Talk:Zionism

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)

I agree with you. Steven1991 (talk) 23:38, 19 October 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)

Stanislawski (who attempts to make his book a little contrarian to justify its place on the market, imho) acknowledges that a connection is made with antisemitism in many sources when he makes the point that they say this all too frequently. His version of it - a direct causal connection from antisemitism to Zionism - is a bit of a straw man, and we'd definitely want something more nuanced than that. His claim that antisemitism didn't get going until after Zionism was formulated seems to be contradicted by the best sources on antisemitism, which definitely don't start it with the Russian pogroms. I think Bitspectator's "developed in the context of antisemitism in Europe" might be the best way to address this issue. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:06, 8 October 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)

Personally, think the term is jargony and not less supported by the scholarly consensus than simply "nationalist". Nationalist encompasses the range from political nationalism (Herzl) to cultural nationalism (Ha'am) to ethnic nationalism (the Revisionists) without making any of them the defining form. Yes, a couple of scholars use terms like "ethnocultural", but most do not. All of them, however, use the word "nationalist". BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:09, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that it makes a general-audience article less readable. Certainly there are many good sources that don't use this language. Best to say 'nationalist' in the lede with discussion of flavors and details in the body. – SJ + 00:13, 26 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)

I think this Bitspectator's version starts good. Early Zionism didn't call for a state and it didn't only look at Palestine, but it clearly headed both directions over time.

But this sentence needs to be deleted: ""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"

The first source it's based on says in the preface that he hopes his book makes Zionists uncomfortable: This author hopes that the discomfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them...

We have absolutely no place using this source as if it was factual and non-biased. The claims used in this sentence are also cherry picked, ignoring the when the same sources detail cases where Zionists did not seek to create a state with as few Palestinians as possible. We cannot use this source to claim that Zionists wanted as few Palestinians as possible, but while ignoring the author detailing counter-examples:

...attests to the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times ... These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” ...

The entire sentence should be struck and replaced with what the best sources say about Zionist goals. Bob drobbs (talk) 02:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. That seems to be a framing from Masalha and appears in others who quote him, but doesn't represent most iterations of the ism or most descriptions of it. Not appropriate in [wiki voice] for the article overall, and out of place in the lede. – SJ + 00:13, 26 October 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" [1]. Zero^talk 09:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I still do not see why the phrase “as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible” often criticised here is still in the introduction. It does not reflect a consensus among the cited sources, some of the sources just speak of a minority, some speak of a “small minority”. The mainstream of Zionists in the 20s to 40s aimed at a State in the region of Palestine with a Jewish population majority and minority rights for the minorities (i.e. mainly Arabs) living in this State. Generally speaking they prefered a clear majority over a tight majority, but how is this accounted for by the phrase “as few Palestinian Arabs as possible”? And there was no consensus concerning territorial claims, maximalist revisionists even wanted to claim lands on the other side of the Jordan, others agreed to the division plan of the Peel commission. How is this reflected by the phrase “as much land as possible”? It is not backed by the sources, which only aim at the processes of land acquisition and expansion. And what das “as many Jews as possible” mean? In fact there were debates among Zionists in the 1920s concerning which Jews should be accepted into their societies in Palestine, and Zionism accepted that there would continue to be a diaspora. We of course do not have to account for the politically not very significant binationalist or cultural Zionists, but at least the ambitions of mainstream labour, revisionist and religious Zionists of the time should be adequately reflected. I would suggest the following phrase: “The mainstream of Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in the region of Palestine with a Jewish population majority and only a smaller Arab minority population and encouraged Jews from the diaspora to emigrate to Palestine”. @Levivich: --Chricho ∀ (talk) 22:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but probably the next step is an RFC. I tried to start drafting this in the section this page, "issues for potential RFC." I don't think it's a great use of time to just have the RFC be about that one sentence, but that is clearly a big part of the current dispute and controversy. Andre🚐 22:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

We can keep on talking and talking and every so often somebody new will join in but since it is subject to the consensus required provision then, yea, it needs an RFC if y'all not able to come up with something more persuasive than OR and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Selfstudier (talk) 22:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Generally speaking they prefered a clear majority over a tight majority, but how is this accounted for by the phrase “as few Palestinian Arabs as possible”

What is the difference between wanting a clear majority of undefined size (Ben-Gurion mentioned at least 80%) and "as few Palestinians as possible"?

And there was no consensus concerning territorial claims

The statement here is "as much land... as possible" which accurately captures mainstream Zionism's expansionism. As for the comment about the the east bank, Weizmann also wanted that land. The point is that the sources support that mainstream Zionism was expansionist and territorially maximalist. DMH223344 (talk) 23:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

“Clear majority” is accurate with respect to mainstream Zionism and clear and can be understood easily. When I read “as few as possible” I do not even know what that means—zero would be the mathematical minimum… The “as much land” part is not covered by any of the provided sources. Yes, Zionism sought to gradually acquire more land and to have more Zionist immigrants, this land and this people should be the basis for the State. “As much as possible” would be the whole world? Or from Nile to Euphrates? Although there were (and are) ambitions concerning the whole of mandatory Palestine or even parts of Transjordan, these were not absolute claims, but interest in greater territory was weighed against other interests. Concerning Weizmann: Yes, he had wished for Jewish settlement in the East Bank (since he had really wild expectations concerning the British, far removed from reality), but he accepted that it would be off limit after the Cairo conference. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 02:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

When I read “as few as possible” I do not even know what that means—zero would be the mathematical minimum

It pretty obviously means as few as possible [given the constraints]. That's the dominant English usage. I want as much money as possible. What do you think I mean by that?

