMH, I didn't say anything about "commonwealth." That "Der Judenstaat" means "The Jewish State," and what I said about the Basel Program and the Uganda Scheme, is all from secondary sources, yes. (DMH quoted one.) Levivich (talk) 00:32, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't say much for the quality of your secondary sources if they interpolated the term "state" into the Basel Program when it used no such term. Wellington Bay (talk) 00:37, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

That was Theodor Herzl who interpolated the term "state" into the Basel Program when it used no such term. DMH quoted Avi Shlaim above: The Basel Program deliberately spoke of a home rather than a state for the Jewish people, but from the Basel Congress onward the clear and consistent aim of the Zionist movement was to create a state for the Jewish people in Palestine. In his diary Herzl confided, 'At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.' (Herzl was right: in 50 years, everyone knew it, though after 100 years, some conveniently forgot it.)

This is a great example of why Wikipedia uses secondary sources. High-quality scholars like Avi Shlaim, they know that, even though the text of the Basel Program said "home" and not "state," Herzl admitted in his diary that he meant "state" but had to use "home" instead. Shlaim, due to his subject matter expertise, is able to combine multiple primary sources and interpret them together. Shlaim doesn't make the mistakes that many Wikipedia editors make of reading one primary source and being ignorant of other relevant primary sources. That's why Wikipedia publishes summaries of high-quality secondary sources, rather than the analysis of editors. Levivich (talk) 00:59, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

This is what the top listed source says:

" in the 1948 war, when it became clear that the objective that enjoyed the unanimous support of Zionists of all inclinations was to establish a Jewish state with the smallest possible number of Palestinians"

Do you have objections to adding the appropriate context given by the reference source - "In the 1948 war..."?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 00:20, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it's great that after a two year break from editing Wikipedia, you've returned to discuss this particular sentence. Welcome back!

Of course I object. How many quotes are there for that first source in that bundled citation? 3. And how many sources are cited? 10. So yes, I'd object to picking one quote out of three from one source out of then and then changing the sentence to match just that one chosen quote. I object even more to your describing this as "appropriate context." I think you know that one quotation is just one of many cited there. Levivich (talk) 00:27, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich Yeah, this sentence just seemed egregiously bad.

There are indeed a bunch of sources. None of them individually, nor do they collectively imply that every Zionist throughout history wanted to create a state in the Levant and ethnically cleanse as many Palestinian Arabs as possible. So do you have any suggestions to fix it either so that it accurately represents at least one of the sources or correctly summarizes them in their totality?

A simple clarification of which Zionists, wanted which of these things, when, shouldn't be too much of an ask.

Here's one idea: "Various Zionists at various points in history had goals including..."

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 21:17, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a common mistake in these discussions to think that when we say "zionists" (or "zionism") we mean "every zionist ever". That's not what that means. It reflects the usage of the terminology in RS. That's why we use the terms this way. DMH223344 (talk) 21:27, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence is bad and misleading. Early modern Zionists wanted a Jewish-majority state, that's a better way to explain what they wanted. It also ignores that Zionism is more than just early modern Zionism. Andre🚐 00:17, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

"That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question." - Avi Shlaim Levivich (talk) 05:02, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, but presumably there are some other equally reliable historians like Morris who would criticize his contemporary commentary, I'm guessing. To state something like that flatly in the lead should have a consensus of academics beyond reproach or impeachability, that is my view of what a lead is. A lead is supposed to be pretty boring and uncontroversial. The fact that you read that sentence and raise your eyebrows, despite perhaps being literally true of many Zionist leaders such as Jabotinsky, is a sign that it's not a good sentence for paragraph 1. It might be more defensible in the body, and attributed, and balanced and contextualized. Andre🚐 05:05, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

"As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years." - Hillel Cohen. The fact that the sentence makes you raise your eyebrows says nothing about the whether the sentence is correct. I'd suggest that it means the sentence is educating you. Levivich (talk) 05:08, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said, many preferred a state with a large Jewish majority and therefore small Arab minority, but the wording of the current phrase in the article, is worded in such a way that makes it sound like they knew about Arab individuals and personally wanted to remove them, which is a stretch. Andre🚐 05:12, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not a stretch. They did know about the Arabs, they called it "the Arab Question," and they knew that they were displacing the Arabs.

