Talk:Zionism: Difference between revisions

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 [1] 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.[2] Andre🚐 00:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, fine, how about this one? [3] 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)

I've pointed out below ("Language in the lead - Consensus") issues with one sentence in the lead which is very misleading and does not seem to accurately represent any of the sources listed individually nor does it accurate sum up their views in their entirety. It also does not seem to conform to the consensus which was agreed to elsewhere.

The responses I got didn't seem to be that there weren't problems there, just a wish to delay any fixes until after best sources were agreed upon.

Thus I strongly support putting up a NPOV notice on this article at least until the issues with that sentence is resolved.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

You mean the as few Palestinians thing? As of now, it is fully sourced and has consensus, tagging something just because you personally disagree with it is not useful, what is your suggestion instead and based on what sources? Selfstudier (talk) 18:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Let me quote you:

" ...the difference between Zionists and Zionism is not that much to get excited about tbh, I see no need for an interim fix."

Just because you don't think that there is a significant different between what there seemed to be consensus about and what was put on the page and that you don't see any need for an interim fix does not mean that there isn't a POV issue there.

Andre and I agree that the page in it's current state has NPOV issues, and Levivich has indicated that he'd prefer that the text on the page to reflect Zionism as an ideology instead of Zionists as a group of people.

I'm not clear if we need to have consensus to add a POV tag to this page or just have multiple people who agree there are issues. What are your thoughts there? Do we need full agreement that there a POV issues before adding the page or just multiple people who see issues?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:42, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd supporting tagging NPOV for now. Also, we have 19 best sources below. Based on that, we could start summarizing how each current chunk of lead text is reflected in each source, ie doing a comprehensive source survey. I am fairly confident that exercise will show that the current lead isn't as neutral as it could be. For starters, participants should gain access to as many sources as they practically can. Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library is a good resource, which should help for the Oxford books, and others are on Google Books or available through libraries. It looks like the Conforti book is too new and it should be available through DeGruyter in November, which hopefully will give access to TWL. However, Conforti has several articles on JStor and Wiley that should be a good stand-in for the Conforti book while its ebook is pre-publication. Andre🚐 20:08, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Not answering the question I posed is OK. Then I have nothing further to add at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 20:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the page has POV issues for the reasons stated by Andre and Bob drobbs. Coretheapple (talk) 22:01, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I can see no clear indication of either what Andrevan or Drobbs mean by an NPOV issue. So it would at this point be useful for either or both to bullet succinctly what they see as an NPOV issue.I say bullet because part of the problem here is that huge threads are being generated without any precise focus. A remarkable amount of words have been spent on discussing a short-list only Levivich and DMH223344 are, apparently, reading. In a normal world, one reads the sources and then one objects, not the other way around.Nishidani (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify what happened at Talk:Zionism/Archive 24#Revert. I added "the sentence" (the most-land/fewest-Arabs one). It was reverted. A discussion ensued. Consensus was found for that sentence, and this consensus was confirmed by an uninvolved admin. During that discussion, I said I thought the sentence should be changed in some ways, but consensus did not agree with my changes, it agreed with the original sentence. That doesn't mean there isn't consensus, and it certainly doesn't mean that there is an NPOV problem. If editors want to revisit that, there's nothing stopping anybody from proposing a change to that sentence. I would support a change from "Zionists wanted" to something like "Zionism sought..." or "Inherent in Zionism was the desire for...", there are many possible alternatives. But right now, the consensus is for the status quo, until and unless somebody proposes something else, and that gains consensus. Levivich (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Since this thread is too long I created a new one below. I saw that others did as well, I was already working on my message though so I didn't realize. Andre🚐 00:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

References

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.
17. 1467 Laqueur, Walter (2003) [1972]. A History of Zionism. Schoken. OCLC 52381659.
18. 264 Shapira, Anita (2012). Israel: A History. Brandeis University Press. OCLC 1298206385.
19. 35 Edelheit, Hershel (2000). History Of Zionism: A Handbook And Dictionary. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-70103-0.

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 [4] 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 primarily 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)

How about adding Walter Lacquer? Andre🚐 04:56, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a 1970s book; AFAICT the new edition is just a new preface, otherwise the rest is the same 1970s book. I could be wrong about that but I couldn't see any differences (and it's not labeled a 2nd edition, which I think is the usual mark of a full update as opposed to a reprint-with-new-preface). Levivich (talk) 04:59, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, withdrawn. How about History Of Zionism, A Handbook And Dictionary, Hershel Edelheit, Routledge, 2019. Andre🚐 05:03, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

LGTM. Levivich (talk) 05:15, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Added per our discussion. Andre🚐 21:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

BTW, it looks like someone else added Lacquer, just noting that wasn't me. Andre🚐 22:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh i added Laqueur and Shapira. Laqueur 2003 breaks Zionist historiography fully away from ideology and hagiography in what is in many ways still the finest overview of the Zionist movement to 1948. Penslar, Derek; Kaye, Alexander. "Zionism from Its Inception to 1948". Oxford Bibliographies. I think it is important to pay attention when authors do some of the work of pointing out the best sources for us. That bibliographic narrative is obviously incomplete in it's considerations for a WP article (and i was going to ask it anyone was aware of any other important bibliographies or reviews) but if Penslar and Kaye say this in an important work to pay attention to who are we to say otherwise? fiveby(zero) 13:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

History of Zionism is not the subject of this article, Zionism didn't stop in 1948. Selfstudier (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

No shit, really? Would have never guessed. fiveby(zero) 14:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

See Post-Zionism. Selfstudier (talk) 14:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"In many ways the finest" doesn't mean "the finest." Levivich (talk) 13:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely. Go ahead and remove all the sources from the list that are not "the finest" in all respects. I fail to see a purpose in your or Selfstudier's comments other than disagreement for its own sake. This selection of best sources is a pretty facile exercise if you are willing to go to so much trouble to ignore those writers who are qualified and who tell us what the best sources are. fiveby(zero) 14:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

They are best sources for a different article, the History of Zionism and then they will make it into this one via summary (of them and others) as is usual in all our articles, not just this one. This is the troubling part of many of these sources, they are historical, few are looking all the way to the present day. Selfstudier (talk) 14:47, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

From the same entry: "Sachar 2007 is mainly about the post-1948 period but provides a useful narrative of pre-1948 events. Shapira 2012 is less comprehensive but more engaging." Sachar was already on the list, but i added Shapira under the assumption (tho not clear and i haven't looked yet) that she is also useful for post-1948. I would have thought that when i said the entry ...is obviously incomplete in it's considerations for a WP article and asked if others were aware of other bibliographies that i was being clear enough. fiveby(zero) 15:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with fiveby(zero). I prefer the longer list and I disagree with the arguments to remove sources which are quite usable. I'd actually like to add more. Andre🚐 22:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

How about Cohn-Sherbok 2011? Andre🚐 20:17, 29 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)

Removing sources? After looking more closely at these sources, I think we should remove some. As this Wikipedia article is an overview of Zionism, I think it should be modeled based on sources that are also overviews of Zionism -- and not sources that focus on something else, like on Israel, Palestine, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sources that focus on those three topics will all include some coverage of Zionism, but their focus will be somewhere else. Looking at sources about Israel won't tell us what's WP:DUE or a significant WP:ASPECT when it comes to an overview of Zionism. Subtopics that are significant aspects of Israel may not be significant aspects of Zionism, and vice versa.

So, I would suggest removing the following sources because they're focused on something other than Zionism: Amar-Dahl, Brenner, Sachar, and Shapira (all focused on Israel), and Black (focused on I-P conflict).

I also think we should remove sources that aren't overviews of Zionism, but rather focus on one particular aspect of Zionism. Again, I think it knocks the DUE/ASPECT analysis out of whack to look at sources that have a focus that is narrower than "all of Zionism" since this Wikipedia article is an overview of all of Zionism. So I'd suggest removing both Gans 2008 and 2016, which don't provide an overview of Zionism but rather are Gans's explorations of particular aspects of Zionism (2008 is about morality; 2016 sets out a new Zionist political theory). I would similarly exclude Masalha, as that book specifically focuses on the connection between Zionism and the Bible.

I know I've said it before, but I still think Laqueur shouldn't be on the list because it's a 1972 book; the 2003 version is just a new preface, not a new edition.

If we removed these from the list, that would leave 10 books: #2 Conforti 2024, #3 Engel 2013, #4 Forriol 2023, #6 Halperin 2021, #8 Penslar 2023, #9 Dieckhoff 2003, #10 Wagner & Davis 2014, #13 Stanislawski 2017, #15 Alam 2009, and #19 Edelheit 2000.

Of course that doesn't mean the other books can't be used in the article, but it means when we're looking at things like how to structure the TOC, how much space to spend on X, Y, or Z, or how to introduce or frame the topic (the "Zionism is..." lead sentence), we'd look at these 10 overviews of Zionism first. I also think it makes things a bit more manageable if the list were shorter. Levivich (talk) 03:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I personally prefer the longer list, others can opine, and I think a case was made and already agreed to about Sachar, Brenner, and Amar-Dahl belonging on the list. It's natural that a history of Israel that focuses on ideas and origins would also be a history of Zionism, and I think this is borne out by the content. I agree with removing Masalha, Black, Gans, for the reason you stated. Since you're reopening a previously agreed dispute on a number of items on the list, I renew my suggestion to include Laqueur - it was added by fiveby(zero) along with Shapira. He has tons of citations and reprinted in 2003, while the same old text, WP:RECENTISM. We can ignore him for anything recent in the article, but he's useful for stuff from 1940s and earlier. We should pay some heed to the citation ratios you added. Andre🚐 03:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

It's natural that a history of Israel that focuses on ideas and origins would also be a history of Zionism, and I think this is borne out by the content We have History of Zionism article for that material and all that needs to be here is summary of that article and then summary of that summary in the lead here. Selfstudier (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

That seems like an unfair attempt to narrow the article scope that isn't well-taken. History of Zionism is a more detailed article, yes, and this one should be shorter and more of an overview. However, that isn't an argument to exclude a source that is about the overlap between History of Zionism and History of Israel from the Zionism article. Andre🚐 22:44, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As an alternative to Brenner 2018/2020, the latest one, there is Zionism: A Brief History: Brenner, Michael, from 2003. I do think the newer one, In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea, is probably kind of a similar book outline, I mean just read this blurb, for the latter: Many Zionists who advocated for the creation of a Jewish state envisioned a nation like any other. Yet for Israel's founders, the nation that emerged against all odds in 1948 was anything but ordinary. Born from the ashes of genocide and a long history of suffering, Israel was conceived to be unique, a model society and the heart of a prosperous new Middle East. It is this paradox, says historian Michael Brenner―the Jewish people's wish for a homeland both normal and exceptional―that shapes Israel's ongoing struggle to define itself and secure a place among nations. In Search of Israel is a major new history of this struggle from the late nineteenth century to our time. "Michael Brenner is one of the leading authorities on the history of Zionism in the twentieth century, and this book is a must-read for everyone who is interested in the subject."―Walter Laqueur, author of A History of Zionism and blurbs by Avineri and Penslar as well. Andre🚐 05:40, 30 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"[5] 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)

@Valereee, see Special:Diff/1247597286. Not a lot at the moment but it's started. TarnishedPath^talk 01:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, TP. Hm, I shouldn't probably do anything about it right this minute, as whether I'm involved is being discussed. Since it's just the one so far, maybe not worth pinging another admin quite yet? Valereee (talk) 11:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

FFS, this is only going to get worse if some of the motions at WP:ARCA get up. TarnishedPath^talk 12:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Just revert them out and if it gets too bad request protection, not that big of a problem. Selfstudier (talk) 12:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

My last comment was in regards to claims of "involved" only getting worse if some of the motions at ARCA get up. TarnishedPath^talk 03:10, 26 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?[6] 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.” [7]

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.[8] 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)

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)

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)

I don't think it makes sense to describe it as it's own type. In Penslar's discussion he describes it as one of the eight "ingredients" which "blend" to various degrees. DMH223344 (talk) 02:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

True, he refers to the "types" as a "heuristic", but does call them "The eight types of Zionism laid out here all correspond with varieties of nationalism throughout the modern world". It seems though that the Statist type is the currently predominant type? "Well into the twenty-first century, the word “Zionism” signified the Israeli state’s paradoxical blend of vulnerability and strength, achievement and unfulfilled purpose. The same dual definition of contemporary Statist Zionism as a celebration of the state’s very existence and a belief in its permanent impermanence has had currency in the Jewish diaspora." Selfstudier (talk) 08:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Statism is not its own type, but it's contrasted with socialist and labor Zionism where they were basically kibbutzim, ie self-organizing collectives. Political and revisionist Zionism, which became the predominant type, are also statist because of the role of the centralized authority. Andre🚐 01:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Where to start this article

Our article spends an inordinate amount of space discussing the period between 600 BCE and 1882 CE. I recently swapped out a portion of this period (14th century - 19th century) to focus on the prezionist initiatives which emerged in the second part of the 19th century. Most RS on Zionism will either start there, or give a brief overview of the time before. It's great that we compiled a list of best sources to use as an overview for this article. @Andrevan, can you show me which sources emphasize the 600BCE-1882CE period in this list? DMH223344 (talk) 01:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

There are already sources for the statements that you removed in the article. I suggest we start by taking a closer look at those and see what the broader context is in those sources, and if they belong here, or not. As discussed, the BESTSOURCES survey, which as I understand it is still in progress, is for determining the weight of sentences summarizing the article in lead, and other sources not in that list are available for use in the article; WP:PRESERVE tells us to try to fix the problems with the content already there. Most of your edits have added, and not removed material, but I reverted this one because it was a significant cut to the preexisting content. Andre🚐 01:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish Encyclopedia entry does not mention zionism.

I dont read hebrew.

I can't find where to access "Aliya and Pilgrimage in the Early Arab Period (634–1009)" (not at my library) but will try harder to find it.

"Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe" doesnt mention Zionism

"The Sultan's Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite: 1575–1610" also does not mention Zionism.

That's all the sources.

The discussion from 600BCE-Mid19thcent is so obviously a mess of sources having nothing to do with Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 01:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The prehistory is not only inordinate, it is a pathetic pastiche of 'stuff', much pasted from other articles, that have nothing to do with modern Zionism. There are really funny patches of WP:OR all over the place.

The number of Jews migrating to the land of Israel rose significantly between the 13th and 19th centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in religious persecution, including the expulsion of Jews from England (1290), France (1391), Austria (1421), and Spain (the Alhambra decree of 1492).

Oh really? There is far too much poor sourcing, and, it would seem that the strict requirement on reference relevance Zionism has been totally neglected here. Every article about Israel cannot be prefaced by carry-over 'stuff' more or less from various other articles dumped in to makes the same points. The article is about Zionism, and precursors can be handled in a paragraph. A history of Jewish immigration to Palestine is irrelevant to Zionism, since it was traditionally unrelated to nationalism.etc.etc.etc.Nishidani (talk) 02:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

My Hebrew isn't fluent, but you can usually get pretty far with Google Translate, see WP:NONENG, but we shouldn't remove stuff indiscriminately without verifying. I'm sure we can find better sources than the JE, which is quite old, but it's commonly used on Wikipedia because the licensing is friendly. I agree that there are problems with the current text, and I agree that modern Zionism generally starts in 1882, but I would say that the 1840 and 1850 activities by Touro and Montefiore do belong in the context of pre- or proto-Zionism, such as Yehuda Bibas. Hess, who you mentioned, is 1862. I'd suggest Conforti would be helpful here. I don't agree that mention of pre-modern aliyah as Wikipedia terms is off-limits here, for example in terms of connecting Sabbateanism, see Charvit. This seems like a good article about "heralds of Zionism," for example Dinur included Judah HeHasid in 1700. In general, some overview of pre-modern Zionism is merited here, and we need to balance or contrast the anti-Zionist authors such as Rabkin to show the shades of scholarly debate on these matters, which consist of multiple narratives. Per [9], traditionalist Judaism and Hasidism didn't have one unified view on Zionism. It was a controversial thing. Andre🚐 02:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I see no reason to think this stuff was removed indiscriminately. I think, just based on the improvement in the quality of sources alone, DMH's edit should be restored. We don't need to be citing tertiary sources, deadlinks to websites, books that aren't about Zionism, WP:MDPI, etc. Start the history wherever the "best sources" start the history (I haven't looked yet). Levivich (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty effectively indiscriminate if he admits there were several sources he didn't look at or check, that is what I meant. Anyway, I added a better source to the Sabbateanism, so that should stay in. I also added Yehuda Bibas (1789-1852), Tzvi Kalischer (1795-1874), and Judah Alkalai (1798-1878), as well as the aforementioned info on HeHasid. All sourced reliably, to the sources I posted in my previous message, and the Hillel Cohen 1929 book (though, better sources could always be added) Also, we should check out Stanislavski, one of the best sources, pp.11-13 Andre🚐 03:31, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Interesting use of the page needed template btw. DMH223344 (talk) 05:29, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

User:Levivich, WP:MDPI, really? It's the Religions journal, "Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal." You really think Amir Mashiach wouldn't be reliable even if he had self-published? Andre🚐 03:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the source selection criteria you're applying? Levivich (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking for reliable sources to fix the problems with the citations needed in this section, per WP:PRESERVE. I really don't understand your MDPI concern here. The source is reliable and anyway it's citing another historian whom I attributed. I'm sure another source can be found, but the objection feels misplaced. Only 5% of MDPI journals are mentioned in that RSP post, and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Andre🚐 03:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

How about Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism By Aviezer Ravitzky · 1996 University of Chicago Press, p. 228, or even Sand p. 140Andre🚐 04:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand. You say you're "looking for" reliable sources... there are 16 listed at #Best sources, so you don't have to look very far. Why not look at those? Levivich (talk) 04:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

We should use those sources to guide weight for the lead and to guide authoritative questions when there are disputes within sources or how to structure things, but many details can and should be sourced to sources other than those. The edits in question and the recent additions made to the article do not exclusively use those either, nor should they be required to. The existence of HeHasid's 1700 proto-Zionist endeavor is something referred to in enough reliable sources that it deserves mention here even if it doesn't find itself mentioned in the top 15. There are hundreds of books and articles that are reliable about these topics. Andre🚐 04:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