“As much as possible” would be the whole world?

The article says:

Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land... as possible

Palestine previously linked to Palestine (region). You interpret this sentence as saying that Zionists wanted to acquire the territory of the entire world? What does "in Palestine" mean to you? Bitspectator ⛩️ 02:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The “as much land” part is not covered by any of the provided sources.

• Lentin 2010, p. 7 "determined to increase the Jewish space"
• Lustick & Berkman 2017, pp. 47-48 (quoting Ben-Gurion) "both sides of the Jordan River"
• Manna 2022, p. 33 "more land in the hands of the settlers"
• Masalha 2012, p. 38 "maximum land"
• Pappe 2006, "as much of Palestine as possible"
• Segev 2019, p. 418 "maximum territory"
• Shlaim 2009, p. 56 "the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine"

Those provided sources cover the "as much land" part. Levivich (talk) 02:39, 29 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 [2] [3] [4] 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)

I get Andre's point in a couple of these cases, because it isn't always possible to point to a straightforward correspondence between the claims we make and any single source text. However, it's important to remember that this is a lead, which would ordinarily summarise the body, which should carefully spell out its claims with sources. (Leads are rarely as thoroughly sourced as this one.) The work of summarising necessarily means that text won't simply reproduce source texts. I think most of these passages do a good job of summarising large quantities of source material, via the sections in the body.

However, I agree to some extent with Andre on the current final sentence of the lead: Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist. To me this is very clunky and murky, trying to concisely summarise too many heterogeneous points. Personally, I'd just delete that sentence in the lead, and make sure the points are addressed in the body. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Some Zionists past tense did indeed label their actions "colonialism". I'm not sure how that is relevant when the context is "modern Zionism" and present tense "mainstream factions":

" 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. "

So unless there are solid sources which say that the common ideology among mainstream Zionists today is "colonialism", then this claim does seem to be rather blatant SYNTH.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 23:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the term "modern" confuses more than helps here. To be clear, its meaning here is not the same as "contemporary" DMH223344 (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this text is fine. To me, it's clear "modern" in this context means the period in which there has been a movement named Zionism, but I know lots of people take "modern" to mean "nowdays" so it wouldn't hurt to find a way to be slightly clearer. Otherwise, I think there is enough in the body to support "colonization". BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:50, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't object to "colonization," but "settler-colonialism" and "exceptionalism" not necessarily being rejected by proponents of Zionism? Colonization is not the same thing as settler-colonialism, and that's very much contested characterization, one that is agreed by left-wing critics of Zionism, but not by proponents at all - nor does a source say this conclusion that I have found. That's weaselly worded, doesn't appear in any source per se, nor does "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. Most Labor Zionist kibbutzniks, which while not what it once was, was once a very mainstream branch of Zionism historically, would probably disagree with the strategies or the use of violence used by Political/Revisionist, i.e. more right-wing Zionism. But more importantly, which source actually makes that conclusion? Andre🚐 20:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to crosspost this thread to WP:NORN, since judging by current participation, there isn't a consensus whether this is SYNTH, and maybe an RFC would be good too after that, if that doesn't help. Andre🚐 23:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

and, crickets... Andre🚐 22:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Just waiting for the RFC. Selfstudier (talk) 09:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The emphasis on the colonialist perspective in the first sentence is editorializing and may not present a neutral point of view. The early Zionists used colonialist terminology within the context of their time, and they often referred to the establishment of agricultural communities and the return to their ancestral homeland as a response to anti-Semitism in Europe. The modern connotations of this term do not accurately reflect their intentions and motivations. Heptor (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Modern sources use the term, and the term in the first sentence is "colonization" not "colonialist". Levivich (talk) 20:35, 21 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)

Thanks for taking this on. I don't know where DMH223344 is with their rewrite/merger, but if DMH is planning to replace some of the current content with new content, it may not be worth gnoming the existing refs for content that's about to be replaced. IMO "notes" should be limited to explanatory notes not refs. I find Google URLs to be helpful because of the free previews; I don't think she should be removed unless they're replaced with something more helpful (like free versions of the source, if available). My personal pref is to exclude archive links except for dead URLs (there's a discussion at the pump or somewhere about this). I find place of publication to be useless and outdated; we have ISBNs now and we don't have to worry about two publishers with the same name in two locations like in the olden days. But if you're doing the gnoming work I'd defer to your decisions on these preference issues (except please leave the Google URLs for the free previews if there's nothing better to link to). Levivich (talk) 03:56, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I will pick up the merging next month. DMH223344 (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Unless anyone objects i'm also going to do this, if all the footnote does is directly quote a source move it to {{sfn}} with a postscript parameter. If there is explanatory text added by an editor (such as 'fn 1') leave it in an {{efn}}. fiveby(zero) 20:20, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Anyone have an idea of what is going on with #9? Wouldn't think there is a need for three reference for Palestine part of Ottoman empire at the end of the 19th century. Cohen is Russian emigration, Gevin is Herzl, and i only have an epub for Pappe so no page#'s. Probably got misplaced somehow but can't figure out what the three have in common. Also, said i wasn't going to remove any refs but have already started [5][6]. fiveby(zero) 03:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I support your work Andre🚐 03:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The lead?

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)

I think you're right, the current lead emerged not only due to the war but due to edit warring of a contested phrasing that never reached clear consensus. This is why the article hasn't been stable for the last couple of months but those who pushed for the changed controversial edits now seem to label their changes as a consensus. ABHammad (talk) 08:14, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

These matters are already being discussed above, another section is not necessary. Selfstudier (talk) 08:21, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you're 100% right. There are big problems in the lead. Parts of it rely on overtly biased sources and falsely represents their claims. That should be completely unacceptable but some people seem to want it to stand.