This is neither surprising nor controversial. Of course Zionists wanted as much land as possible. Obviously!

And of course they wanted the largest Jewish majority possible in that land. Obviously.

And of course that means the smallest Arab minority possible. That's the only way to get the largest Jewish majority possible. It's a zero-sum game.

What people don't like about the sentence is that it says it plainly: the Zionists wanted as much land, as many Jews, and as few Arabs as possible.

People don't like reading that because it makes it sound like the Zionists wanted to take land from Arabs and kick them out of the land.

Well, guess what, that's what Zionism always was. It was always about taking land in Palestine from the Arabs so that it can be used for a Jewish state, and that means a state with as many Jews as possible, which means removing Arabs from the land. That's Zionism. I know it makes it sound like Zionism is a bad thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say? That's what the damn ideology is: it's about taking land from other people and giving it to themselves. The scholars are extremely clear about this, even Zionist scholars like Morris are extremely clear about this. The fact that people find it surprising or uncomfortable just means they're ignorant about what Zionism is. Fixing that ignorance is the purpose of this article.

BTW, I don't have a problem with making changes to that sentence. In my opinion, it doesn't have to say "state". And it doesn't have to say "Zionists wanted," it could say something more like what Morris says, like "Inherent in Zionism is the desire for as much land with as many Jews and as few Arabs as possible," or something like that.

But there is no need to be euphemistic about, as Masalha put it, "maximum land and minimum Arabs." That's a key part of Zionism, as Morris says, inherent in the ideology, from the beginning, and it's the whole thrust of the enterprise. The whole point is to take land from Arabs (by purchase, by grant of imperial powers, by force, however it had to happen) and give it to Jews. There is no avoiding this uncomfortable truth. Levivich (talk) 05:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not looking for a euphemism, but Zionism isn't a monolith. It's true that the harder liners and many Zionist leaders had no trouble with violent displacement if that were to be an option, as it became so. I'm not looking to hide that fact from readers at all. But the current phrasing ignores the fact that many people in the Zionist movement were simply buying up junk, poor quality land, land that was only even allowed to be sold to Jews by the Ottoman authorities because it was junk land and the Arabs were selling that land willingly. Those people were also Zionists, just a different strain. Andre🚐 05:21, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Those people still wanted as much land as possible with as many Jews and as few Arabs as possible. That sentence doesn't say or imply anything about violence or the use of force, it just states what the goal was. Levivich (talk) 05:33, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

That fact is not in evidence AFAIK; while many or most Zionist leaders wanted that, it's not at all clear that all Zionists rank and file wanted that. Many were refugees or religious pilgrims or the poor and they didn't know or have an opinion on the majority but wanted a place to go. I'll certainly stand corrected if you have a source for the rank and file and the poor Zionist refugees' ideologies being Arab-exclusionist. I know that is true of some prominent Zionists, but it doesn't say that AFAIK about every last stinkin random Zionist moving to small agricultural colonies for decades, some of whom weren't up on any kind of intellectual current of thought. Andre🚐 05:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I think (and suggested at #Revert) that it be changed from "Zionists wanted" to something like "Zionism wanted" or "inherent in Zionism" -- I agree this goal should be ascribed to the ideology or the movement, and not to individual Zionists.

Although Adel Manna does say explicitly "The Zionists," and, by '48, "unanimous support of Zionists of all inclinations". Cohen says "many," Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury say "most" and "the mainstream". The others (quoted in the citation) ascribe it to leaders, policies, the ideology, or the movement.

But I still think a more faithful summary is to ascribe it to the ideology/movement rather than to individuals, or at least not suggest all Zionists.