How many sources about Zionism refer to HeHasid's 1700 proto-Zionist endeavor, or call it proto-Zionist? There are hundreds of thousands of books and articles that are reliable about these topics. That's why we need a source selection criteria that's better than "is a reliable source." No, it doesn't have to be limited to the 16 best sources, but (a) that's a good place to start on any question, and "where to start this article" is definitely a "how to structure things" question, and (b) even as we move beyond them, we should have some source selection criteria that's tighter than "is a reliable source," because while we don't need to limit ourselves to the 10 or 20 "best" sources, we don't need to go alllll the way down to MDPI, or all the back to the 1990s, either. We both know very well that there are dozens of full-length books about Zionism by top scholars from the last 20 years, and we've put together a pretty good list. If we want to know "where to start this article," there are 16 top sources listed on this page, and another 50 great sources listed on the bibliography page. I see no reason to skip over all of those and start throwing in obscure articles. One thing I liked about DMH's edit is the quality of the sources. Levivich (talk) 04:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

His edit introduced Shimoni 95, which is from the year before the UChicago book above. Andre🚐 04:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

OK so yeah I'd replace that one with something newer :-) But speaking of editing incrementally, I think that edit was an incremental improvement. Levivich (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

At the very least it looks like no one is arguing that we should start the discussion before 1700. DMH223344 (talk) 05:55, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress. We may only have sufficient weight in reliable sourcing that describes Zionism going back to 1700, but for example, read the beginning of Edelheit. Similarly, Sabbateanism happened in the 1600s if I'm not mistaken, which should also be included. Andre🚐 06:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

If you think Sabbateanism is a significant WP:ASPECT of Zionism, make the case: how many books about Zionism cover Sabbateanism, and how much coverage of it do they give? Levivich (talk) 06:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I will, but not right now, because I should step away for a bit, and others may want to opine too. But, I want to again opine, that it's not "books about Zionism" but "any sufficiently reliable source," which includes reliable and cited books and journal articles about Zionism or Jewish messianism that mention Zionism, books or articles about the history of Judaism that mention Zionism or cover it etc. If they talk about Zionism, they are RS that count for weight, and it doesn't exclusively need to be a book about Zionism. Nor does it need to be in the majority of RS to have weight. Andre🚐 06:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:BESTSOURCES: "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." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Yup, which includes reliable journal articles, and books that aren't exclusively general histories of Zionism. Andre🚐 15:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Journal articles aren't "the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources" on Zionism. 100,000 sources can't be the best and most authoritative, it's too large of a pile. Neither are books. Some journal articles are. Some books are. But not every journal article or book is going to be a "best source." Levivich (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok so at the very least no one is arguing that we should cover anything before 1600. I'll delete everything covering the period before that tomorrow. DMH223344 (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't checked those sources out enough, but if they do not mention Zionism explicitly or only mention it in passing for something unrelated, you should remove them as WP:SYNTH, but please check them to make sure. Andre🚐 06:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

"My Hebrew isn't fluent, but you can usually get pretty far with Google Translate." :picard Dan Murphy (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As in Star Trek? Sorry, I'm more of a Wars guy, but I was watching some Babylon 5 recently. Anyway, this snippy rejoinder to me in another thread [10] put it more succinctly, which I rather enjoyed even tho it was at my expense, "Google Translate exists." But more seriously, it's a legitimate point. A better source may exist but we should totally expect some sourcing to be in Hebrew since that's what they speak in Israel, the country where Zionism is most relevant, so we can't just remove sources that are in Hebrew. It also wouldn't be completely out of the question that we consider what sources in the French, German, Russian, and Hebrew sphere. Andre🚐 04:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe for niche and specific points, but not for historical background. Any relevant historical background would be covered by many english sources. DMH223344 (talk) 05:56, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at where the #Best sources start (I couldn't access Conforti 2024, and couldn't figure out where Gans 2016 started):

• Amar-Dahl: mid-19th c.
• Engel: timeline's first entries are 721 BCE, 586 BCE, 135 CE, 632 CE, 1517, 1700, 1850s...; from the intro: "if you want to know where the Zionist movement came from, you'll need some rudimentary information about what Jews experienced as a group before the movement first appeared on the scene. That's where Chapter 1 begins." Ch. 1 spends about 4 pages on Biblical Israel through French Revolution.
• Forriol: late 18th c.
• Halperin: 1882/1st Aliyah
• Masalha: 19th c. but 19th c. biblical studies
• Penslar: 19th c., with a section about "forerunners" covering 18th c./Haskalah
• Dieckhoff: 18th c./Haskala (also refers to "forerunners")
• Wagner & Davis: early 19th c./post-French Revolution
• Brenner: 19th c.
• Black: 19th c.
• Stanislawski: 19th c.; brief mention of "forerunners" (which are mid-19th c. figures); about one page on pre-19th c. stuff
• Sachar: late 18th c./French Revolution
• Alam: late 19th c.
• Gans 2008: late 19th c.

One thing I noticed going through those is that Penslar, Dieckhoff, and Stanislawski, when they talked about forerunners, talked about how they weren't really important, and questioned the concept of forerunners. This argument seems supported by the fact that so many of these books pay little or no attention to the forerunners, and instead provide a general backdrop of life for Jews in Europe post-French Revolution, and then it's on to Herzl. Levivich (talk) 04:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Even if only 3 or 4 of the "best sources" start before the mid-19th century, that isn't an argument that the article should not. Andre🚐 04:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I think it is actually an argument, and a pretty good one, that if only 3 or 4 sources out of 14 cover something, that thing might not be a significant WP:ASPECT or WP:DUE for inclusion. But in this case, I think half of the sources cover pre-19th century stuff, so the Wikipedia article should, too, but pre-19th century stuff should be short (compared to 19th c. and 20th c.), and IMO we should include the aspects that are included in these sources (and other sources of similar quality). For example, when I was skimming these sources, I saw multiple sources mentioned Haskalah, the French Revolution, and when they talked about forerunners, they all seemed to mention Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Judah Alkalai, and Moses Hess. I didn't do a thorough search, but I didn't notice Bibas or HeHasid mentioned, and I noticed one mention of Sabbateanism, and all they said was that it was a "little known" Jewish messianic movement (it said the other pre-Zionist Jewish messianic movement was better known: Christianity). Levivich (talk) 05:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

HeHasid is mentioned in the Edelheit that we just added. Ravietzky isn't categorized in the criteria of a general book, because it's more specialized, but it's still reliable. Similarly, there's Morgenstern. Just because we defined the criteria as "general histories," doesn't mean that if something appears in other reliable specialized sources, be they books or journal articles, that it can't be mentioned here. If so, please make that argument using Wikipedia policy, as I'm not aware of it. Andre🚐 05:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:V § Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion: just because something appears in an RS doesn't mean it should appear in this article. WP:ASPECT (for facts) and WP:DUE (for viewpoints) expressly say we include content in proportion to its coverage in RS. The article should cover what appears in most sources, not what appears in any or just a few sources. Remember, there are other articles for more in-depth information. Details of pre-Zionism history can go in articles like History of Zionism and Proto-Zionism. Levivich (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

True, but WP:BESTSOURCES clearly includes journal articles. So how do we justify excluding all journal articles in favor of only books? Andre🚐 05:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody said that. But one reason not to include just any journal article is that "Zionism" has like 179,000 hits on Google Scholar. Journal articles are fine, but we should "skim from the top," meaning limit it to the best authors and the best journals, however we define that. Keep in mind, this article is an overview of Zionism, it's a high-level general overview of a very broad topic, and a main purpose is to guide readers to the right sub-article. There really isn't anything in an encyclopedia article about Zionism that we wouldn't find in a book about Zionism. If you have to go to journal articles for a particular fact that isn't in the book, it's probably not an important aspect of Zionism. Now, there are probably some journal articles that are excellent sources for particular aspects of Zionism, and sure we can cite those. But in that case, we're talking about an article being a better source for particular content, which could still be sourced to any given book about Zionism. As an example: there are no doubt books about Herzl that are better sources for Herzl than any of the #Best sources. And there are no doubt articles about the Uganda Scheme that are probably better sources for the Uganda scheme than any book about Zionism or any book about Herzl. So we might cite the HErzl biography when we talk about Herzl, and the article when we talk about the Uganda Scheme, but we're still talking about aspects (Herzl and Uganda Scheme) that we could source to any of the general Zionism overview books. As opposed to using an article for a fact or aspect that isn't in any, or many, or most, of the books. Levivich (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the overview article of Zionism yes, but we should take the Timeline of Zionism as far back as there are reliable sources. Not hitting on every single point, but if an event appears in a sufficient number of RS, WP:DUE doesn't justify excluding that except in cases of extreme length. I didn't say to include any journal article, but when we look at weight, there are many reliable journals and journal articles to include. Similarly, specialized books. I don't agree that any fact not in the books but in journal articles doesn't belong in the overview article. I think that's an overzealous skimming of the cream. We need a bit of half and half too. 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 If it's not 0, I don't see how 0 is a fair proportion for a significant fact. Andre🚐 06:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The weight of various aspects should reflect that in RS. +1 to the explanation Levivich has given many many times on this page. DMH223344 (talk) 05:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Andrevan. You participated intensely in our discussion on (b)restricting composition of this page to the very best latest academic sources, and approved of the high bar Levivich and others set forth. In this thread, you are taking the diametrically opposed view for the pre-history of Zionism, with (b) an open Sesame policy to a huge source base that is not primarily about Zionism. Why the double standard, when the general consensus that emerged was in favour of one restrictive criterion, in a short range of best recent research, consensually drawn up?Nishidani (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Eh? I certainly did not argue that this page should be restricted to the best sources. In fact, I've been regularly pushing back on unduly cherrypicking. As I've said, the best sources should be used to guide weight for the lead. Please don't mischaracterize my statements without diffs, thanks. Andre🚐 08:14, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Andrevan, please stop making accusations of cherrypicking without evidence. Your argument seems to be that any source that is primarily about Zionism is likely to be biased, and that's what you're basing these accusations on. Unless you can provide some evidence that this is true, please just stop making this accusation. Accusing others of cherrypicking also implies they'd be doing so intentionally, which is a violation of AGF.

I explained to you at your talk the problem with including general sources: that increases the number of sources by such a large number that the BESTSOURCES list inevitably becomes unmanageable, and other editors tend to throw up their hands and walk away. Unless you have evidence that general sources are somehow necessary to avoiding bias -- which when you assert without proof is simply your opinion -- please stop bludgeoning about this. No one else here seems to be objecting to a BESTSOURCES list, and has also been explained to you, not being on the BESTSOURCES list doesn't mean a source cannot be used at all. Valereee (talk) 16:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Cherrypicking, as I've said a few times, is not always intentional, but an unintentional blind spot. Andre🚐 16:17, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Just stop using the term. It's an accusation, and you have not presented evidence. Valereee (talk) 16:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not an accusation, and when I used it in the last comment, I was referring to what I was previously doing, to refute Nishidani's misquote and mischaracterization of my statements, and not making a fresh claim. Andre🚐 16:22, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

'I do think we should have objective criteria that applies to the whole list.'

That is what you asserted as a principle earlier. Using the criteria Levivich laid down, you accepted Gans but excluded Alam, in a strict exclusionary view of relevance. In this thread you are all over the place with no 'objective criteria' in sight. The effect is the impression that youy're fine with restrictive rules on Zionism, rules which give little weight to the past or old precedents, but not so with writing up stuff about pre-Zionism. That is a recipé for the kind of mess many of those prehistorical passages create. If histories of Zionism do not cover pre-Zionism back to BCE or the medieval period, then to only mention messianic movements en passant, then coherence requires editors to stick to that scholarly choice. Not to do so is to open the floodgates for the WP:OR violations we have throughoput these sections, with past editors just chucking in stuff about immigration, exile, persecutions etc., from sources that do not specialize in Zionism but the Jewish people, background that modern histories of Zionism give small account of.Nishidani (talk) 09:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

That is not a quote from me. That is a quote from Levivich. Andre🚐 15:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

My apologies to both you and Levivich. But you were fine with a cut-off date at 2000, and ventured to include or exclude (Alam/Gans) on restrictive lines, after earlier pressing to expand the range of acceptable sources. I'll drop it.Nishidani (talk) 16:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said, there is a legitimate use for a shortlist of the best-best sources, but it's not to restrict the page or exclude any other source from being used; nor do the recent additions exclusively draw from that list. Andre🚐 16:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've seen anyone arguing a BESTSOURCES list excludes other sources from being used? Long TP, maybe I missed it? Valereee (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani argued the page should be restricted to the best sources in this same thread. Andre🚐 16:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nope, and we are wasting time here on misrepresenting each other. I wroteNishidani (talk) 16:42, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

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 have never argued for that, I argued for the opposite in fact, that subsidiary detail would likely require other sources but that doesn't mean I agree that any and all sources are acceptable. High citation journal articles might be OK whereas one would have to examine, for example, low citation recent journal articles. Quite happy to try and work out the best journal sources just as for the books. Selfstudier (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier, I didn't say you? Andre🚐 16:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I know you didn't, let's not make this a two editor thing tho, realistically there is no real dispute about multi sourcing, for me this whole sourcing exercise is a means to an end, avoid the edit/revert cycle in the future, as much as is possible anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you referring to this, where Nishidani said the general consensus that emerged was in favour of one restrictive criterion, in a short range of best recent research, consensually drawn up? Nishidani, were you intending to argue that no other sources could be used at all, even if there was separate consensus to use them for some bit of content but not to add them to BESTSOURCES? Valereee (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@ValereeeThis is a repeat of the Shakespeare Authorship Question for me. The article was a hodgepodge. It was revised from top to bottom with strict citational criteria, no easy thing. As I just noted above, Andrevan misrepresents my views. It is workerly commonsense to rewrite by drafting an outline using the themes as elicited in the best contemporary scholarship's overviews. There must be several hundred books of all types of quality which, were they uncritically accepted, would cause chaos and edit-warring since any POV can be found in them. Once you have the gist of critical scholarship, any perceived omission can be supplemented by books and articles which go into finer detail. The short-list ain't censorship, it is functional to writing an efficient digest of contemporary historiography on Zionism. Elsewhere here I have suggested several books that could fulfill that adjunct role of finessing trhe primary draft. Nishidani (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Nishidani. @Andrevan, are you satisfied that other editors aren't arguing limiting the entire article to only those sources that are on the BESTSOURCES list? Valereee (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I continue to be concerned about WP:NPOV, namely including minority views and balancing controversial positions by anti-Zionist historians with Zionist historians and other mainstream sources, since after all this is the Zionism article and should say what Zionist historians have said, and WP:PRESERVE, such as the recent removals, but I am aware that there are many more editors currently active on this page that don't agree with me, and I always try to abide by the consensus. But it's not disruptive to discuss, and it's not bludgeoning to engage in a thoughtful process in good faith. I would say your comments here show you are a participant as well with your own opinions and views. When I refer to cherrypicking it is not an accusation but a concern that we are considering WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT using our top-best-sources list, a concept that is not part of any policy. Weight is in all reliable sources, including non-general history books of Zionism, such as reliable journal articles. I agree tabulating that list and discussing it is a useful exercise, and should be used for weight in the lead. Hopefully that clarifies my position, without being too repetitive, but be that as it may, I am well aware that consensus may not agree with me, still, I am trying to participate in good faith, and I think it does Wikipedia and this article a disservice to be so unbalanced as it is. Which, again, is not anyone's fault and not happening on purpose. Andre🚐 21:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not you consider me involved, whether or not you agree with the exact sources currently listed, whether or not you are still concerned with balance issues: are you now satisfied that the creation of a list of sources that have consensus for inclusion does not exclude other sources from being used? Valereee (talk) 11:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I would assume after this discussion that everyone does understand that it's not an exclusive list. Andre🚐 20:01, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

No, that is not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to Andrevan. You participated intensely in our discussion on (b)restricting composition of this page to the very best latest academic sources, and approved of the high bar Levivich and others set forth. Andre🚐 16:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay, same question to Nishidani: Were you arguing that no other sources could be used at all, even with consensus to do so, or that it was the BESTSOURCES list that was being restricted to the very best latest academic sources? Valereee (talk) 16:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Telling me that I wanted to restrict composition of the page to the very best sources, when I didn't do that, was what I was objecting to. an ex post facto clarification doesn't change both the misquoting of me, with a quote that was from Levivich, and a misrepresentation of my position. If we all agree that BESTSOURCES is not an exclusive list, great. Then there shouldn't be a need for anyone to say In this thread you are all over the place with no 'objective criteria' in sight. an open Sesame policy to a huge source base that is not primarily about Zionism. Why the double standard Andre🚐 16:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I apologized for the misquote. Replying to everyone on everything on a talk page is not conducive to resolving problems, or composing an article.Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

We have articles like Aliyah and History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel that are appropriate for the pre-modern stuff. There are already more than enough things from the middle of the 19th century onwards to make for a fat article and we don't need a catalogue of earlier things. That's especially true when those earlier things were almost all quite different from the Zionism that later emerged. Zero^talk 12:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps go with 19th century and to the extent earlier times are considered they should be discussed only with how the post 19th century has viewed/used them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed that large patchwork about the Jewish people, which is a very familiar narrative repeated over multiple pages, and very much a modern construction. There is general agreement here that we write that background according to how the best sources on Zionism represent precursors. It is a very bad practice to copy and paste material across articles, and if one rewrites an article, nothing should be assumed as a given from other wiki pages. I left in the bit about next year in Jerusalem. But that apparently arose among a number of Ashkenazi communities in the late medieval period and to selectively take historical innovations in one group (in the medieval period Ashkenazi were a very small community compared to Mizrachi) as typical of all Jewish communities worldwide is a common approach in popular history, but misleading. Likewise on immigration. For 2500 years Palestine was a net supplier to the diaspora of emigrants - and in almost any period down to modern times, any Jew with the means could emigrate from the diaspora back to Palestine without hindrance. They didn't. Maimonides made a visit to the desolation, and quickly returned 'home'.. They no more did this than the massive Mediterranean Jewish populations around BCE-CE entertained the idea of returning to Palestine. Emigrating outwards offered better prospects, but the narrative we have, which derives from rabbinical meditations on galut, and does not reflect historical realities. The expulsion from Spain under modern history's first fascist, Isabella, led to some notable movements towards the Levant, but the small, perhaps 2,000 strong Jewish community in Palestine, after an initial boost, collapsed against until the 1800s, and the stabilization after 1830s allowed renewed interest. The text I removed, furthermore,was Ashkenazocentric. Any account of Jewish attachment to Israel should, but rarely does, cite this theme as it emerges in all Jewish communities, from Kaifeng to Morocco, from Ethiopia to Russia. Etc etc.15:40, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Nishidani (talk)

• I'm going to flag this discussion at WP:NPOVN because I think this discussion needs wider input. Andre🚐 17:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't and I said so there. Selfstudier (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

  My saying so there was hatted so I will strike it here and just say that I think it's unnecessary to do so. There. Selfstudier (talk) 18:12, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As i understand the basis for removing this content: WP:BESTSOURCES, strict requirement on reference relevance Zionism, and this being a summary style overview; is there any appetite for applying the same standard to other content within the article? I think that was a good edit based on a very good standard for the article, but looking at the content and the "section sizes" template at the top of the talk page suggests much more work is needed. fiveby(zero) 17:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Everything is supposed to be summary style if there are main articles existing. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@zero. Much more work on other sections is indeed needed. I just hope editors have the energy, after these exhausting threads, to actually read that small sample so that we can begin the long-augured overhaul. Nishidani (talk) 17:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

To get back on track as Levivich says, think half of the sources cover pre-19th century stuff, so the Wikipedia article should, too, but pre-19th century stuff should be short (compared to 19th c. and 20th c.), and IMO we should include the aspects that are included in these sources (and other sources of similar quality). Does anyone disagree that we should cover the Haskalah and the French Revolution era stuff? Also, I believe Edelheit should be a valid source to restore the Nasi stuff. Andre🚐 22:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Christian Zionism

Provocative question: "Is it only a "Jewish thing"?