Andre, CoreTheApple, and I have been calling for a POV tag to be added to the article.

@Li 12345 and @ABHammad, what do you think about two ideas:

1) Should we add a POV bias tag until these issues are resolved?

2) Should do a re-write of the lead based on the best sources which are being defined as recent books, about Zionism, by subject matter experts, and published by academic presses.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:21, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the observations folks have made and have said similar things above. I'm not sure if the discussion has stalled out. There was a pretty robust discussion about Line 1 and I thought we were making good progress. I also posted a separate section about the perception of SYNTH and would appreciate others' thoughts since it was a 2-person convo. Andre🚐 19:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree with both 1 and 2 ABHammad (talk) 11:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Based on what ?

Specialized reliable sources are what determine NPOV, i find the current lead neutral and balanced as per the reliable sources. Stephan rostie (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't help but agree with Stephan rostie. The lead is full of high-quality reliable sources backing up everything it says in pretty meticulous detail (maybe this wasn't like that when this discussion was opened 12 days ago?). Wikipedia is not censored, and that includes historical revisionism based on placation. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

There is currently an ongoing process, which I support, to come up with a list of the best sources.

I want to see if we can come to agreement that after this process is done, we will do a re-write of the lead to make sure that the lead relies primarily on these sources.

This will include any big changes made to the article in the past few months, even if they currently are labeled as having "consensus".

Does everyone support this idea?

Edit -- Instead of a full rewrite, it might make more sense to just do a review and make sure that everything stated in the lead is supported by the best sources.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

This was already in process before you..ah..returned. This is another unnecessary section. Do feel free to participate in any of the ongoing discussions. Selfstudier (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

In one other section we are discussing best sources. In another section were are discussing POV tag which I and others feel needs to be in place until some issues in the lead are resolved.

But I'm not sure that there is any actual agreement that after we come up with a list of best sources the lead will be rewritten based on the best sources including some sections being labeled as having existing "consensus".

Are you saying that we already have agreement that this rewrite will happen, and I just missed it?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I haven't a crystal ball, there are ongoing discussions and what will be will be. One should not attempt to prejudge the outcome. Also many, if not all, of the issues you have raised have already been discussed ad nauseum, check the archives. Selfstudier (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

For instance, there is an ongoing discussion about Line 1 of the lead (which might also impact on Line 2). If we can't make progress on that relatively simple matter, it seems difficult to imagine progress elsewhere. If you feel that objections are being ignored or that there isn't "really" a consensus about something, an RFC (or even multiple RFCs) are always possible. I find it interesting that through all of the interminable discussions that have taken place, objectors such as yourself persistently fail to take advantage of this possibility, instead resorting to repeating the complaints time after time as if that will give them greater substance (it doesn't). Selfstudier (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree an RFC might be helpful if there's disagreement about whether the present lead is POV or needs a rewrite. Just note that an RFC will probably further stall progress rather than helping it, but it can be useful if we're at an impasse. Andre🚐 19:31, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we absolutely need a POV tag.

When an article has been cited by not one but several news sources as antisemitic (See This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations above) and there is fervent disagreement on it, it would be wrong to NOT tag a particularly controversial rendition as POV unless and until we can agree on a neutral POV.

To NOT put a POV tag on it suggests that there is strong wikipedia consensus on an extremely controversial (and many have said, offensive) point of view. Frankly, it makes wikipedia look bad. GreekParadise (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

It's of course not an antisemitic article. No one here is even making that charge. DMH223344 (talk) 18:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

You say it's "of course not an antisemitic article." But when multiple respected media sources say it is, we have to give them their point of view too. You can't write off a widely-held opinion with a wave of your hand and an "of course."

I don't believe this article as written is based on consensus. The talk page makes that perfectly clear. And I do believe it is antisemitic. But it doesn't matter what I think. I think it's best when there's sufficient consensus to keep a Wikipedia article from being widely criticized as biased and hateful.

Therefore, I think "Criticism of this Wikipedia Article" may be a relevant addition to the article, citing the many sources in the media arguing this is a biased article (and that it is antisemitic and outrageous and their reasons why), at least until a consensus can be arrived on this article or it is returned to a more neutral formulation such as existed prior to October 7, 2023.

That way we show both sides of the controversy, both (a) the views of a select group of wikipedia editors that have changed the article in the last year but failed to reach consensus and (b) those many critics on and off wikipedia that condemn this particular formulation as not only biased but also antisemitic and outrageous.GreekParadise (talk) 19:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, just clarifying because GreekParadise seems to address me, in case there was some doubt about my message, yes, I do think the article has NPOV balance issues, particularly in the lead, and I've explained why in other sections above. However, I do not think you need to go so far as invoking the media organizations calling the article antisemitic to see what the POV issues are in the article, and it might be tough to defend that using Wikipedia's policies and processes, so better to stake out a position that's more moderate and defensible in my view. To wit, the article unduly focuses on critique of Zionism such as that of being settler-colonialism, and it characterizes all the differing subtypes of Zionism with a broad brush, which is WP:SYNTH in this case. To balance the article we should look at the summaries of Zionism in the best sources, which we've started doing in the other sections here. I think that analysis clearly substantiates the balance issue and points a way forward to a lead rewrite or refactor and other improvements. Andre🚐 19:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, Andre, that fixing the article is better than leaving it alone and putting in the criticisms. I only offer that suggestion as a temporary one until a consensus can be re-reached. That way, folks can read the many sharp criticisms of those who agree with us that the article in its current form is demonstrably biased.

