The Many Faces of Zionism

This chapter examines the evolvement of the Zionist idea and movement over the years. It traces the etymology of the concept and its early adoption by evangelical Christianity. This is followed by an analysis of the origins of political Zionism in Europe. Both the official Israeli narrative, viewing Zionism as the Jewish national movement, and the counternarrative that depicts it as a settler-colonial phenomenon are presented. The settler-colonial paradigm explains the achievement of Zionism of building the infrastructure for a modern Jewish state, on the one hand, and the catastrophic effect it had on the indigenous people of Palestine, on the other. The depiction of the movement as a settler-colonial movement explains the ethnic cleansing it perpetrated against the Palestinian people in 1948. This paradigm also explains how Zionism informed Israel’s strategy toward the Palestinians ever since 1948. The chapter also discusses the appearance of post-Zionism and assesses its future trends.