I'm putting this down here because it is part of "what do we cover". There are strains of Zionism that run beyond perhaps more narrow forms of ethnonationalism per se, including Christian Zionism. (See eg. "The phenomenon of Christian Zionism is complex and takes many forms, both distinct from and overlapping with the numerous Jewish forms . . .has been promoted especially by Christians operating within a premillennial dispensationalist frame of reference and that this particular form of Zionism has had significant public impact and influence." Moberly RWL. GENESIS 12:3A: A BIBLICAL BASIS FOR CHRISTIAN ZIONISM? In: The Theology of the Book of Genesis. Old Testament Theology. Cambridge University Press; 2009:162-178. Chapter 9) (For some reason with Cambridge I am having trouble beyond pasting beyond https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-theology-of-the-book-of-genesis at FD8D9B82E904E55D1424583B423B68F1 but you can search in your browser)

Covering such here more has at least two effects, which I think might benefit understanding and editing the subject (and also make it less perhaps Jew/non-Jew, and more ideas/critique): reception/support in "the [Christain influenced] West", so to speak, in modern times, and that criticisms are not always or even principally concerned with ethnic makeup of adherents. That's my suggestions, and I really don't have more to add but I thought I would suggest these thoughts for you all to consider. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

There is an article covering Christian Zionism. Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

That's what I said, but my point was its part of understanding modern Zionism, particularly in its modern effects ("significant public impact and influence"). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:00, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not one of the Types of Zionism tho, so they are essentially supporters of (religious) Zionism? Second coming and so on plus political support (for Israel), US in particular in more recent times. Earlier, it was associated with imperial (British) colonialism and there was also quite a bit of support in England in the run up to the Balfour Declaration altho Idk how much attention the British government actually paid to it. Selfstudier (talk) 15:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

If a society is raised on the stories of the Christian Old Testament, it stands to reason it might have some significant effect or impact beyond the stories or theology to world view. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I agree with that, and it's always nice to have support for a cause, I just don't quite see the effect on Zionism per se. Selfstudier (talk) 16:05, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Just a cause? Surely also matters that Zionism was and is an idea, or set of ideas, and continues to have ideological expression, and ideological affinities. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Not disputing that, I am talking about CZ support for Zionism (however it is described, I too usually think of it as an ideology). What I am asking is whether CZ support affected Z in any meaningful way. Selfstudier (talk) 22:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I saw mention of it when I was flipping through the opening chapters of the best sources list yesterday, but I don't remember exactly what they said or how much time they spent on it. I'll check again later. My vague recollection is that it was included in discussion of forerunners of Zionism. Levivich (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The perennial danger is reading the past in terms of contemporary perceptions or interests. Religions and ideologies generally make immense claims on the past: the use it is a warrant for their contemporary positions. But if you want to know about, say, the origins of Christianity, doing that, from any modern Christian viewpoint, won't get you far. Scholarship tries to suspend or brackets retroactive reinterpretations by restricting analysis to all relevant documentation specific to the period of its emergence. Likewise with Zionism, we want to know as far as possible what the documentary record for its formative period tells us about what Zionists, their thinking, perceptions and organizing principle - here, for rexample, to what degree its central European principles were influenced by the evangelical proponents of a Jewish homeland who had some currency from the 1840s onwards. We connect the two if the literature on the history of early Zionism does, according it the weight those works do generally.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Limitation to a point in time? If these currents of Zionism ("both distinct from and overlapping with the numerous Jewish forms") significantly "influenced public cultures" at any time or at several times since the 19th century (including up to today), they would probably do so beyond any historical claim or theological claim they particularly make. It would be the world view, the culture, they engender that likely matters. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's links to some discussion of Christian Zionism in Penslar, Wagner, and (very briefly) Sachar. Levivich (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Referencing problems

I have cleaned up several referencing problems in this article, but I think it could still use a pass from someone familiar with the bibliography to finish straightening things out. -- mikeblas (talk) 21:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

FYI I've posted a warning about mikeblas's edits on his talk page. Levivich (talk) 22:09, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

NPOV tag

Kindly explain exactly and in detail what the NPOV problems are for the tag. Selfstudier (talk) 22:30, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

We have had a (to me) hallucinatingly long and confusing number of remarks in the threads above, talking around NPOV apparently related to book and article selection. I challenge anyone to make headway figuring their way round the headaching reading of those exchanges. More 'exact' 'explanations' only promise to repeat those thread longueurs. So I invite Andrevan in particular to limit his remarks to one or two brief lines with specifics in the thread below, so editors can address the claims.Nishidani (talk) 22:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Bulleted list of NPOV problems

Please list your objections (succinctly) with reference to specific passages, Below Nishidani (talk) 22:34, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

1. The sentence about Zionists goals is incredibly misleading, falsely implying that all Zionists wanted these things at all points in history.

2. Any consensus that there was, was rushed through with only a limited number of voices. It's very clear that consensus no longer exists.

3. The text which is now given does not seem to match any of the referenced sources nor does it seem to accurately summarize them as a whole. Some of the sources speak about "Zionist leaders" or "many Zionists". Not a single source says "Zionists wanted as few Palestinians Arabs as possible."

4. There's an section of the article which speaks in detail about which Zionists at which points in time supported a demographic majority in Palestine. Demographic majority is not synonymous with "as few as possible". This would appear to be the view held by the majority of sources and may also match the views given from the "best sources" now in progress. Instead what was used here was a few sources that seem to be outliers which been chosen specifically to promote the view "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." I don't know if a single one of the sources used here will make the list of best sources.

A rushed through, cherry picked negative summary of Zionist ideology which doesn't match the rest of the article and falsely implies that all Zionists through all points in history believed that list of things is IMO a POV violation. The POV tag should be added and should remain until this is re-written based upon best sources.

Here's text which from that demographics section which would accurately reflect the text in the rest of the article: "By the time of the 1936 Arab Revolt ...every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there"

And let me ask this question again -- How many people do we need to add a POV tag?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 01:03, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Bob: Not a single source says "Zionists wanted as few Palestinians Arabs as possible."

Manna 2022, p. 33: The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers.

Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014, p. 6: It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement – certainly to the mainstream ... that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project ...

Masalha 2012, p. 38: ... the Zionist Yishuv['s] ... demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs' ...

Pappe 2006, p. 250: ... the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.

Those are four of the sources cited for that sentence. Levivich (talk) 02:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich "The core of Zionism", "Most approaches within the Zionist movement", "the Zionist Yishuv", and "the core of Zionism" are not synonymous with "Zionists".

You are right that a single source, which is an book about the Nakba which one can download for free does say, in the context of the Nakba that "Zionist wanted as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. This was written by someone who is an expert in Palestinian history _not_ an expert on Zionism. In no way should this source be used to define Zionism in the lead of the article, especially when this viewpoint isn't supported anywhere else in the article.

All of the other points stand.

--Bob drobbs (talk) 04:26, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Also... did you see this from the forward of Manna's book?

"This author hopes that the dis-comfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them to seek out the truth ..."

This is not the best source to provide an unbiased and factual definition of "Zionism".

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 04:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

To sum up:

1. Just because something is the core of Zionism, the Zionist movement mainstream, and fought for by the Zionist Yishuv, doesn't mean it's what Zionists wanted
2. Ilan Pappe's book about The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by the aforementioned Zionist Yishuv is not an RS for Zionism
3. Manna is out because he's a WP:BIASEDSOURCE

Did I get that right? Levivich (talk) 06:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

1. Yes. All of those things refer to mainstream Zionism or a majority of Zionists at a given moment in time. There were without question Zionists who were opposed to some or all of these ideas as late as the 1940s, so the text as-is is very misleading.

Yet again this text in the article is far more correct and seems better supported by the majority of sources. Note that it set a time-frame for when these things were happening, and speaks specifically about which Zionists at this time wanted them:

"the time of the 1936 Arab Revolt ...every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there"

3. Yes! From the intro to the book Manna seems absolutely hostile to Zionists, with a clearly stated goal of making Zionists uncomfortable. So maybe he could be included as an opinion, but he seems far too biased to be included as a source of any factual non-biased description of Zionism.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

"the time of the 1936 Arab Revolt ...every group in the Zionist mainstream was wedded to the idea of establishing a Jewish demographic majority there" How tho? Selfstudier (talk) 18:33, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that the best sources will speak about mainstream Zionist groups after the 1900s wanting Jews to move to the Palestine mandate, and by the 1940s wanting to push out significant numbers of Palestinians. But as you've said elsewhere let's not word tweak until after we have the list of best sources.

Let me add, if one was to read the Manna book in it's entirety, even it does not support the cherry picked claim "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". First he sets a time frame for these claims, and then he lists exceptions:

"That is what also happened 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."

"...the history of the Palestinians who remained in the Galilee both attests to the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times. Those cases which are not consistent with the general policy are due to causes connected to geography and the differential treatment of non-Muslims. The Druze were treated in a different way from the general Arab population. Christians were generally treated more leniently and with some sensitivity, out of fear of the reaction of Western states and churches. This unequal treatment of Palestinians in Haifa and the Galilee emerged during the months of war and several years after. These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion”...

So.... as the primary source for this claim actually refutes the cherry picked quote, will you get on board with the POV tag until after we finish up the process of reviewing the best sources?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 20:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

If you want to discuss this specific issue further, we can do that. But just because we are discussing a specific line does not mean a POV tag is justified. DMH223344 (talk) 21:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

No it's not clear that consensus no longer exists. You disagreeing with something doesn't make it no longer the case. TarnishedPath^talk 02:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath At minimum, Andre and I see issues with this text. How many people do we need disagreeing here before we can agree that there isn't consensus any longer?

Also, with my other question. Currently at minimum, Andre, CoreTheApple, and I all see POV issues. What will it take to get the POV tag added?

--Bob drobbs (talk) 04:40, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Consensus is required to add a POV tag. Three editors does not make a consensus. TarnishedPath^talk 07:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

To be clear no-one is preventing the adding of a tag of any description but if the reasons for placing it don't hold up in discussion, it will likely get reverted. Just repeating nocon is insufficient. Anyone is at liberty to conduct an RFC, no-one is preventing that either. Selfstudier (talk) 09:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The Andrevan, Drobbs, and Apple accounts are wrong, as has been ably and patiently explained by others above.Dan Murphy (talk) 01:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

source survey for lead weight and how they start/introduce Zionism

Looking at how best sources introduce the book or Zionism. What jumps out is that most sources mention antisemitism and pre-existing Jewish nationalism that predates Zionism. Many also talk about the biblical underpinnings of Zionism ("Return to Zion"). Many talk about a Jewish state and self-determination in the context of Enlightenment social movements and nationalism. None frame it the way we do, really.