For those interested in fixing the article, here's why I believe it is antisemitic as currently written.

The article implies that Zionism is entirely a new idea. While Modern Zionism dates back to the late 19th century, the 3500-year-old desire of the Jews to return to their ancestral land from before the Exodus in Egypt through the Babylonian Exile and since the Roman exile in 70 is, I believe, the longest lasting successful movement of an exiled people to return to their homeland in human history. That's why I put it in the lede that DHM removed in his second reversion (arguably. third, since he also removed Bob's POV tag)

The article fails to mention 3500 years of Jewish history and prayers and thought and writing from before the Bible was written and in millions of writings since then, from before the Hebrew Bible was written through the Torah, Prophets, Writings, the Mishna and the Gomorra (Talmud), and thousands of responsa, kabbala, and returns to the land through the present day. Every single day from 70 to the present, every religious Jew has prayed for the return to their homeland at least a dozen times a day. I'm aware of no exiled people and no religion on planet earth, with the one possible exception of the Islamic devotion to Mecca, that has mentioned its homeland and the land of its origin as often. So yes, I think excluding this unimpeachable narrative, backed by millions of unimpeachable sources, from the article is antisemitic.

The wikipedia article Zionism as it was written before Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, had a long detailed accurate and undisputed account in the Historical and religious background. I think we should at the very least return this prior consensus to the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zionism&oldid=1177123269

The article as written today gives short shrift to the 3500-year Jewish connection to Israel. That's what makes it non-neutral and especially wrong in the context of an article on Zionism, a movement based on that Jewish legacy. That's why the formulations in this wikipedia article are mocked and criticized as obviously biased. See, e.g. https://www.jewishpress.com/news/media/social-media/war-over-wikipedias-definition-of-zionism-pits-provoked-users-against-biased-editors/2024/09/17/ which cites Brittanica for a clear neutral lede.

“Zionism, a 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 Yisrael, “the Land of Israel”). Though Zionism originated in eastern and central Europe in the latter part of the 19th century, it is in many ways a continuation of the ancient attachment of the Jews and the Jewish religion to the historical region of Palestine. According to Judaism, Zion, one of the hills of ancient Jerusalem, is the place where God dwells.”

Did some Jews/Israelites think they would never return to Judaea (which gave "Jews" its name)? Certainly true. But they repeatedly prayed for it. For thousands of years, the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and desire to return to it never went away, even if some thought it required Messianic direction to happen. This has been part of the Jewish religion and Jewish people for 3500 years. There are thousands of sources for this, including the standard Jewish prayer book, the Jewish prayer over the meals, all the Jewish holy books, etc. This necessary context should be in the article. Brittanica is right. Any text that excludes this undeniable truth is hopelessly antisemitic.GreekParadise (talk) 20:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

GreekParadise, I'm sympathetic to your points and I think that the article could do a better job explaining both the religious as well as cultural ties between Judaism and Israel, which are definitely discussed extensively in the best sources such as Edelheit and Engel. I just think you'll have an easier time making that case using NPOV and the language of Wikipedia rather than calling it antisemitic which could be unintentionally interpreted as a personal attack of some sort. I would say the article has critical-of-Zionism lean. Andre🚐 20:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I agree with that first point. Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I know - you said as much earlier. I thought we were doing so great with that superdeluxe version earlier. Andre🚐 20:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

No POV tag needed here. The material in the article is obviously supported by reliable sources. Please read WP:NPOV TarnishedPath^talk 13:08, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. We don't just don't tag an article because we don't agree with what it says. If there are specific concerns, then they need to be raised and justified using our policies. M.Bitton (talk) 13:38, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

LivinAWestLife Would you be able to link to the last stable, widely accepted version? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:51, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The last edits on October 6 2023, I suppose LivinAWestLife (talk) 20:47, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I would support either returning the article to its state as it was on October 6, 2023

and/or putting a POV tag on it along with a link to the many news articles denouncing this wikipedia article in its current state as "antisemitic", "outrageous", etc. GreekParadise (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

It also appears that DMH223344 has violated the 1-rr rule by making two revisions today yesterday an hour apart from one another.

Perhaps the last rendition should be undone on that basis alone. It would also return the POV tag.GreekParadise (talk) 18:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@DMH223344, it does look like you made two reversions yesterday. Can you please explain? Valereee (talk) 19:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure, the first one was actually agreed upon by the person who's edit i reverted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DMH223344#%E2%80%9Cwhy_delete_this_instead_of_put_it_in_quotes?%E2%80%9D

(their edit was based on copyright grounds, I just kept the footnote and wrapped it in quotes with an appropriate citation).