I'm curious to see how the "best sources" frame it. Levivich (talk) 06:09, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

"But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority." - Benny Morris himself. Note, and I've pointed this out on the page before, that he says it's inherent in Zionist ideology, and that it's "in Zionist praxis From the start of the enterprise," that it's the "underlying thrust of the ideology." This is, as Shlaim said, not open to question. There's a lot that Nur Masalha and Morris disagree about, but not about this. Levivich (talk) 05:11, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Although, in our discussion below, I do not think Shlaim nor Morris has become part of the BESTSOURCES list, have they. When we get to the source survey I think we would be writing something like this sentiment, just phrased better and more neutrally. The facts are facts and I'm not disputing facts, but the wording is not worded to explain the complexities, which it oversimplifies and glosses over. Andre🚐 05:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

We agreed that we weren't going to limit this article to just the BESTSOURCES list, but, I do agree this sentence should be revisited as part of the BESTSOURCES source survey to see if they say the same thing or something different. Levivich (talk) 05:38, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Neutral is what the balance of sources say, not what we think is "neutral". Ditto complexities, if there are any, they will be in the sources and not merely opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:36, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich Please keep your personal views out of this. We should be looking at the RS. And there are lots of RS which say that groups of early Zionists were opposed to statehood and other Zionists looked at a state in Africa, not Palestine. So, your claims here just are not true:

"...that's what Zionism always was. It was always about taking land in Palestine from the Arabs so that it can be used for a Jewish state, and that means a state with as many Jews as possible, which means removing Arabs from the land. That's Zionism. I know it makes it sound like Zionism is a bad thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say? That's what the damn ideology is:"

Above you referred to this from a RS:

"That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question"

So, are you okay with updating the text to reflect that source?

"Most Zionist leaders wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land..."

I read the lead again and I think the timeframe is clear enough based on the context. So I think the one change would be sufficient.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 17:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Once we have the sources we will decide this as well as the other issues, this back and forth is not useful at present. Selfstudier (talk) 17:21, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

That's fair.

But it seems clear there isn't consensus around the current text. Are you okay with it being removed from the article until after all of these issues are addressed?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 17:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a consensus, it says so right in the text, an admin recorded that here so there is presently no consensus to remove it at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Note - I edited my own comment. I read through the Revert section in here again. It seems there was consensus, but there was consensus on the text proposed by Levivich. Not really consensus about the text currently on the page.

I don't think that Levivich's is perfect, but I think it's certainly better than what's their current. Are there any objections to making the change to the text which had agreement below swapping "Zionists" with "Zionism"? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 15:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Levivich mentioned the following as a possible alternative to "Zionists", that the article should convey that this was an inherent part of Zionist ideology, of Zionism itself and then in this section they said But I still think a more faithful summary is to ascribe it to the ideology/movement rather than to individuals, or at least not suggest all Zionists. So that's not quite the same as just swapping out to "Zionism". Levivich also said that I'm curious to see how the "best sources" frame it, I am equally curious and why I said above Once we have the sources we will decide this as well as the other issues, this back and forth is not useful at present. Is there some desperate hurry to address this now? Selfstudier (talk) 16:36, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier As I said up top, I think the current version is very misleading. That's why that's why I think we should move forward on an interim fix rather than letting this version sit as-is until some future version is (hopefully) agreed upon. I think by swapping just a couple of words ("Zionism" vs" Zionists") it would be both less misleading and closer to what there was previous consensus on.

@Valereee As I said, above I don't love Levivich's version but I think it's an improvement. I'll keep following along and probably contributing. I'm curious what people can collectively come up with to accurately pack a bunch of sources viewpoints on an ideology that a bunch of shifting views over time and a bunch of dissenting voices into a sentence or two. I could be mistaken, but this seems like a difficult, if not impossible task, which highlights the need for an interim fix while waiting.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, to respond directly to your question, yes, I object per my reasoning above. In addition, the difference between Zionists and Zionism is not that much to get excited about tbh, I see no need for an interim fix. Selfstudier (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bob drobbs, there is no urgency to polish the language. Editors here could spend hours getting language polished that may end up being completely revised in the end, which means they'd have been wasting their time making your interim fix. And multiple people coming in here and demanding such interim fixes can quickly become disruptive to the process of creating the update. There's a reason this talk page is semi'd. It's because we know editors with fewer than 500 edits may not understand the process of working in the most contentious areas. You're going to need to respect that process. Valereee (talk) 20:25, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, this page is currently under a consensus required restriction, but there doesn't really seem to be a consensus for the current text. Andre🚐 20:28, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to try to figure out what there's consensus for or against here. If you think there is consensus for something and other editors here are refusing to follow it, show what that consensus is. Preferably in as few diffs as possible.