• Tamar-Dahl, Introduction: Israel is a product of Zionism. The Jewish state originates in Jewish nationalism that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe. In the course of the secularization and formation of national states that was taking place in Western Europe, the religiously hued, old Christian hatred towards Jews assumed racist features, turning into virulent anti-Semitism. At the same time, efforts to achieve real emancipation for European Jews were failing. Consequently, as new approaches to a resolution seemed to be called for, the Jewish people themselves took up the “Jewish question.” Theodor Herzl’s 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat)....
  • Chapter 1: Zionism emerged in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century with the defined goal of terminating the “abnormal” political situation of the Jewish diaspora, that is, statelessness of the Jews, and of creating a mode of collective life based on a national state. Arising from the emergency situation posed by an increasingly rampant racist anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish nationalism was funneled into a movement, with the “negation of the diaspora” forming the core of its ideology and the starting point of its politics. Thus, Shimon Peres (1923–2016), a Zionist statesman and Israeli politician of many years who himself was born in an Eastern European shtetl and emigrated to Palestine as an adolescent, described the Jewish diaspora from the vantage point of an already achieved national statehood
• Conforti[11] (journal article as stand-in for new book): the Zionist conception of the Jewish past and shows that this developed in the second half of the nineteenth century before the inception of political Zionism. Second, the article demonstrates that political Zionism was deeply connected with cultural issues
• Engel: starts with timeline in 721 BCE. Ch 1 The idea of a Jewish state. The word Zionism comes from Zion, one of the Hebrew Bible's name for Jerusalem
• Forriol[12]: Ch1, rise of Zionist project in Europe, starts with I-P conflict. p. 6 Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, was a product of the upsurge of anti-. Semitism in 19th century Central and Eastern Europe. In the late 18th century,
• Gans[13]: Ch1 This book presents a liberal political theory for the Jewish people. It was written in the 2010s, following centuries of persecutions of Jews in Europe, their emancipation there in the nineteenth century, and two centuries of modern political proposals to solve the Jewish problem. Initially, such proposals were worked out and put forward by visionaries and political activists, but over the last few decades academic historians and sociologists have also offered ideas. Only rarely, however, have political theorists and philosophers weighed in. This book seeks to begin to make up for that deficiency. It is being written after the Holocaust and after the Zionist movement’s success in establishing the State of Israel
• Halperin: Introduction discusses Petah Tikva, agricultural colony, winery etc.
• Masalha[14]: Introduction: The secular founding fathers of Jewish Zionism sought to underpin the legitimacy of their European movement in the biblical text. Testifying before the British Royal (Peel) Commission in 1936, David Ben-Gurion, then head of the Jewish Agency, declared “The Bible is our mandate’. For Ben-Gurion, the Tanakh, the “Hebrew Bible’, was the master text of Zionism and the foundational text of the State of Israel. Like Ben-Gurion, the founding fathers of the Israeli state also viewed the Tanakh not only as a reliable historical source but also as a guide for Zionist and Israeli state policies towards the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, the Palestinians
  • Ch1, Herzl, Zionism would not have been able to achieve its goals without the overall support of the Western imperialist powers. The Israeli state was and still is central to Western projects in the “East”. In fact the Israeli state owes its very existence to the British colonial power in Palestine, despite the military tensions that existed in the last decade of the British mandatory period between the colonial power and the leadership of the militarized Jewish “Yishuv”. Under the Ottomans the European Zionist settlers were not given a free hand in Palestine; had the Ottomans been left in control of Palestine after the First World War, it is very unlikely that a Jewish state would have come into being. The situation changed radically with the occupation of Palestine by the British in 1918; already on 2 November 1917 Zionism had been granted title to Palestine in the well-known Balfour Declaration
• Edelheit[15]: Zionism- the Jewish movement for national rebirth- was arguably one of the most success- ful and, at the same time, one of the least understood examples. Born in the last third of the nineteenth century, its meaning, goals, and very essence continue to be debated by scholars, politicians, and laypersons from all walks of life. Yet, at its core, Zionism was based on a paradox: an effort to revolutionize Jewry by, in essence, making Jews "like all the nations," Zionism proposed a modern solution to the "Jewish Problem" by restoring Jews to their ancestral homeland. Although tapping into millennia-old traditions of restoration and rebirth, most Zionist thinkers rejected - or at least redefmed - all elements of the Jewish tradition that did not specifically relate to restoration, notably religious ritual. Zionism was thus, again, paradoxically, an effort to return the Jew to history thorugh national rebirth while rebelling against Jewish history; an attempt to restore Jewish tradition while recasting that tradition; an effort to make Jews like all the nations while highlighting the unique elements in Jewish culture, tradition, and history goes on to discuss antisemitism.
• Penslar[16]: The word “Zionism” was coined in Central Europe more than 130 years ago. Over time it has undergone myriad changes and is used in the early twenty-first century in ways that late nineteenth-century Jews would have scarcely understood. The fact that the word retains currency, however, means that people find value in it and that they believe in its continuity with earlier usage, even when that continuity is, in fact, tenuous. This combination of malleability and continuity demonstrates Zionism’s function as what the British cultural critic Raymond Williams called a keyword—a term with origins in a fixed time and place that remains current and accumulates new meanings.1Zionism is a keyword inside another keyword: nationalism. Nation-alism is the belief that human beings are divided into groups called nations, which share a territory, language, and culture and aspire to self-determination. Self-determination may take various forms ranging from autonomy to sovereign statehood. Zionism, in turn, is the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collec-tive self-determination within historic Palestine. Like other forms of nationalism, Zionism is both an ideology—a coherent, sustained inter-pretation of experience in terms of fundamental values—and a move-ment: a set of practices designed to realize ideological goals. When nationalist movements realize their goals, such as the attainment of autonomy or sovereignty, nationalist ideology does not disappear, because it serves to bolster the legitimacy of the state. Similarly, although the State of Israel was created in 1948, Zionism exists to this day. It signifies both diaspora Jews’ attachments to the state and the nationalistic senti-ments of Israeli Jews.Zionism has not been the only form of Jewish nationalism....Zionism is, however, heterogeneous. As the writer Amos Oz famously remarked, Zionism is a family name, claimed by a vast number of people whose relations may be intimate or distant but who do bear a certain family resemblance.2 This chapter explores those areas of difference and resemblance between varieties of Zionism in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Most scholars who draw a Zionist family tree are content to call the family’s members by their given names and to accept at face value claims by one family member of propinquity or distance from another. During the Zionist movement’s formative decades, activists defined themselves via categories such as “Political,” “Practical,” “Cul-tural,” “Labor,” “Revisionist,” and “Religious.” These terms had meaning for the people who used them, but they obscure similarities between allegedly opposed Zionist camps, as well as difference within each camp. This chapter therefore critiques old taxonomies of Zionism a (Staging Zionism)
• Dieckhoff: stars with glossary, defining "Aliyah" first. Starts first chapter with Roth quote "The Jews have no homeland." p.2, Haskalah. p.3 Peretz Smolenskin, David Gordon, Hess, Bund, socialism, Dubnow p.4 Ahad Ha'am
• Wagner[17][18]: Starts with I-P conflict. Intro Ch1+2: For Israel and the organized American Jewish community, Zionism is one of the most influential ideologies of our times. Although the tenets of political Zionism have shifted over the years, the impact of Zionism continues unabated, shaping the identity of many Jews worldwide as well as the geopolitics of the Middle East, North America, and Europe
  • Ch1 Herzl to Ben-Gurion In Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Age of Nationalism and the Age of Imperialism converged. Building on ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which promised equal rights for all, nationalist movements based on blood and soil arose all over Europe while their countries competed with each other to expand their colonial empires overseas. Political Zionism was one of these national-colonial movements, but Zionism faced obstacles that the other nationalist movements did not have: Jews were dispersed throughout Europe, had no common national identity, and possessed no common territory.
• Brenner[19]The eminent Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin took great pleasure in telling the story of a party he attended in the 1930s where the later president of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, then the leader of the World Zionist Organization, was asked by an aristocratic British lady admirer, “Dr. Weizmann, I do not understand. You are a member of the most cultured, civilized, brilliant and cosmopolitan people in history and you want to give it all up to become—Albania?” According to Isaiah Berlin, Weizmann pondered thoughtfully and slowly on the question, then his face lit up like a light bulb. “Yes!” he exclaimed: “Albania! Albania!” To become a people like any other people! That was the idea that many Zionists had in mind when they set out to realize their project to create a Jewish state. The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel internalized this notion in a central passage that stresses “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” Jews, so their argument went, had always been the archetypal “other” in history. Only by ending the “abnormal” situation of their dispersion in a world-wide diaspora and by reestablishing their own state after two millennia would “normality” be regained in the form of a small Jewish state. Thus, the Jews would become “a nation like all other nations” and their state a state like all other states— an imagined Albania.1 Over two millennia Jews had received attention way beyond their numerical strength, as historian David Nirenberg observed: “For several thousand years people have been think- ing about Judaism
• Black: starts with I-P conflict. a few pages in. Palestinian and Israeli narratives diverge over far more than the words .... Both are reflected throughout this book. Each is authentic, even if dismissed by the other side as propaganda or lies. Neither can be ignored. The conflict between these two peoples can only be understood by paying attention to how they see themselves and their history as well as each other. Narrative, in its simplest definition, is ‘the story a nation tells itself about itself’ Israelis describe a quest for freedom and self-determination after centuries of anti-Semitic persecution, and the ‘ingathering of the exiles’ who ‘return’ from the Diaspora to Zion to build a sovereign and independent Jewish state in their ancient homeland, finally achieved in the wake of the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War. That story of national liberation is succinctly captured in the Hebrew phrase ‘miShoah leTekuma’ — ‘from Holocaust to rebirth’. Self-respect and dignity are restored after centuries of powerlessness, suffering and humiliation. The presence of another people in that homeland (however that people and land are defined) is rarely noted beyond its violent opposition to Zionism. Land is ‘redeemed’ and the desert made to bloom. Israel’s dominant narrative emphasizes its own readiness to compromise and to make peace while the other side has repeatedly missed opportunities to do so. The ‘dove’ is forced to fight
• Stanislawski[20]: Ch1 Zionism—the nationalist movement calling for the establishment and support of an independent state for the Jewish people in its ancient homeland—is today one of the most controversial ideologies in the world. Its supporters see it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people that came to fruition in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Its opponents regard it as one of the last forms of colonial oppression in the world, defined by Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in the name of a racist ideology increasingly turning Israel into an apartheid state. “The Jews: Religion or Nation?” outlines the aims of this VSI, which does not promote any particular position on Zionism.
• Sachar: Preface. This is a long volume for a small country. After four far-ramifying Middle Eastern crises in one generation, however, it may be assumed that the seismic impact of Israel upon the contemporary world is too palpable to require elaboration. One may even argue that the Jews, with or without statehood, have exerted an uncommonly protean influence upon organized society from ancient to modern times. Ironically, the theorists of Zionism had anticipated that revived nationhood in the Land of Israel finally would lift this unique and burdensome afflatus from the backs of the Jewish people; for, aside from the religionists among them, the Zionists were animated less by a sense of mission than by a search for normalcy. In the ensuing chapters, we shall have opportunity to evaluate the ambivalent results of that quest. Ch1. The Rise of Jewish nationalism. 1807. Napoleon. p6. Forerunners of Zionism. Herzl and political Zionism in chapter 3.
• Alam: Ch1 starts 1897 in Europe.
• Shapira[21]; Ch1 Herzl 1897. Ch2 Jews, Turks, Arabs, Ottomans, Napoleon. What began as an evanescent movement whose most ardent supporters never believed that the objective of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine would be achieved in their lifetime became a real national movement
• Laqueur[22]: 2003 Preface, Herzl, labor Zionism. Preface The term Zionism was first used publicly by Nathan Birnbaum at a discussion meeting in Vienna on the evening of 23 January 1892.* The history of political Zionism begins with the publication of Herzl’s Judenstaat four years later and the first Zionist congress. But the Zionist idea antedates the name and the organisation. Herzl had precursors in Germany, Russia, and in other countries, whose writings reflected the longing for the ancient homeland, the anomaly of Jewish existence in central and eastern Europe, and the need to find a solution to the ‘Jewish question’. The emergence of Zionism in the 1880s and 1890s can be understood only against the general background of European and Jewish history since the French Revolution on one hand, and the spread of modern antisemitism on the other. The present book starts with a discussion of the European background of Zionism, covers the prehistory of the movement and five decades of Zionist activities, and ends with the establishment of the state in May 1948, the turning point in the history of the movement. It is debatable whether there is a history of Zionism beyond 1948, and not only because many of its functions have been taken over by the state of Israel. Before the word ‘Zionism’ became generally accepted, the term Palestinofilstvo (Hibat Zion) was widely used in Russia.
• Cohn-Sherbok: [23] Ch1 Sabbateanism/Messianism. Hess. Forerunners. Napoleon

Andre🚐 23:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Proposed new lead draft 0, not precious or particular about it, it's a very early swag that I think can be improved:

Zionism is the nationalist movement that emerged in its modern form during the late 19th century with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in the historical region of Palestine, known as the Holy Land or the biblical Eretz Yisrael. This took for the form of small agricultural colonies and land purchases prior to the Ottoman Empire giving way to British administration and partition which formally drew lines for the Jews and Arabs of Mandate Palestine. Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts. Formulated into political Zionism by such figures as Herzl, Pinsker, the movement's core ideology centered on the "negation of the diaspora" and the belief that Jews needed a sovereign state with a Hebrew national culture. Early Zionists such as Ahad Ha'am drew on historical and religious ties in the revival of Hebrew and historical Jewish traditions of aliyah to create a new secular modern identity. With the support of Western powers, the movement ultimately succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Today, Zionism remains a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism.

Andre🚐 00:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

So is your key issue the use of the word "colonization" in the first sentence? DMH223344 (talk) 00:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There are several issues to do with the balance of aspects and the amount of weight, this is the first paragraph and the first draft attempt, so we can go in further depth, or not. Feel free to take this same list of sources, read them and create your own draft and start there, also. Andre🚐 00:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, we should be specific about the issues. DMH223344 (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I wrote a long section about this in several places, so I don't want to repeat myself. This section contains a constructive attempt, which you can engage with if you wish. As I said the lead focuses overly on critical aspects, and is missing several of the key aspects mentioned in BESTSOURCES about Zionism: ancient homeland, self-determination, history, revival of Hebrew language and culture, antisemitism, return from diaspora. That are coming up again and again. If you don't agree that's fine, naturally I had to focus on certain quotes that seemed responsive to the question. You can spelunk the same source list and find an alternative or simply critique mine if you wish. But don't say I'm not being specific, because I just did Andre🚐 03:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for being specific. Of the aspects you listed, only revival of hebrew language is not mentioned in the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 04:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, these should all be mentioned in the first paragraph, and mostly as close to the first sentence as possible. And I would say the current lead puts undue emphasis on the critical aspects. Andre🚐 04:29, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree, the first paragraph should describe the basics of what Zionism is, which it does in its current form. DMH223344 (talk) 04:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you honestly feel that the current first paragraph is a reasonable map to the first introduction or Ch1 paragraph in the bestsources? Andre🚐 04:39, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it does a good job of satisfying the requirements in the policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Opening_paragraph DMH223344 (talk) 04:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a MOS concern, I have a WP:BALASP concern. The WP:WEIGHT should mirror all reliable sources. The best sources can be a proxy for that. But right now there is undue weight on a number of different details in each paragraph of the lead that are ancillary and serve to create an impression of arguing in the lead. See WP:IMPARTIAL. A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise, articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tones can be introduced through how facts are selected, presented, or organized. Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article. The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial, formal tone. Andre🚐 05:05, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

You want to shove every aspect you consider "positive" about zionism in the first paragraph? DMH223344 (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I didn't realize it before, but on reading it now it's pretty perplexing that a motivation for Zionism isn't there. They just decided to create a state randomly? Uh... ok. Bitspectator ⛩️ 05:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I definitely agree that there is a balance issue here. But I think the original lead reads well, and I don't see much wrong with it as a base aside from a couple of potentially controversial wordings. Not sure if it needs a full rewrite though. To modify your work, Andrevan, I would probably just add something like this after the first sentence in the original lead:

Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, which had been persistent since the formation of the Jewish diaspora. Zionism was seen as an alternative to failing efforts to achieve Jewish emancipation.

and something like this after the "central importance in Jewish history" sentence in the original lead:

Early Zionists drew on these historical and religious ties in order to create a new secular modern identity, carrying out a revival of Hebrew and adopting it as an official language.

Bitspectator ⛩️ 02:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Those do both feel like great incremental improvements to the current text, without prejudice to other changes and issues. Andre🚐 02:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, this article is an overview of Zionism, not the History of Zionism, which article is another mess in need of fixing up, maybe that should be done first. Selfstudier (talk) 10:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Which reminds me, another mess at Timeline of Zionism. Selfstudier (talk) 10:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

For example, Forriol, "The first chapter will analyse why and how the Zionist project began to take shape in Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The second chapter will examine how the Zionist project has developed in Israel and the mechanisms that this ideology uses to achieve its goal of taking control of Palestinian territory and establishing a fully Jewish state, with the help of the US. The third chapter will analyse how Zionist ideology has been implemented in the state of Israel throughout its history." This article should be mainly interested in Chapters 2 and 3 of the book not Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, was a product of the upsurge of anti-Semitism in 19th century Central and Eastern Europe. Or in the case of Conforti where instead you have chosen to pick up a line about the Zionist conception of the Jewish past, from a journal article whose abstract says "This article offers a new perspective on the early stages of Zionism, adopting the ethno-symbolic approach to the study of nationalism"? Selfstudier (talk) 11:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As for your suggested paragraph, I would prefer something along the lines of, using your words mostly:

"Zionism is a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination (this is was?) and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism pursuing colonial settlement and expropriation. It emerged during the late 19th century in response to growing antisemitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts (?), with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Supported by Western powers, the movement succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Since then...? Selfstudier (talk) 11:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I have to comment here that describing it as ethnonationalism is certainly not limited to critics or opponents. It literally is ethnonationalism, the mainstream zionist description of zionism is that it is ethnic-nationalism (although they sometimes also shove in "cultural") DMH223344 (talk) 18:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's too bad, Selfstudier, and I appreciate a conscientious attempt to find a reasonable compromise and improve the state of affairs. Andre🚐 22:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• You didn’t respond to my request, which was to give a bulleted list of what you object to in the present lead. Instead you provide a lead alternative, with bibliography. So you have essentially walked past the issue of what is putatively wrong in the text we have.

• Your alternative version is now showcased to, I presume, be the point of discussion, not the present lead. Artful, but not helpful .
• Your version is an impeccable exercise in writing a text that would be perfectly acceptable in an Israeli school primer. It is, in essence, how Zionists are taught to perceive their history. That is a legitimate perspective, but in academic/encyclopaedic articles we do not describe as a set of facts what turns out to be the formal self-perception or retrospective political, cultural and ideological reading of its past any nation may choose to entertain. It is not an NPOV balancing act, in short, but a ‘disappearing’ of one party and their history (the 95% of Palestinians and their descendants) in order to privilege how Zionists, and then later, large parts of the Jewish world perceived what they were doing (while sweeping under the carpet the other side of Zionism, its possession of a foreign land. The only allusion to that is reference to unnamed ‘opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism’).

• You want a discussion of your version, it seems, and want to avoid making a clear list of what you think unbalanced in the article at present. No. Your version is even more problematical. So I suggest you make a pointed critique line by line of the text as it stands.

• 'emerging in its modern form’ implies as a given fact that Zionism pre-existed its creation’ suggests in a Zen-like form that Zionism pre-existed itself, which is contentious. ‘What was the face of Zionism before Pinsker and Herzl thought it up’.

• the precursors alluded to in ‘small agricultural colonies and land purchases’ are given as examples of a an early form of ‘establishing a Jewish state’. That’s how your grammar works, and the statement is false..

• ’land purchase’ from the 1882s onward, extremely exiguous down to 1948, is prioritized while dispossession of land disappears.

• ‘the Ottoman empire’ gives way to a British administration. No mention of how this controversial transition took place (the Balfour declaration). It is all smooth history.

Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts.

• Again a tendentious POV passed off as an historical fact. It has been argued that Zionism did not arise, certain in Herzl, as a response to growing anti-Semitism. *But leave that aside- What is wildly POV is to suggest that it arose out of ‘the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts’. Rubbish. Emancipation had been a thorough ongoing process since Napoleon’s Grand Sanhedrin. Eastern Jews had a Yiddish saying about being 'as lucky as a French Jew', etc. Zionism arose, as much to handle the emigration from Slavic countries, where assimilation was virtually non-existent in the Western sense, as anything else.

the movement's core ideology centered on the "negation of the diaspora"

• Nope. Early Zionism was a secular movement, bitterly opposed by orthodox Judaism for decades and ‘negation of the diaspora/galut’, being taken from religious terminology did not figure in its original core ideology. So much so that for a decade, Palestine was only one of many countries that were vetted for expatriative colonies. This is anachronistic.

Jews needed a sovereign state with a Hebrew national culture. . Early Zionists such as Ahad Ha'am drew on historical and religious ties in the revival of Hebrew and historical Jewish traditions of aliyah to create a new secular modern identity

• That is not in Herzl, who imagined a German-speaking Western state in Palestine. Why Ahad Ha'am is given prominence is obscure, since he fought political /statist Zionism all his life. He did not advocate mass aliyah: to the contrary, he thought creating a spiritual home in Palestine would be a ‘light unto the dispersed’ nations of Jews in diaspora.

With the support of Western powers’ Zionism created Israel.

• It was predominantly under the British Empire that support came.’Western powers’ is both a retroactive reading, (ignoring the politics of partition and the large number of minor countries, not ‘Western powers’ (which sounds like the last four decades) , and Russia, who endorsed both the partition plan and the, with initial American reluctance, subsequent declaration of the state of Israel.

Today (Zionism has) supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism

• Wow. The ‘national liberation movement idea arose 50 years after the foundation of Zionism, in the 1950s. It is a cliché, that is rather senseless in its erasure of the fact that the success of Zionism implicitly repressed another national liberation movement from achieving its goals. And it is not ‘opponents’ of Zionism who criticize Zionism as a form of ethnonationalism. Stupendous!!!! That happens to be a Basic Law of Israel.

• In short, instead of working on a text which has 1 decade of consensual work behind it (and you have emphasized that wikipedia articles must be written line by line, datum by datum consensually, which this is not), you have patched up an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts as an alternative to restart from scratch, and the version for this reculer pour mieux sauter is almost verbatim the standard Israeli/Zionist public story about that movement and the origins of the state. We are to tweak a national POV.Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Eastern Jews had a Yiddish saying about being 'as lucky as a French Jew', etc. Zionism arose, as much to handle the emigration from Slavic countries, where assimilation was virtually non-existent in the Western sense, as anything else.

