Zionism: a dirty word
How a Movement for Jewish Survival Became One of The Most Controversial Words of the 21st Century
Natasha Harris looks into the shifting discourse that reshaped Zionism’s meaning.
Few political terms today provoke such immediate and visceral reactions as Zionism. To say “I’m Jewish” is, in most spaces, acceptable. To say “I’m a Zionist” is to invite accusations of racism, colonialism, or complicity in genocide. A single word - once synonymous with survival, refuge, and self-determination - has been recast as shorthand for occupation, apartheid, and white supremacy.
How did a political movement born from persecution and vulnerability become one of the most controversial, and increasingly taboo, words of the 21st century?
This article argues Zionism’s transformation into a slur did not happen because the ideology itself stopped evolving, but because the discourse around it did. I will explore the movement’s foundations before investigating its descent into accusation, misunderstanding and controversy. Along this avenue, I will analyse misleading perceptions of Zionism as an imperial project, a uniquely evil phenomenon, indicative of discomfort with (deemed) Jewish sovereignty, and how it has been undermined by Jewish resilience.
Zionism: A New Ideology
To understand the root of the hostility now surrounding Zionism, it’s critical to explore not only its internal origins but also the external reactions it has provoked. Pioneered by Hungarian-born journalist Theodor Herzl, in direct response to an increase in antisemitism across Eastern Europe, early Zionist thought sought to create a Jewish nation-state. A radical but practical solution: the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish ancestral homeland. Crucially, prior to Israel’s establishment in 1948, Zionism as an ideology was neither universally embraced nor uncontested but - outside of the Arab world - was generally understood as a Jewish national liberation movement analogous to other emerging nationalist movements that characterised the period.
This positive rhetoric behind Zionism deepened in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The systematic murder of six million Jews did not simply validate Zionist fears but rendered them unavoidable. What had once been framed as aspiration became necessity, fundamentally reshaping the movement’s foundations. Zionism’s focus shifted from the creation of a Jewish state to its defence and survival, gaining broad international support in the process. Moreover, while this period saw some acceptance of Zionism, it also became defamed as a Western-engineered project, fueled by the same imperial forces that had justified the oppression of indigenous peoples for decades.
Zionism: A Western-Backed Project
The perception of Zionism as a Western-backed project has profoundly shaped how the movement is discussed, both historically and today. Britain’s role during the Mandate period, particularly through the Balfour Declaration, is often cited as evidence of Zionism’s imperial origins. But this framing collapses under closer scrutiny.
Furthermore, from an Arab and broader Middle Eastern perspective, the language of statehood, diplomacy, and nationalism embedded within Zionism’s political framework meant that the idea of a Jewish homeland appeared foreign, despite the fact that Jews had maintained continuous religious, cultural, and demographic ties to the land for over a millennium.
When analysing the claim that Zionism represents a Western-backed and, in common discourse, colonial project, it becomes clear that although early Zionists neither claimed to be an imperial power nor practiced imperial rule, this association has nevertheless proven difficult to dismantle. These false narratives, which frame Zionism as an extension of Western domination, often portray Jews as outsiders with no genuine connection to the land, reducing Jewish presence there to a colonial enterprise. Such portrayals echo a long-standing antisemitic trope that depicts Jews as perpetually foreign or rootless, arriving through manipulation or force rather than belonging to a place. In reality, Jews originated in the Levant and maintained an enduring connection to the land throughout centuries of exile. As such, Zionism is better understood not as a colonial project, but as a return movement and an effort by an indigenous people to re-establish sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.
Zionism: The Discomfort with Jewish Strength
When analysing why Zionism presents as a controversial ideology in the modern era, it appears that once Israel established itself as a strong and independent state, reflected in the success of the IDF and its democratic infrastructure, the narrative surrounding Zionism began to shift. While it was once understood as a movement of an oppressed people seeking freedom from prejudice during the 1930s and 1940s, Zionism has become a victim of its own success, allowing the defence and survival of the Jewish people to be weaponised and wrongly portrayed as something the movement always stood against. After all, why would a nation perceived as successful still require a movement created in response to long-standing oppression? While the role of Zionism has shifted from the establishment of the State of Israel to its maintenance, the central problem lies in the stagnation of the dialogue surrounding it.
Zionism: The Root of all Evil
Within contemporary discourse on antisemitism, one persistent narrative is the portrayal of Israel, and particularly the actions of the IDF, as uniquely evil. This framing continually reinforces the distortion and weaponisation of Zionism as an ideology. This pattern is evident in the way Israel’s conflict in Gaza is frequently singled out as uniquely atrocious when compared to other contemporary conflicts with comparable, or even greater, levels of violence. During the 2023–2025 Israel–Gaza war, the Hamas-run health ministry has claimed that up to 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. While this figure is deeply saddening on all fronts, it exists alongside other conflicts that have produced significantly higher casualty numbers without generating the same level of sustained moral outrage or existential questioning of the states involved. For example, in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, since February 2022 an estimated 172,000 soldiers have been killed, alongside approximately 14,500 civilians in Ukraine alone.
Within contemporary discourse on antisemitism, one persistent narrative is the portrayal of Israel, and particularly the actions of the IDF, as uniquely evil. This framing continually reinforces the distortion and weaponisation of Zionism as an ideology. This pattern is evident in the way Israel’s conflict in Gaza is frequently singled out as uniquely atrocious when compared to other contemporary conflicts with comparable, or even greater, levels of violence. During the 2023–2025 Israel–Gaza war, the Hamas-run health ministry has claimed that up to 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. While this figure is deeply saddening on all fronts, it exists alongside other conflicts that have produced significantly higher casualty numbers without generating the same level of sustained moral outrage or existential questioning of the states involved. For example, in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, since February 2022 an estimated 172,000 soldiers have been killed, alongside approximately 14,500 civilians in Ukraine alone.
Zionism: Reclaimed
The distortion of Zionism did not occur because the movement’s core ideals changed, but because the discourse surrounding it, and the world’s willingness to engage with those ideals, did. What began as a movement for survival, self-determination, and peace has been reshaped through selective outrage, historical amnesia, and discomfort with Jewish sovereignty, all of which reflect embedded antisemitic rhetorics. When stripped of context and reduced to accusation alone, Zionism ceases to function as a political ideology and instead becomes a vessel for ancient prejudice. Therefore, as members of FZY, our role is to reclaim the word, not by denying its complexity or silencing criticism, but by embracing it. We must insist on truth in a world of distortion and reaffirm that Zionism, at its core, was never about domination, but about a people refusing to disappear.