The entire community is hyper aware of the problems in this CTOP, and some of the accusations of cherrypicking I'm seeing from you over the past week or so are making me wonder if you're going to be a net positive here. You've been making these accusations of cherrypicking over your argument that a list of BESTSOURCES about Zionism shouldn't be limited to a list of books primarily about Zionism when (as far as I can tell from this behemoth of a discussion) no one else seems to be arguing that books on the BESTSOURCES list are the only sources that can be used, period. Let's ignore the question of how that actually falls under the definition of cherrypicking: your basic argument feels like nitpicking, and nitpicking here -- especially at a point when people are trying to develop a vision and an overall plan -- is probably not productive. Valereee (talk) 11:29, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee, the current leading sentence was added in July and has been maintained through edit warring, despite strong opposition on this talk page. There was never consensus on the new framing of 'colonization of a land outside Europe.' A quick look at the edit history will show what I mean. The ongoing opposition stems from controversial changes made without consensus, not from any other issue. I have yet to see a source that defines Zionism as we do on Wikipedia after this forced controversial change. Previous discussions (now archived) with quoted sources have clearly shown that the earlier description was more in line with the majority of sources, while the 'colonization'. WP:ONUS suggests that those seeking to change an article should achieve consensus (possibly through an RfC at this point), yet in this case, and only in this case, it seems to be working the opposite way. ABHammad (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Lots of things have happened since July, no need to go looking in archives, see #RFC Workshop: WP:DUE definition of Zionism in the lead for example, being the final round of 5 on this subject before we started to look at best sources in an effort to address recurrent issues. Of course, no-one is preventing an RFC if anyone thinks that's the way forward. Selfstudier (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

ABHammad, I've found that a quick look is seldom really a quick look. :) What may seem obvious to you after having contributed here for six months is not likely to be obvious to me at this point. I'm not here to take a side on content or decide who's right. I'd really prefer not even to close RfCs but leave it for someone else to come in and do that. I'm really only here to deal with behavioral issues. If you believe there is consensus for something that other editors are refusing to follow, show that, preferably with as few diffs as possible. Something like diff where consensus was found to change X to Y, diff of me making that change, diff of editor Z reverting is the kind of thing we need to see. Valereee (talk) 12:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Valereee, I'm engaging in the discussion of BESTSOURCES below, and I agree that only BESTSOURCES are not the only ones should or can be used. I believe there are more issues with the current article than just nitpicking and it seems I'm not the only one that feels that way. It would be unintentional cherrypicking to write a lead section about Zionism that seems to exclude any mainstream Zionist historian's perspective for mostly critical work. A balanced article would include both. That's a legitimate perspective. I continue to believe the current article has a NPOV balance issue. Andre🚐 13:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee the semi has expired on this talk page. TarnishedPath^talk 03:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

TP (or anyone), if disruption starts up from non-EC editors, ping me. Valereee (talk) 11:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bob drobbs, if you'll familiarize yourself with the discussions on this talk page, you'll see that editors here are preparing to do a rewrite. If you are primarily interested in changes like "change Zionist to Zionism in paragraph X", it might be better to give them a chance to do their rewrite, then circle back in a few weeks to help tweak. Valereee (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

And there are Christians who are atheists, etc.Zionists endorsed consensually the idea of making a homeland/state for Jews in a land that was 90-95% Arab. They all knew what that implied or would entail. That is what Zionism meant. One cannot talk one's way around sources, and history.Nishidani (talk) 21:31, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Looking for feedback on history section

If you have time, please read my draft rewrite of the history section. Specific suggestions and feedback are welcome on the associated talk page in bulleted form. Thank you. DMH223344 (talk) 16:37, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

"Traditionalist Jews strongly opposed collective Jewish settlement in Palestine," - that's overstating what the source claims and misleading. I would strongly oppose using a new draft. Please propose and make changes incrementally to the existing article, word by word sentence by sentence (since this article is under the consensus required restriction) so we can see everything that will added, removed, or changed, that is the Wiki way. Andre🚐 20:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

"The Talmud does take up the right of individuals to settle in Israel, but there is a con­sensus against collective settlement." ?