  So what's the problem with the line then? Virtually all Zionist leaders and thinkers came from Eastern and Central Europe where emancipation wasn't achieved. Virtually none came from France. That demonstrates the point if anything. Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  See Stanislawski 2017 pp. 7-10. fiveby(zero) 16:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts is in my opinion a grossly unfair characterization of a very well-thought-out and comprehensive compilation of sourcing proving quite conclusively that the lead section is POV. Coretheapple (talk) 15:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Proves nothing at all, and an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts could just as well be said in the other direction. Try and be specific, please. Selfstudier (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I left out that it is needesslly inflammatory verbiage that has no place in these discussions. Coretheapple (talk) 16:52, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  That comment is worth about as much as the previous one, please comment specifically on content. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  That was precisely my point. Editors shouldn't be using these pages to "get stuff off their chests" and "unload" on other editors. That's not too much to ask. Coretheapple (talk) 17:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Policy on reaching consensus addresses my point: "Editors who maintain a neutral, detached, and civil attitude can usually reach consensus on an article through the process described above." I'm not blazing a new trail here. Coretheapple (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Third time of asking, do try and comment on the content. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I did. [24] You responded that it "proves nothing at all." It wasn't intended to "prove" anything other than my belief that the editor Andre provided ample sourcing to substantiate his position on the POV issue. Editors are not requiried to meet other editors' standards of "proof" or meet their demands or desires for further elaboration if the editor does not feel it is necessary or useful. Coretheapple (talk) 17:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Andrevan did not show where our existing text had POV problems. He simply leapt over that request, and presented his own version, which happens to mirror a story that has been told a thousand times for 70 years in that form. To anyone familiar with the literature, what Andrevan wrote is a highly recognisable story. The way Zionists now like to see their movement retrospectively. One does not describe encyclopedically an ideology, which Zionists admit their belief system is, in terms of how the framers of that ideology see it. We don't wrote Russian or Chinese communism as the those militants or thinkers see it, but from outside, according to how a detached scholarly overview analyses it. Nor do we write the modern history of Spain according to Francoism. This goes for all countries. Before calling this a mishmash in terms you take as rude, I gave very concrete examples of why it screws up Zionism. You haven't contested those facts. You highlight as 'inflammatory' language that is dismissive of a patchwork of confused generalizations which cancel all nuances, and totally elide the existence of the dilemma within Zionism which our best sources highlight. So as Selfstudier says, if you want to participate, focus on the argument about its defects, not on my personal summation of Andrevan's suggestion, which is, politely put, a dully familiar patchwork of Zionist POV self-representations. In any case, it is perhaps not worth the effort, since we have spent months deliberating on the best sources to be used in rewriting the article, achieving something of a consensus, and, rather than reading them, we now have a complete sidestepping of that collegial effort's results with a personal resumé, not of all of the scholarship. but only those parts of it which vindicate Zionism's self-portrait.Nishidani (talk) 18:19, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I can't respond to all this WP:TEXTWALL. I gave my best attempt, trying to follow the bestsource summaries above, and substantiating my logic for the POV/WEIGHT and IMPARTIAL problems. I will note the extensive textwall response doesn't appear to cite any sources. Andre🚐 20:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  As I said previously, and I'm repeating myself because my comment (to which you just replied) is hidden in a "hat," I disagree with your statements about Andrevan's comments and believe that he has set forth a cogent and detailed litany of sources that address the subject matter of this discussion more than adequately. Coretheapple (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• If you consider my 299 words above a Wall of Text consider just two of your own extensive remarks

(a) Andrevan 03:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC) 230 words (b) Andrevan 21:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC) 250 words Your name appears 131 times on this talk page, mine 31. It is a similar loquacity profile to what happened on the Zionism, race and genetics page, where I wrote the whole article, and you argued all that time for a mere name change, and one or two tweaks. Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Would you like to cite some sources for your claims? Because my text came out of the sources. Most of the things you are critiquing are pretty much paraphrased directly. I tried to give prominence to the things I summarized in the source list. Antisemitism was given considerable weight in the sources. Your argument It has been argued that Zionism did not arise, certain in Herzl, as a response to growing anti-Semitism directly contradicts the BESTSOURCES. Andre🚐 21:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We would all do well to spend less time on the talk page, and more time reading offline. And by the way, you like everyone else, should link to the specific pages in the sources cited, not to a link to the book's publishing details at google books. That is what I do, so I do not throw the burden of verification on the reader's shoulders. Nishidani (talk) 21:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes I think specific pages is not a bad idea at all wherever possible. I've found that in locating specific sources, it is often possible to ascertain relevant pages by perusing the Amazon "look inside the book" feature, as well as the ability to temporarily access books on Internet Archive. Coretheapple (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I generally do agree that cites should cite pages, but in this case I specified the locations as sections, ie Introduction, or Chapter 1, etc., because I was almost always trying to find the earliest part of the source, so in most cases Ch1 intro is p.1. I did specify a few other pages above, but usually low single digits. If you have trouble verifying let me know. The links are for the benefit of readers needing a readable copy of the book. I believe almost all of the sources should be readable for free using either Google Books preview, the PDF links, or TWL access to Oxford, Cambridge, DeGruyter, etc. Andre🚐 21:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes I see your point. That makes sense. Coretheapple (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Scope

Since the preceding section has once again been derailed, let's get back on track, what is the WP:SCOPE of this article?

Currently:

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 Europe.[4][5][6] With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine,[7][8] a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism,[9][10] 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.[11] Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology.[12][7][13]

Andrevan suggestion:

Zionism is the nationalist movement that emerged in its modern form during the late 19th century with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in the historical region of Palestine, known as the Holy Land or the biblical Eretz Yisrael. This took for the form of small agricultural colonies and land purchases prior to the Ottoman Empire giving way to British administration and partition which formally drew lines for the Jews and Arabs of Mandate Palestine. Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts. Formulated into political Zionism by such figures as Herzl, Pinsker, the movement's core ideology centered on the "negation of the diaspora" and the belief that Jews needed a sovereign state with a Hebrew national culture. Early Zionists such as Ahad Ha'am drew on historical and religious ties in the revival of Hebrew and historical Jewish traditions of aliyah to create a new secular modern identity. With the support of Western powers, the movement ultimately succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Today, Zionism remains a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism.

Selfstudier version (response to Andrevan):

Zionism is a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination (this is was?) and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism pursuing colonial settlement and expropriation. It emerged during the late 19th century in response to growing antisemitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts (?), with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Supported by Western powers, the movement succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Since then...?

Anyone may feel free to insert their versions of what they think Zionism is...

Selfstudier (talk) 17:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I am strongly against the first sentence being of the form "supporters think __ critics think __". Zionism is not a mystery, we can define it in explicit terms. In any case, I'll repeat what I said above which is that the mainstream zionist narrative is that zionism is ethnic nationalism (they sometimes also throw in "cultural").

"critics" of zionism describe it similar to masalha:

Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and as the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East, in particular, and to the international community in general.

with key emphasis on "racist" and "fascist" and Israel's role as a regional and global actor. DMH223344 (talk) 18:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Each person proposing their own version seems like the wrong way to do this. Let the two editors who think the lead is not balanced propose specific suggestions with specific justifications and we can discuss them individually. DMH223344 (talk) 18:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

One sentence at a time. We will never agree in this way. DMH223344 (talk) 18:50, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, we are not agreeing any other way either so might as well give it a go. Selfstudier (talk) 18:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

My take was that it's because the complaining editors have jumped directly to proposing their own versions and assumed we agree a full rewrite is necessary. I don't think a full rewrite is necessary. It's so much simpler to just discuss one sentence at a time. That's how we were able to reach a consensus on the use of "colonization" and the sentence: "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible"

Andre and bit are taking us back to square one, as nish pointed out above, framing zionism from a purely zionist perspective. The motivation being the vague claim that we focus too much on "critical" aspects. Andre was specific about what he considered missing from the lead, but most of it was actually already there. But somehow he is arguing that now all those aspects need to be present in the first paragraph, not just in the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I said I don't think a rewrite is necessary. I really don't think I'm framing Zionism from a purely Zionist perspective. Is that what you read from my version? Bitspectator ⛩️ 19:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Please stay away from assuming other editors' motivations and just focus on the edits themselves. You may privately think another editor's motivation is to present the topic from a particular point of view, and that's fine, you're welcome to think it privately. :D It really isn't productive to say it. You can say the edit presents the topic from a particular point of view. Valereee (talk) 19:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion below is only about the first sentence, actually the first part of the first sentence, what's your take on that? Selfstudier (talk) 20:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Have we identified any specific issues with the first sentence, other than the use of jargon? The initial discussion was about NPOV, but i dont think that has been mentioned for the first sentence specifically. DMH223344 (talk) 21:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think those who disagree have indeed argued that the first sentence and first paragraph are not NPOV due to DUE, WEIGHT, IMPARTIAL, BALASP. I'm not claiming my version is perfect or even good, but there are issues with the current one, and I don't want to keep repeating it; the only reason why I'm saying it now is because for some reason editors insist on saying that those that disagree haven't raised issues when they have been raised; it's uncharitable. Andre🚐 21:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, if you want to talk about the first sentence, let's do that. Let's stay focused on that then. What is missing from the first sentence, or what is included in the first sentence that you disagree with? DMH223344 (talk) 21:31, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence should be a basic, uncontroversial description that pro- and anti-Zionists would agree on. It should mention the most salient aspects of the BESTSOURCES' description. Then sentences 2 and 3 can contrast the ranges of views. For example, formlated in Stanislawski. Zionism—the nationalist movement calling for the establishment and support of an independent state for the Jewish people in its ancient homeland—is today one of the most controversial ideologies in the world. Its supporters see it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people that came to fruition in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Its opponents regard it as one of the last forms of colonial oppression in the world, defined by Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in the name of a racist ideology increasingly turning Israel into an apartheid state. As it is right now we have an anti-Zionist view as the definition. Andre🚐 21:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

What is exclusively an antizionist perspective about the first sentence as it is?

Looking at just your first sentence here, you've swapped out a concrete definition of what zionism is about (answering where, when and how) with a less informative one which uses explicitly zionist terminology without qualification ("ancient homeland"). Also, emphasizing the "controversial" aspect misses that there is wide agreement on what Zionism is in a scholarly context. See my additions to the Beliefs section which where written mostly using Zionist or non-Zionist sources: Avineri, Shimoni, Shapira, Penslar. Antizionists frequently agree on the basics: Finkelstein, Masalha, Rabkin. I'm happy to go through that exercise with you to confirm that. DMH223344 (talk) 22:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"Ancient homeland" is verbatim from Black, Stanislawski, and Laqueur, with other variations in others, such as the discussion in Engel. We did not include Avineri, Shimoni, Finkelstein, or Rabkin in the list of BESTSOURCES, though I agree they are very good sources, it's contrary to the purpose of the exercise and distorting. Almost every source does say Zionism is controversial, too. Can you make a draft, using the agreed-upon list of bestsources, describing what you think are the salient points for sentence 1 or para1? The current one doesn't match and that is the nature of weight issue. Andre🚐 22:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Am I one of those two? I was responding to the source survey where there seems to be more weight on anti-Semitism, the concept of the Jewish diaspora, language, and culture than we currently have. Bitspectator ⛩️ 19:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Bitspectator deluxe version: 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 specific land. Zionism developed in the context of anti-Semitism in Europe, which had been persistent since the formation of the Jewish diaspora. Zionism was seen as an alternative to failing efforts to achieve Jewish emancipation across Europe. With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Early Zionists drew on these historical and religious ties in order to create a new secular identity, carrying out a revival of Hebrew and adopting it as an official language. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology. Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

'anti-Semitism in Europe, which had been persistent since the formation of the Jewish diaspora.' Sigh. Patience. The Jewish diaspora began well over 2,000 years ago, before 'Europe' in anything other than a geographical entity existed. And you would have an extremely hard task finding evidence of 'anti-semitism' as we understand it in Europe for the Ist millennium (as opposed to anti-Judaism). Apart from quietly reading some books on Zionism specifically, perhaps you might profit from browsing Simon Schama's 2 volume (so far) The Story of the Jews to get some basic perspective and background.Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Your opposition to "anti-Semitism in Europe, which had been persistent since the formation of the Jewish diaspora" is:

1) The Jewish diaspora began over 2000 years ago.

Okay. And?

2) Europe only existed as a geographic entity.

Okay? It's being used as a geographic term.

3) Anti-Semitism for most of that time could not be distinguished from anti-Judaism.

Okay? The term doesn't only refer to racial anti-Semitism.

Is your position that there should be no reference to anti-Semitism in the opening paragraph, or that only my specific wording is wrong? Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. The sentence was uninformed by any precise knowledge of the topic,-be it Zionism, Jewish history or the history of antisemitism and therefore replying to what I take to be tongue-in-cheeky comebacks is pointless. Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"You are wrong because you don't know what you are talking about". That's your position? Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Concur with Bitspectator. Andre🚐 21:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Several of the sources on our list (and others that aren't) specifically dispute that Zionism arose in response to, or primarily in response to, a rise in antisemitism in Europe, characterizing that as a Zionist myth. I don't think we should say that in the lead, or at least we need to be more careful about how we say it. Levivich (talk) 21:47, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I had changed the wording to "developed in the context of anti-Semitism in Europe" to try and avoid that point while still making a connection to anti-Semitism. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Could you be more specific, please? Because almost all of the BESTSOURCES I saw said antisemitism right there in the first or 2nd sentence. Andre🚐 21:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Stanislawski 2017, pp. 9-10:

But here one must be very precise about chronology: the all-too-frequent claim that modern Jewish nationalism was born in response to anti-Semitism or to the outbreak of violent attacks (“pogroms”) against the Jews which began in the Russian Empire in 1881–82 is quite simply wrong: the first expressions of this new ideology were published well before the spread of the new anti-Semitic ideology and before the pogroms of the early 1880s. This is not to deny that the pogroms and the spread of anti-Semitic ideology convinced many Jews of the veracity of the modern nationalist, including the Zionist, solutions to the “Jewish problem.” But once more, it is essential to understand that the fundamental cause of the emergence of modern Jewish nationalism was the rise, on the part of Jews themselves, of new ideologies that applied the basic tenets of modern nationalism to the Jews, and not a response to persecution.

Indeed, the rise of anti-Semitism even in its most virulent forms did not lead the vast majority of Jews worldwide to abandon their belief in Judaism as a religious faith, whether in its traditional or modernist versions, or their belief that legal emancipation—and its corollary of upward economic and social mobility—would solve the problem of the Jews. Thus, even in the face of the rise of anti-Semitism, for most of its history Zionism remained a distinctly minority view in Jewish communities around the world, opposed by the vast majority of rabbinic and lay leaders. This situation changed only after the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust, when the need for an independent Jewish state to serve as a safe haven for Jews became not only widespread but central to Jewish consciousness throughout the world.

Edelheit 2000 pp. xv-xvi:

It would be wrong, therefore, to emphasize only external factors in the rise of Zionism. Although antisemitism played an important role in the origin of some nationalist schemes for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the external catalyst could (and in fact did) drive Jews away from Zionism and toward other ideologies that offered -- or seemed to offer -- a solution for the "Jewish Problem." ... Zionism must thus be viewed as deriving in part from an external catalyst (antisemitism) but representing developments of an inner dynamic within the Jewish people at the end of the nineteenth century.

Levivich (talk) 22:31, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed quotes, but these seem to simply temper the statement or add a bit of nuance and not refute it outright; while Stanislawski does clearly say "simply wrong" he appears to be responding to the idea that modern Jewish nationalism was not born of antisemitism, but not that antisemitism was a major factor. Also, when there is a conflict of equally reliable sources, e.g. some which do flatly make the statement that Stanislawski believes to be incorrect, such as Forriol, Wikipedia should not take sides unless there is a clear academic consensus, but portray the range of scholarly opinion. Edelheit says "antisemitism played an important role" and Stanislawski says "the pogroms and the spread of anti-Semitic ideology convinced many Jews of the veracity of the modern nationalist, including the Zionist, solutions." Applying this principle to the quotes here would yield a statement along the lines of, my phrasing, "While many scholars have described Zionism as a response to antisemitic persecution, others point out that it predated the pogroms of the 1880s, and therefore should be understood as an ideological growth of modern nationalism, to which the response to antisemitism was a factor, but Zionism is best understood as,..." and then I would go into something like this from Penslar: the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collec-tive self-determination within historic Palestine. Like other forms of nationalism, Zionism is both an ideology—a coherent, sustained inter-pretation of experience in terms of fundamental values—and a move-ment: a set of practices designed to realize ideological goals. Andre🚐 22:39, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Anybody besides me think that "ethno-cultural nationalist movement", while accurate, is WP:JARGON that will be completely meaningless to 99% of readers? Levivich (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

'Ethno-cultural nationalism' is pointless. Ethnonationalism covers things like the defense of 'a national culture' against minorities, immigrant or other, who are perceived as not (as they frequently are) assimilating, but as bearers of an alien culture and identity. The other reason is that the compression of three things, which are often fluid, excludes religion, as is descriptions of 'ethno-religious' statehood. But we are unfortunately slipping away from the original effort to resolve problems, as has been noted, by generating every editor's favoured version. This is getting to look like a chaotic waste of our time here.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems to be spawning some discussion. How would you like me to rephrase my comments? Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:02, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

But isn't that what we were doing anyway? (I'm just looking back up this page, never mind all the stuff we just archived). Selfstudier (talk) 20:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings about it.

