The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Zionism holds that "Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland," but is often used by opponents to label the much stronger viewpoint of some in the Israeli settler movement who wish to build a "Greater Israel" on the West Bank and Gaza strip at the expense of Palestinians. Supporters of the former interpretation of Zionism regard it as a combination of nationalism and democratic plurality.
However, a large number of the critics of Zionism condemn it as racist, saying in particular that it has caused great suffering for Palestinian Arabs. Reflecting this latter view, the UN labelled 'Zionism' as racism between 1975 and 1991, many Arab states hold this position and this view is the most common argument Anti-Zionists use to criticize Zionism.
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Israel is a state with a predominately Jewish ethnicity. Although the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence [1] (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/israel.htm) guarantees equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of their race, religion or sex, the Declaration also contains multiple references to the Jewish nature of the state, resulting in some laws treating Jews and non-Jews differently. [2] (http://www.adalah.org/eng/backgroundlegalsystem.php) In particularly the jus sanguinis law of the right of return which, despite Israel's in other circumstances very restricted immigration policies, grant every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel. This is especially agitating for the many Palestinian refugees, who used to live in the territory that is today's Israel, but are denied their wish to return, which they deem as a right. Many Arabs believe that Zionism is racist, and compare its continuation to the reform of Germany's former 'Blood Laws', which had allowed ethnic Germans to claim citizenship, even if they were nationals of another country.
Zionism is now, despite its pre-Israel origins as a "homeland movement," essentially synonymous with Jewish nationalism, since the Jewish identity of Israel is already established. The ideology has similar characteristics to many other European nationalisms developed at the same time, such as German nationalism and Irish nationalism.
Many Zionists dispute this, saying that it still is the same "homeland movement" that started Zionism. Others say that, in a sense, all nationalisms are racist because all privilege one ethnicity above all others.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wanted a Jewish homeland but he did not specify where. Soon thereafter, in the beginning of the 20th century, the decision was made that a Jewish homeland should be re-established in the Middle East. At this time, Palestine was part of the large Ottoman Empire. Some claim that this decision made Zionism different from other nationalisms as it claimed territory for an ethnicity that did not inhabit it at the time Zionism was founded, despite earlier inhabitation of the territory by the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah and Kingdom of Israel many centuries earlier.
As the decision to form Israel led to many previous inhabitants leaving, Zionism could be considered responsible for potentially denying the right to self-determination to the inhabitants. The Anti-Zionist view goes further: that Zionism led to forced relocation of an indigenous population and replacement by another. Anti-Zionists claim this was a form of ethnic cleansing. Again, it is unclear what form of 'Zionism' is being attacked: in many circumstances, the indigenous emigres left because they did not wish to live in a Jewish state and were expecting Israel's imminent destruction. As such they were not "compelled" to leave, (though there was much violence being committed by both sides) and that those who remained gained Israeli citizenship with equal rights to ownership and voting.
Though the modern incarnation of the Zionist ideology is the state of Israel, this itself is a source of debate among some Zionists, who believe in Israel as a conceptual homeland, not as a state - though now the distinction is largely academic. Some Zionist intellectuals still make a careful distinction between advocacy for a Jewish ethic homeland and a Jewish state, which is perhaps similar to the difference between patriotism and nationalism.
People who disagree with the identification of Zionism with racism point out that there is no one Zionist ideology that all Zionists agree on. The views of one Zionist group can differ widely from another such group. As such, some believe accusations that "Zionism" is racist to be as inaccurate as an accusation that "socialism" is racist. Furthermore, Zionism as an ideology existed before the existence of the State of Israel, and would most likely continue to exist even if the State of Israel ceased to exist.
Many Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish, think that Israel should not differentiate between its Jewish and non-Jewish ethnicities. Paradoxically many Jews do not, however, want Israel to drop its "Jewishness" and therefore in effect becoming a non-Zionist state.
In the 1700s and 1800s many Europeans and Russians believed in a variety of competing conspiracy theories about Jews, and their power and desire to control the world. These theories had as a common theme the idea that all Jews believed themselves superior to all other peoples, i.e. Judaism was racist. These beliefs first gained wide acceptance shortly after the French Revolution, and then slowly declined in popular acceptance; however, for a variety of reasons these beliefs again gained wide acceptance after World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Through the publication of the infamous forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," many people took these conspiracies as fact.
Attitudes against any form of Jewish nationalism took on a stronger form during the reign of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was initially supportive of Zionism, but when Stalin realized that Israel would not become a communist nation, he became staunchly anti-Zionist. By the 1950s the Soviet Union was funding the publication of many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. By the 1960s the official position of the Soviet Union and its satellite states was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for racist imperialism. It was only with the death of Stalin in 1953 that anti-Zionist propaganda went into a temporary eclipse.
In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel emerged victorious and the Soviet Union's Arab allies lost. In response, the Soviet Union exhumed its anti-Zionist campaign. Soviet television stations, radio stations and newspapers ran hundreds of editorials and articles stating that "Zionism is racism". These ideas were pushed in all Soviet client states, including many third world nations and Arab nations, and even the United Nations (see below).
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), describes the assertion that Zionism is racism as "discredited," saying that "This divisive, offensive equation is based on hatred and misunderstanding" and is "anti-Jewish."
Main article: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379
The Soviet Union began the "Zionism is racism" campaign in the United Nations in response to United States proposals for UN resolutions against bigotry, which criticised the Soviet Union.
On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), Resolution 3379, which stated that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." The resolution was revoked on 16 December 1991, with a vote of 111 to 25 (with 13 abstentions).
, anti-Semitism, Zionology