There's plenty of quotes from Rabkin that also support it Traditional Jewish culture discourages political and military activism of any variety, particularly in the Land of Israel... In the traditional view, settlement in the Land of Israel will be brought, about by the universal effect of good deeds rather than by m ilitary force or diplomacy... The Talmud (BT Ketubot, 111a) relates the three oaths sworn on the eve of the dispersal of what remained of the people of Israel to the fourcorners of the earth: not to return en masse and in an organized fashion to the Land of Israel; not to rebel against the nations; and that the nations do not subjugate Israel exceedingly... The idea of return to the Land of Israel achieved by political means is alien to the idea of salvation in Jewish tradition.

and from shapira (also cited on that line): To ultra-Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, the idea of Jews returning to their homeland flew in the face of the fate decreed for them. To them such an act ran counter to the three oaths the Jewish people swore to the Almighty: not to storm the wall, not to rush the End, and not to rebel against the nations of the world, while the Almighty adjured the nations of the world not to destroy the Jewish people.4 They saw an attempt to bring about redemption by natural, man-made means as rebelling against divine decrees, as Jews taking their fate into their own hands and not waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Consequently ultra-Orthodox Jews vehemently opposed this perilous heresy. DMH223344 (talk) 20:57, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

But please take these comments to the corresponding talk page. We can bring in the commentary into an archive here when the discussion is done DMH223344 (talk) 20:59, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

So, no, this is the talk page where changes to this article need to gain consensus; I'm not going to participate on your user draft page. And as the fuller quote you pasted shows, it does not contain the sentence or a substantially similar paraphrase to "Traditionalist Jews strongly opposed collective Jewish settlement." Traditionalist Jews means more than simply ultra-Orthodox Jews, so "ultra-Orthodox" would be the wording you want for Shapira, and I don't see "strongly oppose" but "discourage" in Rabkin. There were indeed anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews and there still are today. But you need to contextualize that with other context and other sources. Rabkin is not one of the BESTSOURCES we agreed on; while reliable in general, he represents an anti-Zionist view and should be balanced. You should contrast this material with how it's presented in more mainstream sources. Andre🚐 21:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I've swapped out "traditionalist" for "ultra-orthodox" so it reflects shapira more closely. It is quite mainstream to introduce zionism as a revolt against tradition, as I've done in that opening paragraph. DMH223344 (talk) 21:23, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

There are many issues to object to in this draft. For example, simple errors in naming, you've written Hebrewization of Names, which is commonly referred to as Hebraization of surnames, Leo Pinsker, instead of Leon Pinsker. Your draft removes all the content in the current version under "Historical and religious background" and "Pre-Zionist initiatives," it doesn't mention Moses Montefiore, Judah Touro, or much at all about the First Aliyah. I continue to believe that the way to improve the article is not in forking a brand new draft with some significant issues, but to edit incrementally and gain consensus for each change. Andre🚐 00:13, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

1. Morris and Avineri also use "Leo"
2. Yes, I've followed RS to determine where I start discussing the history of zionism. You can confirm that most secondary sources on Zionism will start with the same period I did.
3. I do discuss "forerunners to zionism." Interestingly, the section titled "pre-zionist initiatives" in the currently published article totally misses the thinkers and movements usually referred to as prezionist. I have not checked every source cited in that section, but it seems pretty clear to me that it is not the mainstream narrative to include these as prezionist efforts.
4. As for individual prezionists, we have to draw the line somewhere, and I'm happy to have a discussion about inclusion of additional thinkers.
5. Discussion of the first aliyah was pointed out by another editor to be lacking as well.