1) Ethnic nationalist 2) Ethnonationalist 3) Cultural nationalist 4) Nationalist

Which do you prefer? Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:14, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Wait -- do you think those are four different things, or all the same thing? If they're different, I prefer the one that's correct :-) Levivich (talk) 18:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think they are different but all can be used to describe Zionism. I think Zionism is "ethno-cultural nationalist". I lean against (3) because I think that is a lesser component of Zionism. Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:23, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe "ethno-nationalism" because that is what critics accuse it of, namely, ethnocentrism. "ethno-cultural nationalism" is less clear though perhaps more technically accurate. Andre🚐 21:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Helpful wl, Ethnic nationalism Selfstudier (talk) 18:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We should look at the refs as well, Conforti, Gans and Medding for the current phrasing. Selfstudier (talk) 18:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We have both Gans and Conforti (another 2021 by them here espousing the ethnocultural nationalism, as Gans puts it "Nonetheless, Zionism is fundamentally an ethnocultural nationalism" (which is just a variety of ethnic nationalism) so I think we do not need Medding. Selfstudier (talk) 18:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's better to link ethnocultural nationalist as ethnocultural nationalist. I hover over "ethnocultural" expecting to see a description for that concept (pairing of ethnicity and culture?) but instead see a description for "ethnic nationalism". Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep, did that. Selfstudier (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Bitspectator deluxe version: "...colonization of a specific land...eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine"? Are you rolling territorialism or all of Jewish nationalism under Zionism? fiveby(zero) 18:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think territorialism is described as part of Zionism. I don't think all forms of Jewish nationalism are described as being part of Zionism. How would you phrase those lines? Bitspectator ⛩️ 19:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Some "Zionism is..." quotes

Penslar 2023, p. 1: Zionism, in turn, is the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collective self-determination within historic Palestine. Like other forms of nationalism, Zionism is both an ideology— a coherent, sustained interpretation of experience in terms of fundamental values—and a movement: a set of practices designed to realize ideological goals. Engel 2013, "To the reader": Indeed, neutral descriptions are hard to find. To its many advocates the name suggests a genuinely democratic and progressive movement of national liberation that has given an oppressed and homeless people the freedom, security and dignity denied it for two thousand years. Its opponents, in contrast, claim that in pursuing their aims Zionists have actually created a new oppressed and homeless people. Moreover, they charge, the sources of Zionism are the same ones that bred western colonialism and racism, meaning that its ideas must be rejected by all right-thinking human beings. Halperin 2021, pp. 21-29: [p. 21] Zionism, as the term suggests, is an ideology ... [p. 28] The movement began in late-nineteenth-century Central and Eastern Europe ... [pp. 28-29] Core aspects of Zionism, including Jews’ historical experiences of discrimination and violence, engagement in minority politics within multinational empires, efforts to modernize and teach Hebrew as a national language, and affinity with but also ambivalence toward imperial powers, cannot be appreciated outside an ethnonational framework ... [p. 29] But Zionist memory also has a core feature that is not especially amenable to these comparisons: its emphasis on histories of rural agricultural settlement in a distant and, despite its symbolic importance, unfamiliar land. Stanislawski 2017, p. 1: Zionism—the nationalist movement calling for the establishment and support of an independent state for the Jewish people in its ancient homeland—is today one of the most controversial ideologies in the world. Its supporters see it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people that came to fruition in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Its opponents regard it as one of the last forms of colonial oppression in the world today, defined by Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its millions of Palestinian residents in the name of a racist ideology increasingly turning Israel into an apartheid state. Alam 2009, pp. 3-4: We focus on the germ of the Zionist idea, its core ambition—clearly discernible at its launching—to create a Jewish state in the Middle East by displacing the natives ... The Zionists proposed to lead the Jews—who had been for millennia a global religious community—into Palestine and turn them into a nation with a land and state of their own. In the early years of the movement, most Jews dismissed Zionism as utopian adventurism, since the Jews lacked the basic prerequisites of a nation state. They were not a nation, as commonly understood; nor did they possess a national territory. In order to overcome these grave deficiencies, the Zionists would have to find a surrogate mother country, seize Palestine, persuade Western Jews to colonize this land, and empty Palestine of its native population.

Above are some quotes I found for "Zionism is..."-type statements, or summaries of what Zionism is or its core features are. Based on this, I think the first sentence should say (1) ideology, (2) movement, (3) nationalism, (4) late 19th c., (5) Europe, (6) Jewish state, (7) Palestine. Levivich (talk) 23:05, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Is it unreasonable to at least try to do the survey for 10 and not 5 sources? Don't they all at least include such a sentence? Do you want someone else, such as myself, to do the other 5? Andre🚐 23:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes that would be great, thank you. Levivich (talk) 23:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I also quoted more Penslar since you didn't really let him finish his thought. and the Engel quote is not from Ch1 but the foreword so here is a different Engel quote. These sources talk about the return to the biblical homeland and the messianic motivations of Zionism along with the secular haskalah.

Some Zionism is... quotes, part 2

more Penslar, p. 2-3 Until 1948 Zionism’s goal was to create a Jewish homeland in a territory with which Jewish civilization was intimately linked: the ancient Land of Israel. Zion is a biblical word that refers to a hill in Jerusalem and, by extension, to the city of Jerusalem and thence to the entirety of the ancient Land of Israel. Because it was tied to a specific territory, Zionism had a common vocabulary with other nationalisms, which were all territo-rially based. Unlike other nationalisms, however, pre-1948 Zionism’s claim on territory was aspirational, based in ancient memories and future hopes. Until well into the twentieth century, a negligible number of Jews lived in the Land of Israel. Even after the State of Israel was created, its population grew into the millions, and it became a regional military superpower, Zionism retained a sense of fragility, vulnerability, and incompleteness.These feelings account for the ongoing salience of Zionism, a word that connotes more than an idea or movement. It is a belief that Jews have a moral right and historic need for self-determination within his-toric Palestine. It is a project to gather Jews from throughout the world, to ensure that they dwell in safety, and to nurture a homeland that is in turn a source of inspiration for Jews everywhere. To the extent that Israeli Jews and Israel’s supporters abroad see this project as incomplete, Zionism still has relevance. Engel, chapter 1, "The idea of a Jewish state. Let's start with basics" (page is unmarked but I assume p.1) During the 1890s 'Zionism' began to be used as a designation for certain activities aimed at encouraging Jews from different parts of the world to settle Forriol p. 21-22 Zionism as a political movement is an ethnic and organic nationalism. One has to start from the idea contrary to what Jewish nationalism maintains, the nation is a relatively recent historical construct, not having existed since biblical times. But the rabbinic vision of their religion reinforced their ethnic consciousness. Persecution in Europe due to anti-Semitism and the longing for Zion (the belief in a homeland to which they were destined to return when their exile ended), both of which were religious in nature, facilitated the development of Zionism. This ideology emerged in the late 19th century in a context of nationalist effervescence in Europe, influenced by it, and because its promoters instrumentalised the biblical paradigm of 'the promised land - the chosen people' as a mobilising slogan for the Jewish community abroad, whose aim was to seize the entire Palestinian land or at least the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. This official ideological and political movement of the state of Israel carries three fundamental connotations: nationalism, racism and colonialism, which will determine what happens to the Palestinian people and the future of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Edelheit, p. 3: Whereas Zionism is, at its root, a secular nationalist movement framed as a modern revolution against elements of the Jewish past, from its inception Zionism also harked back to a two-millennia! tradition of hope for the restoration of Jewry to its ancestral homeland. Therefore, examining the Jewish understanding of concepts of land, statehood, nationalism, and national sovereignty will, therefore, provide key data for understanding Zionism's appeal and its meaning. At the outset, a few basic premises must be understood. First, the Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly be- tween religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities. Second, nonetheless, a strong sense of bondedness exists throughout the Jewish tradition and is expressed in terms of peoplehood or, in modern terminology, as 3 a concept of nationality (OJJ, Am). Third, that from the very beginning this sense of people- hood was identified with the Land of Israel, or (to use the traditional Jewish term) Eretz Israel. The fact that Eretz Israel was not seen as just a homeland, but also as a land of destiny, was intimately related to this sense of peoplehood and meant that Eretz Israel was always seen as central to Jewish life, in theory if not in practice. Finally, throughout the long years of exile Jews always hoped for some form of redemption and return to their ancestral homeland, with a small settlement existing almost continuously. Dieckhoff, p. 3 Zionism, however, was only a special and belated expression of a multifacted national mobilisation arising from the crisis in Jewish society in the eighteenth century. Amar-Dahl, p. 4 Zionism emerged in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century with the defined goal of terminating the “abnormal” political situation of the Jewish diaspora, that is, statelessness of the Jews, and of creating a mode of collective life based on a national state. Arising from the emergency situation posed by an increasingly rampant racist anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish nationalism was funneled into a movement, with the “negation of the diaspora” forming the core of its ideology and the starting point of its politics. Wagner, p. unmarked but it's a few pages into the introduction, a footnote marked 7 and quoted as the "thesis of the present volume." Zionism is a doctrine that provides the State of Israel with a firm—even dogmatic—religio-national identity justified by an appeal to God's will, to historical memory, and to mythical racial ancestry Brenner, introduction, p.4: Zionism aimed to overcome this sense of otherness by forc- ing the Jews to fit into categories valid in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Once they were universally regarded as a nation and had their own state, they would no longer be vul- nerable to assaults against their alleged uniqueness and cease to be victims of antisemitic attacks. The Zionist Joseph Heller summarized this attitude when he wrote shortly before the State of Israel was founded: “A nation, like an individual, is normal and healthy only when it is able to use all forms of innate gifts and harmoniously to unfold all forms of economic and cultural creativeness. For this purpose the nation needs political freedom and the right to utilize the natural resources of the soil as the basis of its economic growth. The task of normalization means for the Jews a real ‘transvaluation of values,’ because of the unquestioned hegemony of the spirit throughout Diaspora history. . . . Above all, the nation must ‘return to the soil’ not only in the physical sense but also in the psychological.”6 Seventy years after the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel has achieved many goals of the Zionist movement

Andre🚐 23:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

To expand a bit on the Engel quote, the full sentence is During the 1890s ‘Zionism’ began to be used as a designation for certain activities aimed at encouraging Jews from different parts of the world to settle close to Jerusalem, in a region many called Palestine., then he briefly mentions the establishment of the Zionist Organization (ZO) in 1897, the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the ZO's redefinition of Zionism in 1951, 1968, and 2004. The next paragraph is If you think those facts tell a simple story, think again! Actually, they raise questions whose answers are not simple at all. The rest of Chapter 1 asks and answers these questions:

First, what exactly is ‘the Jewish people’ for whom the ZO sought a home? ... Similarly, it isn’t obvious at all what the phrase ‘a Jewish state’ signifies. ... There is also a historical problem. Does the fact that the word ‘Zionism’ first came to be widely used at a relatively recent moment in historical time (the 1890s) mean that the basic idea the word came to signify – that Jews from different parts of the world ought to settle in Palestine and seek a ‘home’ there ‘secured by public law’ – is itself only a bit more than a century old? ... What does it mean to say that ‘the Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people’? ... But what of the Declaration’s next assertion: ‘Exiled from the Land of Israel, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom’? ... What happened to Jews in the nineteenth century that could have prompted the new direction that the founding of the ZO signified?

Engel concludes the chapter with (italics in the original):

This was the basic idea of Zionism. Its fundamental impulse was less an ancient Jewish religious imperative than fear that the large majority of the world’s Jews would soon find themselves without adequate protection for their lives and livelihoods. That fear had a real basis in the spread of national movements in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. By adopting the premisses of those movements instead of fighting them, Zionists hoped to make the nationalist current work to Jews’ advantage instead of their detriment. In other words, had the concept of national states not taken root in Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century, it is doubtful that a body like the ZO would have come into being at that time. Similarly, the language of Israel’s Declaration of Independence – which asserted that ‘it is the natural right of the Jewish people to lead, as do all other nations, an independent existence in its sovereign State’ – must be understood first of all in light of basic nineteenth-century European concepts of states, nations and citizenship.

Those concepts cannot explain everything in the Declaration, however. For one thing, the idea that, in a world of national states, it was incumbent upon Jews to resettle in a territory where they could form a majority and create a national state of their own does not tell us why that territory had to be Palestine. Indeed, some early Zionists thought about other territories as well. Were traditional Jewish religious imperatives central in directing Zionist attentions to Palestine specifically, or did more immediate historical developments play a decisive role in this feature of the movement as well?

I think this sets out some of (what Engel views as) the basic features or aspects of "what is Zionism?" Levivich (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

and the ZO's redefinition of Zionism in 1951, 1968, and 2004 Thank you, I am quite interested in this ie what is Z now (post Israel) as opposed to what it was to start with. Selfstudier (talk) 09:17, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Program has the 1951 and 2004 but not the 1968, which is at the History of Zionism article (but not the other two).

From the not so great JVL source in the former "Questions also emerged concerning the relationship of the new State with the Zionist Organization. The Congress adopted a resolution calling on the State of Israel to recognize the WZO as the representative body of the Jewish people in all matters that involved the organized participation of Diaspora Jewry in the upbuilding of Israel. In 1952 the Knesset acted upon this resolution, when it passed the WZO and Jewish Agency for Israel (Status) Law. Selfstudier (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Self, in the book, Engel cites the American Zionist Movement's website for reproductions of the revisions to the Jerusalem program:

• 1897 (Basel Program): "...establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine..."
• 1951 (Jerusalem Program): "...the consolidation of the State of Israel..."
• 1968 (Revised Jerusalem Program): "...strengthening of the State of Israel..."
• 2004 (current version, I think back to just calling it "Jerusalem Program", like it never changed), which added some, um, details, like "...and Jerusalem, its capital..." and other pro-Zionist stuff

Levivich (talk) 15:56, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about the tangent, but Engel is alas one of those who mistranslate the first sentence of the Basel Program, perhaps due to not knowing that public law is a thing. It says nothing about "publicly". Rather it says "öffentlich-rechtlich gesicherten" which is a standard German legal phrase meaning "secured under public law". I wrote a long analysis at Talk:Basel Program with a list of sources that use "under public law". Recently I noticed that the constitution of the World Zionist Organization also cites the Basel Program as "under public law" [25]. Zero^talk 09:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism is a departure from Judaism, not a fulfillment of it

In looking through the best sources, I noticed statements like these:

Penslar 2023, p. 23:

Jewish connections with the Land of Israel are ancient and deep, but they should not be equated with Zionist goals to settle Jews in the land and configure it as a Jewish homeland. ... [p. 25] Although nationalist movements routinely assert continuity of the collective across time, Zionism’s attempts to construct a liminal space between past and present—a metaphorical foyer to the nationalist movement—are unusual.

Stanislawski 2017, p. 2:

Many, if not most, Zionists today regard Zionism as a natural continuation of two millennia of Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel and aspiration to return there in the End of Days ... What this common point of view misunderstands is that the Zionist movement, founded in the late nineteenth century under highly specific and contingent circumstances, was in fact a rejection of that age-old desire for the Jews to return to the Land of Israel, and not its linear fulfillment.

Engel 2013, ch. 1:

These facts suggest that, prayers for restoration notwithstanding, Zionism might be better understood as a departure from traditional Jewish ways of looking at the world than as an extension of ancient Jewish religious values.

I'm not sure where/how this view should be in the article body and lead, but I think it should be there, and it doesn't seem to be there right now. Levivich (talk) 23:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There's a discussion of the paradox of Zionism in Edelheit p.3 and beyond that may help inform and balance this. The text in the beginning of Engel also goes in to further depth as does Penslar. I think a larger look at the context would be helpful. Also, as in the other case, Stanislawski's "this is a common, but" type logic is a sign that Wikipedia shouldn't flatly take his side, but portray him in a range of historical views from the most maximalist to the most minimalist, or from conservative to revisionist. Andre🚐 00:04, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Use of "best sources" list

I had thought we had decided on a list of "best sources" on which to base the outline of the article and how much weight to give to each aspect. Somehow it seems we're also restricting the lead to be based on that same source list? I dont think we agreed on that. DMH223344 (talk) 05:08, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it quite as categorically as that. We first decided to compile a list and see where we got to and whether there was even any agreement on that. Atm, we have restricted the best sources list to after 2000 (originally it was academic presses but that seems to have been dispensed with). There have not been any restrictions on sources for the article body, to the contrary, we decided that such sources would be necessary for detail. Ultimately the lead should be a summary of the body and without any citations, the idea being that summary statements in the lead should reflect the article body (as usual) but that issues of weight should be resolved by reference to the best sources.

Idk if that makes sense? Selfstudier (talk) 09:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes it makes sense. But above the editors have done the exercise of looking at the first chapter of these books and are proposing to rewrite the first paragraph of the lead based only on those. I disagree with that approach. The lead summarizes the body. For a definition of zionism, we should first agree on body content, then summarize that for the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 15:27, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep, that's right usually, these are slightly peculiar circumstances tho, maybe we can do it in tandem. Selfstudier (talk) 15:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with either lead-first, body-first, or tandem. In theory there shouldn't be a conflict. For example, if the sources suggest the body should have sections X, Y, and Z, then the lead should also summarize X, Y, and Z. Levivich (talk) 15:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Why all this concentration on the lead when the body of the article is in such rough shape? Following the antisemitism discussion for the lead above we might take for instance Laqueur's first thesis: "Zionism is a response to antisemitism." and argue about that as a source and a conclusion in the lead, but that would be a pretty useless effort as far as actually informing the reader goes. More productive might be to look at what else he says on the matter and seek agreement across multiple "best sources" to improve the text and citations for the next to last paragraph of the "Overview" section. I don't wish to reignite any "colonization" debates or on specific wording in the lead, but for many of these hotly debated issues there seems to often be a lack of article content giving tools to the reader to understand the conclusions argued over. For instance the article introduces to the reader that there was another people living on the ground as "Zionists wanted...as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." Greater understanding for the reader might come from something like presenting the counter-example of Yishaq Epstein's "The Hidden Question" within the body. fiveby(zero) 14:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

In principle, I don't disagree, except that I still think an effort ought to be made at the History of Zionism page in addition, which is what the antisemitism thing relates to but there is no mention of it in the lead there, which should then be summarized in this article. Selfstudier (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree we should first focus on the body, and the lead should summarize it. My attention to the lead comes from the recent discussion about whether it has npov issues. DMH223344 (talk) 15:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

The rest of Line 1?

The first part of sentence one is cleared up (I hope) so what about the rest of it? 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 Europe I suppose the contested part is the last bit..."through the colonization of a land outside Europe"? Selfstudier (talk) 14:03, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I found "a land outside Europe" to be a weird phrasing. Is "outside Europe" an essential part of Zionism? Could someone substantiate this? I don't clearly see that in the quotes in the refs. A few possible different wordings:

1) Establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a specific land.

2) Establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of land.

3) Establishment of a Jewish state through colonization.

I like (1) and (3). Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:22, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the purpose behind this avoidance of Palestine, what source is this based upon when so many list as a central idea? Is there a need to collect sources here for this and reworking the "Territories considered" section? fiveby(zero) 14:35, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The next line is: "With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine". I'm okay with "establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine" so as long as the rest of the paragraph accommodates. Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

+1 "establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine". Levivich (talk) 15:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

(Heb. tsiyyonut) denotes the modern movement of the return of Jews to Erets Yisra’el (shivat tsiyyon, the return to Zion)

— Berlin, Adele, ed. (2011). "Zionism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2nd ed.).

International, political, and ideological movement dedicated to restoring Erez Israel to the Jewish people.

— Bowker, John, ed. (2000). "Zionism". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions.

The movement that arose at the end of the nineteenth century with the aim of establishing a homeland for Jews in Palestine, as it then was.

— Jacobs, Louis, ed. (1999). "Zionism". A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion. Oxford University Press.