I did indeed revert a second edit within 24hr to remove the pov tag. The justification for the tag was apparently that only an anti zionist source supported the claim about "max land, min palestinians", but as I showed, at least 2 non antizionist sources also say the same thing explicitly. That edit also added a lot of content to the lead that's inconsistent with most RS on zionism and not present anywhere in the body (we actually reached a consensus to remove similar content from the body a couple weeks ago). DMH223344 (talk) 19:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan rostie, you confirm that the revert was with your agreement? Valereee (talk) 19:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, i did not ask for their agreement. But they did post on my talk page with what I interpreted as their agreement. DMH223344 (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are allotted reverts transferrable now? (Hint, no, they're not an allotment.) I'll give mine to Bob. 1RR on CTOPs is a bright-line rule. Andre🚐 19:56, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but a bright-line doesn't mean a block is required. For me the intention of the other editor is worth at least trying to understand when deciding whether to warn ("Hey, even if the other edit says yes, you can't revert them; ask them to revert themselves") or to block ("That was not even what they were telling you!"), and also whether to revert that most recent edit when the article is protected. The first is moot now, but the article is still fully protected so the second isn't. Stephan hasn't edited since being pinged. Valereee (talk) 13:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

If outrage were sufficient to have content removed from Wikipedia, there would be no Israel-Palestine articles. Bestsources > opinions. Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Reverting the work of multiple editors (who have improved the article) is a terrible idea. M.Bitton (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I am curious why so many erroneous statements are in the article. Govvy (talk) 16:41, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM? Not a reply to anyone, source free statement, no specification of anything "erroneous". Selfstudier (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Erroneous, in Palestine, Palestine didn't exist in the format of the said sentence. as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Erroneous, as Arabs, were Bedu, from Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. The Turks were pushed out of the Levant region. This was the Turkish Ottoman empire. I truly despise this article. It's as if no historians were involved in writing this article. Govvy (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

When the term Palestine is first used, what Wiki article does it link to? Bitspectator ⛩️ 17:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome to disagree with reliable sources, but don't expect anyone on Wikipedia to care. Levivich (talk) 18:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Palestine (region), which is the first link, is in fact showing modern borders. The article fails to promote the ancient border changes. The problem with all these articles, they relegate the conquests of the different kingdoms. Borders are constantly changing, this article relegates the conquest. Zionism is a type of conquest. It's mentioned six times in the article, but doesn't mention it in the lead. It's a movement and a conquest, the land is already has settlement, constant settlement. It had Jews there for hundreds of years, the very first sentence is using the idea of colonisation, which is control over foreign territories. However the territory was never foreign to the Jewish people. So many of the citations used on the article are opinion pieces and not all are factual based. This in turn allows total corrupt writings to imbed into this article. It's no-where near neutral. Govvy (talk) 19:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You said that "Palestine didn't exist in the format of the said sentence". But it's referring to a historical region. So in what way did that not "exist in the format of the said sentence"? Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

This convo is a waste of time. Selfstudier (talk) 21:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Besides, didn't Zionism already happen? The sentence above wanted to create well it did happen, surely the sentence needs to be adjusted. :/ Govvy (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:IDONTLIKEIT Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I basically agree that there is a balance problem, and the lead focuses on specific things at the expense of other informative things. Zionism was a historically successful movement, and what is called Zionism today is conflated with general support of Israel's existence or its right to defend itself. While the lead does say that, not as clear as it could or in so many words, and it gets confused because you could interpret Zionism broadly or narrowly, but as written, it implies that Zionism is a modern settler movement or that Likud/Revisionism/Political Zionism are Zionism, but it's actually a broad, cultural, and religious, and multifaceted movement. Andre🚐 22:04, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I'm repeating this so anyone who wants the article to change understands that I and other editors are not trying to stonewall. It's just that when we're presented with "I feel upset, so please change statements that are backed by dozens of RS" we have to say no. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:25, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

No objection to changing that sentence to "Zionists succeeded in creating a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." Levivich (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think it'd be possible for there to have been fewer Arabs, right? There are about 2 million Arab citizens in Israel today. Don't you think that isn't the minimum possible number that could have been reached by Zionism et al? Andre🚐 22:51, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

How about: "Zionists succeeded in creating a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as they could." Levivich (talk) 23:18, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I still think they could've had fewer Arabs. I'm not disputing that many of the earliest Zionists wanted to create as large of a Jewish majority as possible. But, over time, I'm not sure that's the best summary statement. Arab citizens of Israel could have, in theory, all been deported, right? If Turkey created a new state full of Turks and Armenians, they could've deported all the Armenians. But instead the Israeli Declaration of Independence tries to both be a Jewish state and a democratic state with equality of social and political rights, irrespective of religion, race, or sex, and a set of basic laws that protect the rights of the minorities in Israel be they Druze, Circassian, Bedouins, African migrants, etc. I'm not negating the many concerns about the plight of various groups or the civil rights concerns that may be legitimate which should also be mentioned. However, I just don't think that 20% of the population was the lowest possible number of Arabs they could have obtained. Couldn't they have just deported nearly all the Arabs and reduced the population to less than 1%? Obviously, that'd be wrong and bad, but we're already kind of criticizing Zionism as being wrong and bad in that way, right? They've had since 1948 or earlier to get the population down below 20% but I just don't agree that this is a goal of the state. Andre🚐 23:35, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I see no need to change the phrasing in the article. They wanted to, but ultimately didn't. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:44, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it's taking a 1930s view and presenting it like it still applies. Andre🚐 23:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

"wanted" is past tense. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:49, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