Really, thanks, this was good feedback. If you have the time, read the rest of the article too, I think you will find that it tracks the mainstream narrative quite closely. DMH223344 (talk) 01:01, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

(I have multiple old and new sources for both Leo and Leon Pinsker.) Back on topic, there is a problem with the backwards projection of modern ideology onto the past. Essentially all ideologies create a myth that their forerunners thought the same way, and this is true also of Zionism. Claims that Zionism was a predominant ideology in the past often fall apart on close examination. For example, rabbis who wrote about the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Israel were often referring to the time after the arrival of the messiah, but this detail is frequently elided in Zionist literature as also is the fact that those rabbis were not proposing a secular state and would probably have been horrified by the idea. Uncomfortable facts about secular forerunners, such as the fact that Pinsker argued literally until the day he died that Palestine was not the destination Zionists should aspire to, also tend to be omitted. We should look for sources that tell a more factual and transparent story. The fact that Zionism in its early modern stages was vehemently opposed by the religious community in Europe has to be included. Zero^talk 04:44, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, while I see that you are both correct that many sources use Leo, the point is to wikilink the entry using the WP:COMMONNAME. That is maybe a small nitpick, but a good example of how articles are built by the wisdom of many people using a collective process, and not one person taking a draft and saying how's this to replace the article with. It's a hard no no matter what the draft says, in my humble opinion. Andre🚐 04:46, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Until about 10 years ago, Leo was more common than Leon. However I wasn't able to find a source that investigates the disagreement. The correct thing is to link directly to our article on the person and leave commonname discussions for over there. I think this is far too petty to indicate anything at all about the value of DMH223344's work. Zero^talk 05:19, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

My point was in the draft attached, he used the name without a link at all, and it wasn't the name that we use in the article. This would pose a major problem if we were to import this text. Overall, the text as is is not an improvement. Andre🚐 05:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

If that's a "major problem", the minor problems must need an electron microscope. Zero^talk 05:30, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I understand why you say that, because it seems small in the scheme of things. What I mean is that constructing an article is a complex process of creating a multifarious semantic graph over time. That's why it's a collaborative project done over time by many people, and not monopolized by an individual or a small group, or a small group of sources. So a blind spot could be in forgetting to link Leon Pinsker or in not knowing that Hebraization of surnames is already an article. The proposed draft has significantly fewer blue links and significantly less information on certain aspects of Zionism. This is the overview article of Zionism and includes a smaller history section, but we also have History of Zionism as a main article for that, this article also summarizes Types of Zionism and links to the main article. So I think the proposed draft suffers from a narrowed scope and a paucity of informational breadth. Andre🚐 06:56, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

As long it is not affecting a recently agreed consensus no reason why someone can't do a rewrite in summary style if they want to and also no reason why it can't be reverted or edited with good reason either. Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

We can of course add additional wikilinks. That's not challenging or time consuming. DMH223344 (talk) 15:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

If anyone is able to access this source, can we add a few sentences about malaria in Mandatory Palestine and how it was tied to the Zionist movement?[20] The malaria and both Zionist and Palestinian contributions to combatting malaria helped make the region a safer place to live. Israel Jacob Kligler was the pioneer in malaria eradication, and there was also Tawfiq Canaan. DMH223344’s draft looked mostly ok to me until it got to the part about land purchases and Jews getting 40% of the fertile land. Early settlers were initially sold land that had high malaria levels which turned out to be fertile lands and help map the current state of Israel.

Here’s another source about Jewish colonization and malaria https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-020-09402-4

Wafflefrites (talk) 05:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally I think that this article should focus on Zionism as an ideology, and not get into too much detail about the historical development of Palestine. We have plenty of other articles for that. In the 19th century, pretty much everywhere in the world with the right climatic conditions had malaria. See this map of the United States in 1882 for example. Some of the land purchased by Zionists was malarious and some wasn't. Some of the land not purchased by Zionists was malarious and some wasn't. Zero^talk 06:51, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