(ec, re Bitspectator)Got a source for confusing the reader with such a departure from the norm. Territorialism is often discussed alongside Zionism, and certainly after 1903 in opposition to Zionism. fiveby(zero) 15:24, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not against "of Palestine". Bitspectator ⛩️ 15:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Penslar p 37 has "In 1890, a young Viennese Jewish activist named Nathan Birnbaum coined both the word “Zionism,” by which he meant a Palestine-centered Jewish nationalism, and the term "political Zionism," which meant a public political campaign on behalf of the attainment of Zionist goals.38 Theodor Herzl had never heard of either term when he underwent a conversion to Jewish nationalism in the spring of 1895..." Selfstudier (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I lean "of Palestine" now. I'm just thinking of the phrasing of the next lines. Should contain [initially contemplating other locations] and [Palestine corresponds to the Biblical Land of Israel]? Bitspectator ⛩️ 15:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Not in the first sentence. I'm not sure that the "some briefly considered other places" is even worthy of including in the lead at all (it's worth including in the body of course), it seems like trivia to me in the context of an overview of Zionism. Levivich (talk) 16:18, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history.

This is a pretty cozy first sentence to me. I would change the first "and" to "that" though. Bitspectator ⛩️ 16:30, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to it, in the sense that I don't think it's misleading or anything, but I would shorten the first sentence and let the rest of the first paragraph do some of the work:

Zionism is an ethnic nationalist movement for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, the ancient Jewish homeland in Palestine. Emerging in Europe in the late 19th century and led by the World Zionist Organization, Zionists launched a program of colonization of Palestine that culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel following the 1948 Palestine war. Zionism continues to be the official state ideology of Israel, although its platform has been redefined several times since inception.

Something like that is what I'd write for first paragraph. (Sorry to stray beyond 1st sentence, but it's hard to divorce the 1st sentence from the rest of the 1st paragraph.) Levivich (talk) 17:05, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I dislike this for putting "Land of Israel" and "ancient Jewish homeland" before "Palestine". I think the Zionist (or even Jewish) understanding of the territory should come after the most impartial description of what the territory is ("the Levant" would also be okay). Is your point that "Land of Israel"/"ancient Jewish homeland" is not exactly synonymous with "Palestine"?

I also find it objectionable that Wikivoice definitively describes "the ancient Jewish homeland" as "in Palestine". Previously it just acknowledged a correspondence between "Palestine" and "Land of Israel", I think for obvious NPOV reasons. Bitspectator ⛩️ 17:48, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Shlomo has a lot to say about "Land of Israel" and post 48, it is an anachronism (Israel is not equal to Land of Israel). At the very least we need to set the usage in its time period (initially sought or something like that and then dispense with it, maybe should be some sort of efn). Selfstudier (talk) 18:00, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to saying, somewhere in the lead, that Israel has expanded its borders beyond the borders of the Land of Israel. I'm not sure if that should be in the first paragraph or elsewhere in the lead. But I don't think that fact contradicts that Zionists wanted to establish a Jewish state in the place where the historic Land of Israel was located. Levivich (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Over at History of Zionism, LoI is not directly mentioned in the lead, we have instead "At the core of the Zionist ideology was the traditional aspiration for a Jewish national home through the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine" with the last mouthful wikilinked to History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel. Selfstudier (talk) 18:06, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think "Land of Israel" or "ancient Jewish homeland" is the Zionist/Jewish understanding, that's everybody's understanding. Like, nobody disputes that Jews originated in the Levant, or that they call that place "the Land of Israel." Judaism didn't come from Africa or Antarctica or something, everybody knows where it came from. And I think whether one term for the place ("Land of Israel") or another ("Palestine") is first in the sentence, is a petty consideration.

I would say this: "the Land of Israel was in Palestine" is not a sentence that, in my view, any reasonable person would ever question. Only die-hard partisans would be like, "You can't call it that! It's [Israel/Palestine] only!!" IMO we get really tripped up on this, what I'd call silliness, across many articles.

"ancient Jewish homeland" might be a little on the nose, in that it may imply a historic right to the land, which is of course a hotly contested issue.

That said, I'd be fine with all sorts of variations, like: in Palestine, where Judaism originated, and which Jews called the Land of Israel or in the Land of Israel (modern Palestine) or in the place where Judaism originated or in the birthplace of Judaism, etc. etc. Levivich (talk) 18:17, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think "Land of Israel" or "ancient Jewish homeland" is the Zionist/Jewish understanding, that's everybody's understanding. Like, nobody disputes that Jews originated in the Levant, or that they call that place "the Land of Israel."

It's no more disputed that Palestinians originate from the Levant... Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:29, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

100% agree, and I'd say the same exact thing about people who say "It's not called 'Palestine'!" Levivich (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

But Land of Israel has never been a common English name for the region. Thats why it shouldnt be used in place of Palestine in an English language encyclopedia article. nableezy - 21:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

"Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history."? Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

How about we hold up for a bit and wait for some oppositional buy-in? Selfstudier (talk) 18:36, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure. Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:39, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense :-) Levivich (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

"Corresponding to" strikes me as wordy. What's wrong with, "the Land of Israel, in modern-day Palestine"?

"of central importance" is vague, why not just say what that central importance was: where Judaism originated, something like "birthplace of Judaism"?

Again, I don't really oppose your language, I'm just saying I think we can be clearer and more direct. My opposition is to dancing around basic facts in order to satisfy extreme partisans on either side (and I don't mean you or anybody else here, I mean those who deny that Israel is in Palestine, or that this region is the origin of both Jews and Palestinians). Levivich (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

What additional information does "Land of Israel" add? I think if anything it just confuses since it doesnt have well defined borders. DMH223344 (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It explains why Zionists wanted to form a Jewish state in Palestine, and not somewhere else. I'd be fine with "a Jewish state in Palestine, where Judaism originated," or "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel in Palestine," or "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel (in modern Palestine)" or "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, where Judaism originated, then known as Palestine." Levivich (talk) 18:51, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

But i dont think its widely accepted that that's why Palestine was chosen, no? It also encourages misunderstanding it as a religiously motivated movement, which it was certainly not, with many traditionalist authorities opposing collective settlement in Palestine. DMH223344 (talk) 18:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's definitely widely accepted. Even undisputed. Why would they have sent people to Palestine if not because that's where the Land of Israel was? I mean, what is the alternative explanation for why Palestine was the destination? I don't think it's complicated or controversial to say that Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine because that's where Judaism comes from. Levivich (talk) 19:20, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok I think there's something subtle here which is the distinction between "Judaism" and "the Jewish people". I agree one of the motivations of Zionism choosing palestine was they claimed a historic title to the land, but the movement was not motivated by religion (although that would have of course played a factor). DMH223344 (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

See the paragraph in Shimoni talking about the zionist organization's claim to palestine specifically: https://archive.org/details/zionistideology0000shim/page/353/mode/1up?view=theater

Which includes a justification based on the utility to western powers DMH223344 (talk) 19:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

All that is to say that I think we should be careful to make it very clear that zionism developed as a secular movement, not one driven by religion or tradition. As many authors emphasize, it was a radical break from tradition. DMH223344 (talk) 19:30, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Levivich in this case. "ancient homeland" comes verbatim out of several BESTSOURCES. I agree that it's an important motivation and that it's hard to mount a reasonable argument to question the fact that Zionism went to Palestine because that's where the Land of Israel is in Judaism. I like Bitspectator's frame, "Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history."? Andre🚐 20:38, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any issues with "Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history." DMH223344 (talk) 20:46, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this formulation has consensus? Levivich (talk) 21:51, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

"Judaism originated in Palestine" is a historical statement, not a religious one. Just like "Islam originated in Mecca" or "Christianity originated near Jerusalem". To me, saying that, or saying that Zionism wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine because that's where Judaism originated, does not say to me that it was religiously motivated. But in any event, I think distinguishing Political Zionism from Religious Zionism, and the fact that the former was secular, and that the former became the mainstream, is worth saying somewhere in the lead. Levivich (talk) 19:42, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree it is a historical statement, I just dont think an emphasis on "judaism" (rather than the "jewish people") is warranted here. Im pretty confident most sources focus on the origins of the people, not the religion in this context.

I agree about mentioning the distinction. The body is currently lacking a real discussion of this distinction or of the nature of religious zionism as a melding of religious conservatism and secular nationalism following the efforts of kook. DMH223344 (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd be fine with not mentioning the Judaism/Jewish people thing explicitly. That's why I'd be fine with something like "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel in Palestine" or "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel (in modern Palestine)". You asked what does "Land of Israel" add; well, that's what it adds: in Palestine because that's where the Land of Israel was. We can leave it up to the reader to click on the link (or read the body of this article) and learn about the nuances of what and where the Land of Israel was, exactly, and what it means for Judaism and for the "Jewish people" (whoever they are, as we know, a complicated question in itself). (I think saying that the Land of Israel was the origin of the Jewish people is problematic given research about the disapora and the whole "who exactly are the Jewish people?" question). I think the lead needn't go into any detail further than "in Palestine because that's where the Land of Israel was," or alternatively, "in the Land of Israel, which is in Palestine", or something like that. Levivich (talk) 20:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree that 'Judaism' originated in Palestine, anymore than I concur with the view that Christianity originated near Jerusalem. For in both cases the question is what Judaism/what Christianity? Like most statements that are eminently reasonable for being commonsensical, they begin to crumble if you analyse the terms that constitute them. Sorry for being a spoilsport.Nishidani (talk) 20:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I could elaborate, but I see the article Origins of Judaism does indeed give some of the reasoning behind my elliptical obiter dictum. The formation of Judaism, as we understand it today, was a very long historical process, which took a decisive inchoate turn in Babylon during the exile, was distilled by Ezra and Nehemiah on their return to Judea, and achieved something like a defining value with the rabbinical Judaism of the Mishnah, meaning a span of several centuries extending over the work of Jewish religious figures, not only in Palestine (the Palestinian Talmud) but also throughout the 'diaspora'. It was a product ante litteram of the galut as much as it was the outcome of Jewish religious thought and practice in Palestine itself in the formative nationalist periods. The essential thing about all this is the symbolic order constituted by the Biblical narratives (which were themselves not a product just of 'Palestinian' Jews) with its figuring of that region as the core of Yahweh's promised land and the site where the people coalesced into Israelites. This obvious point is often ignored in even excellent RS. As always, our problem in assessing RS is to see what parts of them conserve standard narratives, and what part show genuine advances in our historical understanding (something I think ignored above in these endless threads over what to pick from an ever expanding source base - also perhaps because there are no wiki guidelines to tell us how to undertake those assessments, other than articles and books which review the ongoing works in the field).Nishidani (talk) 21:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the discussion could be more rigorous if we look at all the bestsource quotes rather than simply off-the-cuff opining on the arcane particulars. Most of them talk about Judaism and also the secularization. Stanislawski, as was pointed out, contrasts this view, but in doing so also fleshes it out. Penslar: Zionism’s goal was to create a Jewish homeland in a territory with which Jewish civilization was intimately linked: the ancient Land of Israel. Zion is a biblical word that refers to a hill in Jerusalem and, by extension, to the city of Jerusalem and thence to the entirety of the ancient Land of Israel. Edelheit: Zionism is, at its root, a secular nationalist movement framed as a modern revolution against elements of the Jewish past, from its inception Zionism also harked back to a two-millennia! tradition of hope for the restoration of Jewry to its ancestral homeland. Therefore, examining the Jewish understanding of concepts of land, statehood, nationalism, and national sovereignty will, therefore, provide key data for understanding Zionism's appeal and its meaning. ... First, the Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities. Second, nonetheless, a strong sense of bondedness exists throughout the Jewish tradition and is expressed in terms of peoplehood or, in modern terminology, as a concept of nationality. Third, that from the very beginning this sense of peoplehood was identified with the Land of Israel, or (to use the traditional Jewish term) Eretz Israel. The fact that Eretz Israel was not seen as just a homeland, but also as a land of destiny, was intimately related to this sense of peoplehood and meant that Eretz Israel was always seen as central to Jewish life, in theory if not in practice. Finally, throughout the long years of exile Jews always hoped for some form of redemption and return to their ancestral homeland, with a small settlement existing almost continuously. Forriol: Zionism as a political movement is an ethnic and organic nationalism. One has to start from the idea contrary to what Jewish nationalism maintains, the nation is a relatively recent historical construct, not having existed since biblical times. But the rabbinic vision of their religion reinforced their ethnic consciousness. Persecution in Europe due to anti-Semitism and the longing for Zion (the belief in a homeland to which they were destined to return when their exile ended), both of which were religious in nature, facilitated the development of Zionism. This ideology emerged in the late 19th century in a context of nationalist effervescence in Europe, influenced by it, and because its promoters instrumentalised the biblical paradigm of 'the promised land - the chosen people' as a mobilising slogan for the Jewish community abroad Andre🚐 21:26, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

simply off-the-cuff opining on the arcane particulars

Thanks for the sneer contextually thrown my way but, aside from the fact that there is nothing off-the-cuff there - it's in the scholarship, der Teufel steckt im Detail (the devil is in the details) or more aptly, we can get virtually any number of mutually conflicting formulations from dozens of good solid RS, and use them to whatever purpose we like. To allude once more to that gentleman I mentioned above:'The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose'. The particulars I mentioned are not 'arcane' - they pertain to the essence of any discussion or use of the term Judaism. The point I hinted at is that most good scholarly books of this kind of genre (and I have in mind several kinds of nations in descriptive works) hover between recycled ideas and fresh thinking. Several of the phrases above are questionable ('from its inception'; 'the Jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities'; (A) 'Eretz Israel was always seen as central to Jewish life; 'Persecution in Europe due to anti-Semitism and the longing for Zion' (that unfortunate phrasing grammatically, by the way, suggests that (b) 'longing for Zion' was due to persecution in Europe, whereas 'longing for Zion' in numerous RS is said to be a bilmillennial part of Jewish identity, (compare a and b) etc.) Of course, other things there are unobjectionable. Nishidani (talk) 21:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Not intended as a sneer, but do you want to cite a source for your opinions? So far in this thread I can't see what source you are citing. Andre🚐 21:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

You often ask me whether I have a source for 'opinions' you contest. I write things like the above with the assumption that editors here do know their stuff, namely on things like the history of early Judaism. If one is not familiar with that scholarship, then it's not my job to mentor, but editors to read broadly in that topic area as well. Nothing I said was in the least controversial, or unfamiliar to anyone who studies that past.Nishidani (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Your job is to cite sources for WP:WEIGHT and per WP:V and WP:RS Andre🚐 22:03, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Instead of rushing to reply, could you every now and then withhold snippy immediate reactions (4 minutes above) and reflect a little about what your interlocutors are saying? It is again none of your business to suggest paternalistically you know what my job is, for my editing history has established that. This is a talk page, not an article where editors must contribute sources with WP:Due and WP:RS in mind. If you were surprised to see my reply to Levivich clarifying an implicit ambiguity in associating the birth of Judaism within just one territory, that means you were not familiar with the history of Judaism. If you ask me for sources when I made a second comment, it means you want me to refer you to the immediately accessible results of any google search, which would, if you had downloaded a dozen papers fromn Zeitlin and Neusner onwards, underwritten that generalization. Not broadening one's background knowledge leads to far too much ephemeral backchat. Reply if you like, but methodological cautions and familiarity with a culture are a lesson all should take on board. And consensus is better secured if we adopt the principle that we should spend more time in the study than on wikipedia as a talkback venue if articles are eventually to be written with encyclopedic stability and precision. Finis Nishidani (talk) 07:49, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk pages indeed expect a constructive approach to editing pages, some amount of generalization permitted, but if you're contradicting stuff from the most reliable sources, one would expect you are going to bring an equally reliable source (which, as you know, is not the Origins of Judaism). Uncharitable to suggest I don't understand, just focus on the fact that you don't agree. I'm well aware of Judaism's relationship to Babylon, Persia, and Egypt; still, you need to cite sources, not just say stuff. I quoted several of the BESTSOURCES, and you are still just stating stuff without a link in sight. You need evidence for claims. Yes, the exile was critical to the development of Judaism, but most Jewish people trace their culture and religion to the Second Temple period, not the rabbinic period. Andre🚐 07:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not contradicting reliable sources. And I am not making 'claims'. It appears to you to be a claim simply because you seem to be unfamiliar with the obvious, which normally on wikipedia does not require RS documentation. You are referring to RS on Zionism as reliable on 'Judaism', I'm referring to works on the history of Judaism which make the assumption about 'Judaism' in the former look superficial. Since you won't follow my advice, or don't appear to grasp my point by a careful reading, I'll give you a leg-up. Read Steve Mason's 'Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,' August 2007 Journal for the Study of Judaism, vol. 38, issue 4-5 pp.457-512 and then Daniel Boyarin's Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion, Rutgers University Press 2018 ISBN 978-0-813-57161-4. Please don't come back on this. It would take several hours of concentrated study to get through just those two excellent references, but the time spent would be in your worthwhile.Nishidani (talk) 09:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this formulation makes some basic errors, Zionism's goal was to establish a Jewish state. Zionists later coalesced on creating that Jewish state in Palestine. nableezy - 21:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

But by that argument, "outside of Europe" is also not accurate. Zionism wanted a Jewish state and considered alternatives, like Uganda. But is there a bestsource that they needed to be "outside of Europe"? During the phase where they would have taken anything, why not Europe? Also, what is the source, because the sources above clearly attribute that goal to Zionism, not Zionists, (see above) Andre🚐 21:46, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

What are the dates you'd put on that? What's the date that Zionism began or that Zionism set a goal of establishing a Jewish state (if those two dates are different), and what's the date that it coalesced around Palestine? Levivich (talk) 21:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