It is, but the rest of the lead doesn't explain what ended up happening. Andre🚐 23:50, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The next sentence is "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 ..." Levivich (talk) 23:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The next line is about the establishment of the state of Israel. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm saying it doesn't explain that in fact, they didn't get as few Arabs as possible, and in fact, they established a democratic pluralitic state, the only one in the region. In fact it implies the opposite, by establishing Zionism as an ethnocentric exclusionary ideology (which was just one branch of Zionism), and then saying it became the state ideology of Israel, it implies that Israel continued that program and not that there was actually a Ben Gurion to oppose the Jabotinsky tendencies. Andre🚐 23:57, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Should there be a line about Israeli apartheid? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Does the article on the Democratic-Republican Party talk about Jim Crow or Thomas Jefferson's views on slavery? The lead is hyperfocused on critical aspects of Zionism. There are separate articles for all of these subaspects including the detailed history. This one is supposed to be a balanced overview. Should we look again at how the best sources introduce this? Do any of them introduce Zionism with apartheid? Andre🚐 00:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism as leading to an apartheid of Arabs is the counterbalance for Zionism as leading to a "democratic pluralitic state, the only one in the region". Is your suggestion that we add only the latter? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. I think that's more controversial than it is balancing, but I'd support something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding, or something like that. Which is really what you mean, because Arabs citizens in Israel, unlike the vicitims of the South African apartheid, can run for office and serve in the parliament, and own a business or land. The second-classness of the stateless people in Palestine is a separate problem, but not one that arose specifically because Zionists wanted that, but because of the division and the status of the West Bank and Gaza changes later, such as in 1967. Anyway, a better analogy than the Democratic-Republicans is Patriot (American Revolution). This is the article about Zionism, and not the history of Israel post-1948. While overlapping, they are different. This is an article about an ideology, one that predates Israel, and exists today, and has many forms. I'm not looking to present a pro-Israel position, I'm looking to refocus the article on what it is actually about, which is a movement that was successful, and a set of historiography that has a certain viewpoint, and a set of thinkers and political actors that have a shared ideological underpinning, but many Zionists, such as those who had a different perspective on the plight of the Arab population, so it's not fair to the movement to characterize it all based on Jabotinsky. Ben Gurion hated Jabotinsky, he called him "Vladimir Hitler," and wouldn't even allow his bones to be reburied in the country. Andre🚐 00:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd support something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding, or something like that Why? This is this intro for an article about Zionism. Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, WP:NPOV means Writing for the opponent, so throwing a bone is pretty common in leads I think. I was trying to summarize what I think of the Israeli apartheid discussion, what I think people really mean when they say that. Andre🚐 00:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you think it's necessary to include "something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding" in an intro to Zionism? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's necessary. I'm trying to find a balance and a compromise to express all POVs, so something like that seems like a good substitution for the view that you were trying to espouse. But if you don't like it, I'm certainly not attached to that phrasing. "Something like" shouldn't be in the quote btw, that was me speaking. Andre🚐 00:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think it's necessary. So it follows that I don't think the opposite POV version is necessary. Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that's an argument to removing the "Zionists wanted... " Andre🚐 01:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Why? We agreed that this article isn't about Israel post-1948. It's about Zionism. So: Zionists wanted... Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionists wanted a lot of things - a national homeland, a Hebrew culture, a sovereign nation, to drain a malarial swamp, to build new institutions, to achieve technological progress, better farms, to live in peace, to escape persecution. They also tried to negotiate with the Mufti. The problem with this particular want is not that it's false but the way it's phrased (most best sources say large Jewish majority not as few Arabs as possible), and the focus of weight at the expense of their other, fuller wants that are less controversial and less focused on the plight of the Arab refugees post 1948. Andre🚐 01:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The line is not about "the plight of the Arab refugees post 1948". Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism isn't a political party. American exceptionalism does, indeed, mention Jim Crow, Jeffrson, and slavery. (Not that Wikipedia is an RS anyway.) Levivich (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

they established a democratic pluralitic state No they didn't, wtf? They put the Arabs under military rule until 1967, when the occupations began. Democratic? Pluralistic? No, they created an ethnocracy. Levivich (talk) 00:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't citing Wikipedia as an RS. You have to be specific as there are several different groups. I was referring to the Arab citizens of Israel who have had the right to vote in Israeli elections since the first Israeli elections in 1949 Andre🚐 00:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

In the same way that Black Americans had the right to vote since the American Civil War ended in 1865. Those Arab citizens of Israel were subject to military rule until 1966, look up literally any history book at all. Levivich (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Black Americans got the right to vote in 1870 which is when the 15th amendment was ratified. And wasn't America still a democratic pluralistic state all through Jim Crow? Contrast with a monarchy or a state without any form of democratic pluralism? Andre🚐 00:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

No, and I'm laughing out loud because like, lol no, Jim Crow America (for about 100 years after the civil war) was not a democratic or pluralistic state. It claimed to be but it was in fact an apartheid state, which had two classes of citizens based on race. Levivich (talk) 00:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that's where we're getting into semantics. A flawed democracy is still considered, by most historians AFAIK, a democracy. A pluralistic state doesn't mean one without flaws. It's true that voting rights protections were still being passed until desegregation and later, but I mean, there's still racial gerrymandering and disenfranchisement today, so are we a democratic pluralistic country now? I think we need to take our cues from what historians say. AFAIK, historians don't say that the civil rights and voting rights that were lacking mean that America wasn't still a democratic republic or that it wasn't pluralistic if a flawed, racist, unfair pluralism until arguably, still today. Pluralism just means that after 1870 there was a right enshrined for the right to vote that couldn't be abridged based on color. Did that fix everything? Of course not. But show me the historians that say America wasn't democratic or pluralistic at all until 1965? Andre🚐 00:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Legal scholars will have to do: There is no definition of democracy that the United States, pre-1965, actually meets. Any working definition of democracy includes the full right to vote for all citizens. Kalb, Johanna; Kuo, Didi (2018). "Reassessing American Democracy: The Enduring Challenge of Racial Exclusion". Michigan Law Review Online. 117 (1): 56. doi:10.36644/mlr.online.117.reassessing. Levivich (talk) 02:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