In any case this discussion should take place on the draft page. Andrevan is wrong is asserting that all wiki pages are done by piecemeal line by line consensual edits. With complex articles numerous editors have been given leeway to rework them into shape and this indeed is how GA/FA articles are mostly done, with one or two editors at the helm in a redraft. Slim Virgin and myself, to name but a few, have done this without objections and the resulting texts have proved to be stable, without the endless bickering over minutiae which is characteristic of too many areas of wikipedia. The main editor here has consistently worked on this article and workpage collaboratively, and hisseveral editors have followed the work on his draft page. So go there, and, rather than make TLDR arguments, bullet points one thinks need further examination.Nishidani (talk) 12:41, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Which RS about the history of Zionism cover this detail? DMH223344 (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

“ Sufian bases her title on the traditional Zionist slogan of "healing the land" as a means of "healing the nation." This ideological axiom of the Jewish national movement held that transforming the land and transforming the Jewish people who moved to Palestine were inseparable objectives.” [21]

Maybe one sentence about malaria is enough. Eradicating malaria was one part of the “healing the land” Zionist ideology. Wafflefrites (talk) 16:37, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

That sounds very niche. Land "redemption" is often discussed in RS about Zionism and Zionist ideology. But "healing" the land (whatever that means) does not sound like a key component of zionist ideology or praxis according to RS which give an overview of Zionism.

I'm not necessarily opposed to its inclusion. But a single sentence on this would really come out of nowhere. In the middle of the description of the Peel commission you want to include a sentence about how some zionists saw themselves as "healing the land" which had high rates of malaria?

If this omission is your main issue with the draft, then it sounds like the draft is in pretty good shape. (also there's no mention of malaria anywhere on the currently published article) DMH223344 (talk) 17:06, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

it’s how the Zionists argued for their land policies to the British. The slogan is “havra’at hakara” which means healing the land or also “havra’at Haaretz “. Redemption of land is Geulat Haaretz.[22] Wafflefrites (talk) 19:25, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

havra’at hakara should be havra’at hakarka. One could note this but it is rather complex since those early Zionists saw 'healing the land' as a technique of 'healing the Jewish people', so the physical effort of cultivation the land was conceived of as a mode to redeem the physically (in the racial terminology opf that period in which much of this argumentation is embedded) degenerated Jews of the diaspora. That is one reason some 60,000 were deselected for aliyah by 1914, because they were deemed unfit to become good material for the kind of new muscular Jew being imagined by Zionists. Touch one minor point and one must draw in contexts that demand broader treatment. Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Colonization or decolonization

I admit to being banned from Wikipedia edits, but I'm not banned from talk pages. I'm not appealing my ban at this time. I also admit to being pointed here by news coverage of the X posts about this article.

I think the sources support

... aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization or decolonization of the Levant.

Reasoning:

1. Being outside of Europe is not a core tenet of Zionism. It was mostly to be in Palestine, but leaving the location out entirely also seems appropriate.
2. I'm not sure of the early history of Zionism, but there was, for example, the Kingdom of Judah - and some Zionists now justify the state of Israel as removing colonizers after that period. More research is needed as to the prevalence of that viewpoint.

OK, I admit to being a Zionist, so I wouldn't make this edit, even if I weren't banned.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

This is in process of discussion above, along with identification of best sources. Selfstudier (talk) 10:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

If we could all reason and edit according to our own lights then we would not be editors on wikipedia, where original research is excluded and one must simply be dragomans for the best received specialist literature on any topic.Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Penslar on colonialism/settler colonialism

Assuming we all agree that Penslar's latest missive qualifies as a best source, at Part II Zionism as Colonialism (p 67-96), I lifted out some pertinent quotes

"There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism. Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation."

"Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self- determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land? And second, has Israel been willing to integrate into the Arab Middle East, or is it determined to dwell in isolation, buttressed by alliances and cultural ties with Western powers?"

"In many ways, the debate about Zionism and colonialism still operates within the terms that Said established." [1979 Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims]

"One final introductory point: Zionism and Israel are not identical. Zionism is a nationalist project that originated almost 150 years ago and whose relationship with colonialism is as variegated as the subforms that we examined in the last chapter. Linkages between policies of the Israeli state and colonialism are more clear-cut, but we need to determine, rather than merely assert, that these policies were formulated in the name of Zionism and what Zionism has meant to Israelis in positions of power."