We can of course put a date on both. Herzl's Jewish state in Palestine was proposed in February 1896, and the Basel Program's formal acceptance of Palestine dates to late August 1897. The Uganda 'alternative' was not a Zionist proposal, but one made by an outsider, Joseph Chamberlain, 4 years later. None of the vaunted 'alternatives' that from time to time arose -Angola, Argentina, Brasil, Canada, Cuba, Cyrenaica, El Arish, Kenya, Kimberley, Manchuria, Madagasgar, Mesopotamia, Nevada, Paraguay, Siberia inflected seriously the early decision to go for Palestine. Any other alternative created deep rifts within Zionism, esp among the majority Eastern Jews. The irony of the Uganda plan is that the British colonialists already established there were interviewed and voiced strenuous opposition which was taken into account for its political risks, something avoided later with the Balfour Declaration, which never considered indigenous Palestinian opinion or opposition. They were Arabs. Nishidani (talk) 08:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to put a date on that, and I'm not happy about presenting the history as if it was "anywhere" first and "only Palestine" later. It wasn't as simple as that. Palestine was the emotional favorite from the beginning, but some saw it as unavailable or unsuitable for some other reason. Some Zionists wanted to hold out for Palestine, others were prepared to consider anywhere that was available. The latter stream became fringe when the ITO split off and faded. I would drop "outside Europe" even though it is true, because the answer to "why not Europe?" is that nobody ever suggested a location in Europe that was available and suitable. Zero^talk 06:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree it was the favored destination, but my understanding is that Zionism at its core was Jewish nationalism and the goal to establish a Jewish state. The where mattered, and while Palestine was the emotional favorite the initial goal was much less dependent on the where than on the what (the what being a Jewish state). nableezy - 16:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "Palestine" versus "Eretz Israel", I think we should follow the terminology used by the Zionists themselves. This was overwhelmingly "Palestine" until well into the mandate period. Without evidence, I suspect this reflects the secular nature of the project. Zero^talk 06:38, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Palestine is indisputably the most common name used by Zionists and many others for the region in the premodern period, Eretz Yisrael is more of a concept than a geographic place name. However, the most common name for the place in the premodern period, largely due to Christian usage, was (ngram) "Holy Land" (or even more common, but sometimes not used geographically, "Promised Land") One exception would be Zvi Hirsch Kalischer who refers to the area as both "Eretz Yisrael" and "Zion." Also, it's worth noting that in the pre-modern period, Israel generally referred to the people, ie the Children of Israel, or as Pinsker says in Auto-Emancipation the "people of Israel." Personally I think we should mostly consider how commonly sources in the modern-day describe things, with an eye to clarification and everyday usage. Andre🚐 06:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

If I am following the above, we more or less agree "a land outside Europe" can go

"...that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine, a region corresponding to (known as?) the Land of Israel in Judaism, [and of central importance in Jewish history.]"

and we are currently at something like the above? Or not? Selfstudier (talk) 10:05, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

That's where I'm at 🙂 Bitspectator ⛩️ 12:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

+1. I like your tweaks, too, "known as" and I think the "importance" bit is unnecessary if Land of Israel is linked--that already communicates importance, but I'm good with it either way. One other tweak I'd suggest: "pursued" instead of "aimed for." Levivich (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'm perplexed since this is both unpolemic, innocuous and historically accurate, and I don't see any cogency in taking an exception to what is a very standard phrase in accounts of Zionism. This is a palmary example of spending a lot of chat to rid text of a phrase which lacks any reason to be expunged. Most recently, in a gloss the translation of the fundamental document of early Zionism, we have

• Judenstaat offers a plan to make a Jewish Palestine into an outpost of European “civilization” amid the “barbarism” of the orient, and recognizes that such a colony would remain dependent on Europe to guarantee its security. Herzl argues that Europeans should held the Zionists achieve their goals because a Jewish state outside Europe was a solution to the Jewish problem inside Europe, but would also function as a pan-European colony. Michael J.Reimer, The First Zionist Congress:An Annotated Translation of the Proceedings, State University of New York Press 2019 ISBN 978-1-438-47314-7 p.29
• 'His concern was with the anti-Semitism of which Jews were victims. Its solution was the establishment of a state outside Europe's boundaries.' Milton Viorst, Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal, St. Martin's Publishing Group 2016 i978-1-466-89032-9 p.30
• 'Herzl used the case of Dreyfus to stress that European nationalism was steeped in racism against Jews, and as such, argued for the need for a national Jewish state outside Europe.’ Amneh Badran, Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa:Civil Society and Peace Building in Ethnic-national States, Taylor & Francis 2009 ISBN 978-1-1352-7582-2 p.71
• ‘certain anti-Semitic movements and governments applied the very same concept to justify a sympathetic handling of Zionism, insofar as the project of setting up a Jewish state outside Europe would solve the local ‘Jewish Question’ through a voluntary withdrawal of all these undesirable “aliens.” Victor Karady, The Jews of Europe in the Modern Era: A Socio-Historical Outline, Central European University Press 2004 ISBN 978-9-639-24152-7 p.337
• 'Zionism can thus be defined as an attempt to solve the Jewish question’ (a term used preominently by Theodor Herzl and other Zionist leaders) not through assimilation but through the creation of a Jewish state outside Europe. Oliver Zimmer, Nationalism in Europe, 1890-1940, Palgrave Macmillan 2003 ISBN 978-1-403-94388-0 p.74
• 'Even before the appearance of definitive proof that emancipation was reversible, however, a sober minority among the "modernists" confronted the logic of ethnic nationalism and set out on the sole possible path to survival in the modern world: the creation of a Jewish nation-state outside Europe Benjamin Nathans, Review: A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939 by David Vital, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 96, No. 2 Spring 2006, pp. 288-295 p.289

That 'outside Europe' is a scholarly commonplace, but very important because it links not only to the specific European antisemitism that generated in part a Zionist consensus, but also to wider themes in Zionism: the repudiation of Europe, yet the need for tutelary arrangements with the Great powers, and the witting self-image of the projected state as a forward frontierpost of European civilization against Asiatic barbarism. Nishidani (talk) 14:04, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it's accurate. But those paragraphs are mostly talking about anti-Semitism in Europe. It makes sense to mention that the Zionist designs were for outside Europe in that context. I previously encouraged mentioning anti-Semitism in the first paragraph. The question is whether to use "outside Europe" in the first sentence of an article describing Zionism. I don't see that (or similar) in the source survey introductions. Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:25, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

"known as" and "corresponding to" seem dont seem accurate enough, considering some definitions include land up to the litani river (and also cyprus). DMH223344 (talk) 16:14, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

How would you phrase it? Bitspectator ⛩️ 16:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I personally would not in the opening. Later when discussing why Palestine was chosen would be a place to include due to the historical connections between Judaism and the region of Palestine, roughly corresponding with the area referred to by the traditional Jewish name of Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael in Hebrew). nableezy - 16:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I would just say "Palestine" like so many sources do, and like the early zionists did DMH223344 (talk) 16:33, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

So just move it to Line 2 as it is now? Selfstudier (talk) 16:43, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Nableezy used "roughly" above, which I think should be included. And I agree that presenting this info in the second sentence as the lead currently does is the right way to do it. Zionism was a modern secular movement, and our first sentence should be very clear, and not imply in any way that it was motivated by religion. DMH223344 (talk) 16:53, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Religious Zionism was a minority position then? Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Also, I'm less familiar with the literature on religious zionism, but I think we can also say that religious zionism is an attempt to bridge secular nationalism with religious conservatism. Religious zionism did not necessarily oppose it's secular counterpart. DMH223344 (talk) 17:12, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Something like:

Zionism is an ethno-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 Europe. By the turn of the century, the mainstream Zionist movement was focused on the establishment of a Jewish state specifically in Palestine. Zionism developed as a secular movement and was in many ways a rejection of Jewish tradition; the movement's selection of Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history, was made on the basis of practical and strategic considerations.

DMH223344 (talk) 17:04, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I have to say I am with those that are not keen on the "outside Europe" phrasing. Mainly because it sounds a bit odd out of context and the putative best sources don't tackle it like that, I prefer just saying Palestine in line 1. I think they settled on Palestine before the turn of the century, right? 1896/7 per Nishidani. I would like to settle line 1 before moving on to Line 2/3 altho they are obviously connected. Selfstudier (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Not keen either, but i think enough objection from Nishidani and nableezy and i think DMH223344 for more work towards a real consensus.

• Alroey, Gur (2011). ""Zionism without Zion"? Territorialist Ideology and the Zionist Movement, 1882–1956". Jewish Social Studies. Indiana University Press. JSTOR 10.2979/jewisocistud.18.1.1. (wplibrary)
• and his book Alroey, Gur (2016). Zionism without Zion : the Jewish Territorial Organization and its conflict with the Zionist Organization. Wayne State University Press. OCLC 921867796. (wplibrary)
• maybe Rovner, Adam (2014). In the shadow of Zion : promised lands before Israel. NYU Press. OCLC 896188426.

Don't know if they feel that needs done now or can be deferred, or just worked on within the body? fiveby(zero) 18:40, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Worked on in the body opens up to more sources and it might throw up the answer we are looking for. Jewish Territorial Organization has in its lead "first arose in 1903 in response to the British Uganda Scheme, but only institutionalized in 1905. Its main goal was to find an alternative territory to that of Palestine, which was preferred by the Zionist movement, for the creation of a Jewish homeland." Selfstudier (talk) 18:48, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Just as a reminder, what the lead "used to say":-

"Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת Tsiyyonut [tsijoˈnut] after Zion) is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to espouse support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition." Selfstudier (talk) 17:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

And fwiw, Britannica updated to "Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel”)." Selfstudier (talk) 18:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

You removed cultural after I had replied, I thought we already resolved that above and the refs (both best source authors) are to suit. Selfstudier (talk) 18:11, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

ah yeah sorry about that, im fine with it's inclusion, i just think it sounds kind of silly. DMH223344 (talk) 18:33, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It's linked to ethnic nationalism for the curious (fwiw, WP articles on the various branches are not that great, see Cultural nationalism "It is contrasted with "political" nationalism, which refers to specific movements for national self-determination through the establishment of a nation-state." Hum.). Selfstudier (talk) 18:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with keeping "cultural" and removing "outside Europe." I feel like we're making good progress. Andre🚐 04:32, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Took a swag at implementing the latest Selfstudier-Bitspectator special deluxe edition [26] Andre🚐 04:42, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I reverted, there have been several objections to Land of Israel and your phrasing on establishing a state and a homeland makes close to no sense. nableezy - 10:37, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

[refactored to below section by Andre🚐 21:57, 4 October 2024 (UTC)]

Again, an edit summary WP:SYNTH (ergo removal) is not enough. My practice is to show on the talk page what the synth you claim is there consists of. Inferences from sources, ergo WP:OR etc? Other editors simply do not know unless you spend some time explaining what is wrong with the text. Bulleted points are useful to this end. So please clarify.Nishidani (talk) 14:02, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

"aimed for the creation of a Jewish state and establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people" is confusing, which is it? Or perhaps one could say something like "...a Jewish state by way of establishing a homeland..."? Selfstudier (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

We are back to trying to get agreement on Line 1, there appear to be three issues on which consensus is required, a) state or homeland and b) outside Europe or Palestine and c) Linking to the second sentence. For me, it's a) state (that's what was really wanted) and b ) Palestine (going by the dates above, that's what the mainstream wanted) and c) Sentence should stand on its own with no link to second sentence. Selfstudier (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

If dates are a consideration for (b) then 1903 is probably better to call out: from Alroey's paper ..the resolutions of the Seventh Congress to reject the British proposal and to prevent discussion of similar proposals in the future was a formative event in the history of the Zionist movement, the territorialist movement, and the Jewish people in general. But ITO lived on till Balfour, and territorialism reemerged in the '30s and '40s Frayland-lige. fiveby(zero) 14:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

"Home" is neutral (and incidentally matches both the Basel Program and the Balfour Declaration). "Homeland" carries the connotation of "native land" (look at a dictionary), so it is not neutral. Regarding Self's (a)-(c), there is a third alternative for (b) namely to not mention a destination at all. The destination issue can be better described in several sentences later than trying to nail it in a few words. Zero^talk 14:59, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree 'homeland' is prejudicial, and 'home' better, though I'm comfortable with 'state' because Herzl and his contemporaries were. re (b) saying 'outside Europe' is not specifying any 'destination', but rather defining it for what it was, i.e., an 'exit strategy' away from Europe where Jews could not exercise an imitation of the nationalisms that were consolidating themselves, and also a flight from, and putative cure for, antisemitism. Re Fiveby's note, I think being tied up by alluding to the Uganda/territorialism variants is unnecessary: as with 'cultural nationalism', which got some late wind from Chaim Gans' strange book (and reflects a very minority tradition associated with Ahad and the negligible if honourable Brit Shalom) Uganda was raised and dismissed virtually in one year, and was an English proposal, quickly trashed, while territorialism, notwithstanding its regional importance sometime later, was almost totally ignored over a century of Zionist historiography (per Astour and Alroey).

My impression is that most wiki disputes are inordinately focused on leads because editors tend to think that's about as far as most modern readers go. Which means the actual body of the article, which should take precedence because only when the sections are done can one accurately précis them in the lead, per policy. At the moment, User:DMH223344 is the only one trying to thoroughly revisit the whole text. Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The old lead and the current one are supposedly from the same body, good trick:) And all the complaints are about the lead, so needs must. Selfstudier (talk) 17:13, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh i agree, many of the points raised in these discussions show fertile ground for content work, and sometimes a surprising lack of existing content. But that is a multi-day commitment of time and also involves the detestable task of, well, writing. Understand Selfstudier's "needs must" tho. fiveby(zero) 17:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

For (b), check out my comment here. Would you go with (3)? Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

personally I have 0 objection to "Jewish national home" if that is a compromise that helps. Andre🚐 23:23, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Wrong thread? Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:26, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion of "home" versus "homeland" in the first message that starts this thread by Zero above. As far as the Jewish state, I think it should mention the Jewish state as well as the idea of a Jewish national home, those 2 are related, but not identical. Andre🚐 23:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Shlaim in particular "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."

Then it would seem that "home", "homeland" and the rest was mere posturing for political effect and a disguise for the real intention, a state. One can see this in the negotiations over the Balfour Declaration, the attempt to upgrade "home" to "commonwealth", for example, see https://cojs.org/quotes_by_lord_george_nathaniel_curzon-_british_foreign_secretary-_regarding_the_establishment_of_the_palestine_mandate-_march_1920/ Selfstudier (talk) 10:00, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe that is correct analysis. The immediate reason that the Basel Program said "home" and not "state" is that they were hoping for a concession from the Sublime Porte and they knew that the least hint of wanting sovereignty would kill the possibility. Zero^talk 10:55, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH in lead

I also removed several conclusions that are WP:SYNTH and failed verification which you appear to have reverted [27] [28] [29] These claims and conclusions do not appear in the sources. Can you show me how the sources support those? Andre🚐 13:46, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I can reword that to say Zionists called their efforts colonization if the wording is a problem for you, but I don’t see synth there. nableezy - 14:08, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

There were 3 removals that you reverted. SYNTH is making a conclusion unless explicitly stated in source. The first, Modern political Zionism, different from religious Zionism, is a movement made up of diverse political groups whose strategies and tactics have changed over time. The common ideology among mainstream Zionist factions is support for territorial concentration and a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine, through colonization., was not in the Alroey source at all. The 2nd, Differences within the mainstream Zionist groups lie primarily in their presentation and ethos, having adopted similar strategies to achieve their political goals, in particular in the use of violence and compulsory transfer to deal with the presence of the local Palestinian, non-Jewish population. has several citations, none of which contain that text. And finally, Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist., which does not appear in the sources cited, which say "colonization" and do not say anything about settler-colonial or exceptionalist, which is not at all the same thing. Andre🚐 19:39, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Since this is not really about Line 1, how about take it to its own section? Selfstudier (talk) 21:51, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

That's true. Can do. Andre🚐 21:55, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The first two are supported by the body. I'm pretty confident the citations for the second one do in fact support that claim (although the page number for ben-ami 2007 might be wrong). If you really want, I can pull out quotes or sections. It shouldnt be necessary since this content is covered in the body of the article. DMH223344 (talk) 22:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Quotes or sections would be helpful. Remember, a conclusion is different from a summary. Can you explain what quotes from which sources and what parts of the body support these synthetic conclusions? Andre🚐 22:33, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

See "Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine" for the first claim. See the section "Labor Zionism" for the second, also see the introduction to Shlaim's book. DMH223344 (talk) 23:12, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

In all cases those are conclusions not made by any source, but we are being asked to make, an improperly synthetic conclusion. 1. That does not contain a source explicitly making the conclusion made here, that all types of Zionism support "territorial concentration" "through colonization." 2. That section does not contain a source explicitly claiming that differences lie in presentation and ethos but all support "violence" and compulsory transfer." 3. ?. in each case, unless a specific source, or really several sources, use something with a commonly-understood meaning that is analogous to those sentences, you're drawing conclusions. Andre🚐 23:16, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Please read more carefully, it's not a problem to take more than 4 minutes to read and then write a response.

The claim is about "mainstream Zionist groups". As for the use of the term "colonization," we can discuss that. It's not controversial that the methods used by Zionism included "colonization." DMH223344 (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, what do you mean? You have a burden of proof to show the quotes that make these conclusions. You appear to be doing WP:SYNTH, namely you're reading all the descriptions of the types of Zionism an saying "yeah they don't differ." Nowhere is it written that they all share the same tenets vis. relocation or violence. I didn't object to "colonization." But the sentence in the article says "settler-colonialism" which is not the 1:1 map to colonization. Andre🚐 23:25, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

You are confusing claims about "all types of Zionism" and "mainstream Zionist groups". DMH223344 (talk) 23:32, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Either way, there's a rebuttable demand for specific, explicit usage of these conceptual strokes, otherwise it's textbook SYNTH. See Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Text–source_integrity. Wikipedia:Don't build the Frankenstein Andre🚐 23:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Some bibliographic work

I'd like to go through all the refs and notes in an attempt to standardize and clean up: full cites, find page numbers, etc. I can see there's been a lot of effort here towards a nice clean bibliography, but more could be done. Any preferences as to how to the mix of sfn and ref and notes which run 1-5 and a-t? Also like to standardize the cite template entries so the all look the same and have appropriate links where available. For instance place of publication for everything or nothing, which identifiers of ISBN, OCLC, DOI, ISSN, JSTOR, capitalization style in titles, etc. Links to archived versions for web cites or no or both? I hate Google Book and will remove all those URL's unless somebody says different.

There are some citations i would like to remove or tag in passing while doing this, but i think better to refrain right now? I will probably be guessing at the editor's intention for page numbers some so might end up adding some page needed tags. fiveby(zero) 17:53, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

What exactly was wrong with the lede of the article prior to October 7 2023?

I feel like the lede of the article, before major edit warring on both sides due to the war, did its job of being fair, neutral, accurate and balanced. LivinAWestLife (talk) 00:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)