That source doesn't pass the smell test. I wouldn't really call that law review article an authoritative source by a historian. Far from it. Contrast with Democracy as a way of life in America: A history, which starts in like 1786 and covers 3 distinct waves of democracy in American history. Pluralism is generally associated with James Madison and the Federalist Papers. I realize this gets pretty far off track a discussion of Zionism, but aren't you the guy who advocates for well-cited scholarly books that are specifically about the topic? Andre🚐 02:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Allow me to introduce you to Johanna Kalb, dean of a law school and an expert in the law of democracy, and Didi Kuo, of Stanford's Center on Democracy. I think they're qualified to say what a democracy is. Levivich (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

They're lawyers. Kalb is a constitutional lawyer. That's the same specialty as Dershowitz. And surely you don't think that law review article is somehow representing the consensus view of historians. I really do not think any historians say that American democracy began in 1965. Andre🚐 06:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@LevivichAt least one of the sources referenced details ways that Zionist leaders had a high level policy to not get rid of as many Palestinians as possible. Why is this info excluded when summarizing the author's views?

Manna pg 5. "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 ... These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” were not spontaneous but rather the result of a high-level policy"

To cherry pick one claim and ignore all of the info which refutes that claim from the same source seems to be a big problem.

We do agree that by 1948 mainstream Zionists leaders wanted a clear demographic majority, but that's about it. And if we chose to look at the best sources I think this is what we would end up with. Bob drobbs (talk) 04:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand this message, or the quoted passage? Levivich (talk) 04:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Are you trying to employ American law on another country that isn't America? That seems way off base here. Govvy (talk) 08:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not think that is what anyone is doing. The discussion led to an analogy. Andre🚐 20:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

before 1948, religious Zionists were legal pluralists: that is, that they imagined the state being run by several parallel legal regimes, of which only one would be halakha, traditional Jewish law as interpreted by the rabbis. They were willing to accept a democratic legislature and did not call for halakha to rule Israel. This legal pluralism drew on a very long history of Jewish law and was congruent with the way that Jews had organized their legal institutions for centuries. Thinkers who adopted this position included Reuven Margulies, Shlomo Gorontchik (Goren), Shimon Federbusch, and Haim Ozer Grodzinski.

Andre🚐 06:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC) Andre🚐 06:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I would probably summarize that quote as

Religious Zionists did not demand that rabbinical authorities govern Israel, and they were willing to accept democratic rule in parallel to religious courts.

not as:

Zionism is pluralistic.

because:

1) The desire for a state to preference a specific religion is pretty antithetical to what most readers will probably understand the word "pluralistic" to mean.

2) It clearly isn't trying to describe ethnic or racial pluralism.

3) It's just talking about religious Zionists.

I think the point about religious Zionists not demanding religious law is pretty interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean by pluralism and in what way it would be leadworthy. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

That is fair and well-reasoned. The quote is about Religious Zionists accepting a democratic legislature (political) and a pluralistic system (religious/cultural), but you are correct it does not pertain to race or ethnicity. So far in this dicussion, I've been using pluralism in the history sense, meaning, I think, primarily political pluralism, but you are right to broaden it, as Levivich did earlier, to include race since that's a very important lens of history too along with cultural/religious as in my quote. However, we do know that Zionists of all stripes also wanted a pluralistic racial and cultural state (cites to come later). Even Pappe agrees with this. For example, although this is talking about political pluralism, in The Idea of Israel p. 219 e Downfall – Dispensing with Political Plurality Although post-Zionism had no political representation as such – possibly apart from the Communist Party and the two Palestinian national parties whose political agendas were similar – it produced a certain pluralism in the political discourse of 1990s Israel. That pluralism vanished Pappe separately cites a source "Shmuel Almog, ‘Pluralism in the History of the Yishuv and Zionism’, in Moshe Zimmermann et al., ed., Studies in Historiography, Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 1978, p. 202 (Hebrew)." Which I haven't gotten a hold of yet, as well as "Sammy Smooha, Israel, Pluralism and Conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978, p. 31" Even if we disagree if Zionism or Israel are pluralistic in any of the ways, do we at least agree that the issue of any pluralism is an important issue worth discussing and seeing what the sources say about? Andre🚐 22:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's up to you to justify pluralism as leadworthy (that's what you're suggesting, right?). I think it's worth mentioning that what's leadworthy for an article on Israel won't necessarily be for an article on Zionism, and visa versa. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

What's the relevance of this quote? DMH223344 (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

You are overcommenting, and saying far too many disparate things that are unfocused, arbitrary, and only lead to rebuttals (pluralistic democracy thread above) which you sidestep byshifting the goalposts, ergo more argufying. As per the above comment. We began with the assertion that Israel was born as a democratic and pluralist country, and the successive anomalies in this terminology against the facts of history were duly pointed out. Now you reply by citing pluralism in the rabbinate, which of course just compels one to remind you that the term is inappropriate, because the law discriminates against rabbinical pluralism:-

Israel must no longer remain the sole democracy in the world that sanctions legal discrimination against Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jews (and increasingly Modern Orthodox Jews as well). In denying them the right to engage in State-recognized life cycle ceremonies, in accordance with their conscience, performed by their rabbis, on the same basis as most Orthodox Jews; in denying their Jewish institutions the same support that most Orthodox institutions receive, their fundamental rights are violated, and Israel’s democratic character is diminished. Rick Jacobs, "The Imperative of a Pluralistic, Jewish, and Democratic State of Israel Jewish People Policy Institute 3 May 2024