"Of all the varieties of Zionism discussed in the first chapter, Statist Zionism is most clearly linked with colonialism because of the alliances its leaders sought with the West’s Great Powers"

"Zionism’s strongest links with colonialism lie in attitudes and practices toward Palestine and the Palestinians."

"There are, in fact, good reasons to place Israel within a settler-colonial framework, but that framework requires considerable expansion, both geographic and conceptual, beyond what is commonly found."

In the Conclusions

"Our comparative examination of colonial indigenization places Zionism within a settler-colonial matrix while allowing for its particularities, like a celestial body with an eccentric orbit around its sun." "The questions underlying this chapter, like its predecessor, are about Zionism’s most essential and salient qualities."

Also worth looking at Penslar's earlier thoughts on the matter and Cole's analysis of it in Colonialism and the Jews Selfstudier (talk) 09:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Those are very pertinent and germane quotes. In particular, Penslar points out in this excerpt you've helpfully highlighted that Zionism's relationship to colonialism is very much a matter of scholarly debate. When there's a debate amongst sources Wikipedia should highlight it as well. Andre🚐 14:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Definition

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Is the current definition in the first line WP:SYNTH? We should be using definitions given by the best sources and dictionaries, not synthesising our own. The last sentence in the lede could merge with the first few sentences if we were to go with the many definitions that don’t use colonisation? Kowal2701 (talk) 12:49, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

This specific, along with all the other related issues, is already being discussed in relation to best sources in the sections above. No need for another separate discussion. Selfstudier (talk) 12:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Statist Zionism?

It says in the article "Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the prominent architect of early statist Zionism" but in Types of Zionism it says that Jabotinsky is associated with Revisionist Zionism. Penslar, p47 "Statist Zionism’s distinguishing characteristic is a focus on Jewish self-determination as the keystone supporting all other forms of Zionism......"Initially, Statist Zionism did not necessarily demand a sovereign state for Jews in Palestine." Is this a "Type" of its own or a convenience terminology? Selfstudier (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That's a great question. I'd say it's not a separate altogether distinct type. Statism itself is a political tendency which in this case describes Political and Revisionist Zionism. Andre🚐 14:29, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

archiving

Would anyone object to setting the archives to 15 days (from thirty) for now? Valereee (talk) 17:15, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

None here. I was about to raise this, too, I would advocate for sending a bunch of these threads to the archives now. I think the "RFC Workshop" thread, from July, being resurrected in September, has been disruptive (like: let's ignore two months of work?), and that's the harm that letting old threads sit on these (active) talk pages can cause.

So I'd archive:

• #Colonial project? - this giant thread from this past summer, riddled with now-blocked socks, is stale
• #Recent additions done against consensus, and request to get collaborative - from last month
• #Revert - started by a blocked sock, only use is to document consensus for one particular sentence (it can do that from the archives)
• #Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 September 2024 - edit request doesn't have consensus and has been superseded by further discussion
• #Bat Signal - stale
• #Colonization or decolonization - duplicative
• #Definition - duplicative
• This thread once a decision is made

Maybe keep:

• #NPOV balance issue in lead - I think it's duplicative but it's also recent
• #Language in the lead - Consensus?? - same

Definitely keep on this page as fresh/ongoing:

• #Best sources
• #Looking for feedback on history section
• #Penslar on colonialism/settler colonialism
• #Statist Zionism?

I think it'll help focus newcomers if there were fewer threads open on this page. Levivich (talk) 17:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Could someone perhaps help write a {{FAQ}} for the discussions which has talken place here if archived? Currently VRT get a lot of tickets and email, and I myself at least has pointed to this talk page and urged people to read all discussions- But it would be good to either have a summarized FAQ to point to, or quick snippets to copy+paste as answers, for examples: why do we use the word "colonizer" and not "de-colonizer", and "why have we recently rewritten the entire article"? Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2024 (UTC)