You have made 78 comments on this talk page, often multiple responses to one interlocutor apiece, and I doubt whether anyone can keep up with the attritional barrage of misdirections that arise when you walk around a focused reply.Nishidani (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I have not made 78 comments, there are 78 occurrences on my name on the page, including the times that others used my name. The number of comments judging by a ctrl+F of my signature was actually 63 when you wrote that (not including the duplicate signatures in the previous comment), which is comparable to other participants that have ~50 comments, and is a factor of the archiving of other sections that I didn't participate in while some of those I did remain on the page. See WP:BLUDGEON for the rules of thumb that do not characterize my behavior or activity level at this time. Many of my comments are just quotes from sources which are intended to be constructive and productive, such as in the best sources list section for the lead. If you have a problem with my behavior, this isn't the forum to comment on that, and could be considered uncivil to do so, so please refrain from doing so in the future in this way. It's not good faith to say I'm engaging in misdirection because I am not doing that, I am engaging on the basis of the discussion, which you happen to disagree with and have a strong view about, but that doesn't mean that I am doing something deceptive or dishonest because I have not done so.

As to the substance of your message, it still refers to Israel as a democracy. The issue at hand was whether Zionism should discuss the imperative to be a democratic and pluralistic state. At the very least, surely those who disagree would admit that many sources do describe Israel as a democratic and pluralistic state and the Zionists' goal to create that as a disputed topic among scholars, even if some do not feel it meets that definition, if enough others do that is worthy of inclusion by NPOV. Andre🚐 20:26, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

References

NPOV tag dispute

There's an essay at Wikipedia:NPOV dispute that directly discusses disputes over NPOV tags. Realize this is an essay, not policy. It's useful in understanding how others are interpreting policy and deciding how to resolve the issue. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

My reading is that there is consensus against the NPOV tag. More importantly as the addition of the tag has been challenged by reversion this is now covered by active arbitration remedies, namely that "[c]hanges challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page". TarnishedPath^talk 13:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this might actually need an RfC? This is a toggle-switch situation, not an area that can be compromised on, tweaked, differences ironed out. It's either tagged, or it isn't. Valereee (talk) 14:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

That depends on whether the tag can actually be justified using the policies. M.Bitton (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems RFC is only way to make any progress, supporters/objects can then formally make the arguments for and against and we can restart conversations in a month. Selfstudier (talk) 14:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Commonsense would be that one should not tag a whole article if one dislikes a word, phrase or a single sentence, esp. in the lead. Before being once mired down in endless talk and argufying, which so far has produced no result but has wasted enormous energies (for the simple reason that those who opposed the very well-attested term 'colonization' don't appear to accept anything but the disappearance of the term, but I may be wrong), editors who wish the term to mark the article should give a bulleted list of specific, emendable terms, phrases or whatever, whose entry into the article they consider, (in context, because NPOV is balanced in contexts) a violation of neutrality. That way, practical editors can deal with each point, rationally, by referring to arguments already covering the point in the archives, and fixing the issues. This is what is done at GA and we should adopt that criterion. Nishidani (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani I don't think that's commonsense at all.

If the page on Palestinians was somehow manipulated such that the lead said "Palestinians seek to mass murder Jews" would you argue that doesn't justify a NPOV tag until it's clarified?

Anything distorting the truth and presenting a blatantly biased perspective, especially in the lead, should merit a NPOV tag until it's resolved. Bob drobbs (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm responding to a ping only because I saw that, to cite one of numerous examples, I saw our Levivich responding with enormous, meticulous analysis, by diff citations and bibliographical referrals just below minutes back. The huge waffling here, without any sense of precision, evidence-based analysis, is getting this page nowhere. Everytime I see such hard dedicated, dialogic and rational work here, I feel like apologizing to those, like Levivich, who do it despite the messy idleness of unfocused chat which embraces the page in a stifling hug, with the end result that airheaded editorialists on a second-rate rag like the JP pocket their salaries skewing these complexities to spin a voyeuristic narrative of bias, when what gets them in the craw is the witness of persevering intelligence to master a topic and get an article solidly grounded in evidence, evidence many here appear not to want to see because it is uncomfortable with a national fairy tale which had its day decades ago, thanks mainly to Israeli scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 18:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

That's just your opinion, in any case this constant repetition is bordering on WP:BLUDGEONING. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The reason why this is unusual is because of the additional consensus required restriction, a discretionary sanction in effect. Normally, a tag is added when a discussion begins and is removed when the discussion ends and there is a consensus. Removing the tag is against the norms and in some cases the rules. However, given the consensus required restriction, any change challenged by reversion cannot be reinstated, which would seem to include tags. Andre🚐 23:05, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense though, if the idea is to insist on consensus, tags don't really help, at least not in this article, pretty sure we had several rounds of tagging previously. Selfstudier (talk) 09:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The usual function of tags is to plaster them and then walk away, without any logical or evidential warrant for them. They apply not to the articles overall, but to one or two phrases or a contested line at the most. Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani Do you think it's appropriate to use a source in the lead where the author says his hope is that the book will make Zionists uncomfortable? And that this as source isn't being used in an opinion but as supposedly presenting a factual non-biased definition of the goals of Zionists?

If a book in one place says that "Zionists want X" and in other places the same book says there are tons of counter examples which disprove this, do you think it's appropriate to cherry pick the first half and totally ignore the 2nd part?

We've repeatedly shared problems here, and it seems you're both standing in the way of solving the problems and also standing in the way of putting up a NPOV tag telling the world there are issues.

So... I'm hoping that you'll either work to solve these issues, or stop standing in the way preventing the NPOV tag from going up. Bob drobbs (talk) 18:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath I don't know how on earth that you can claim that there is consensus against the NPOV tag. Yes, _some_ authors including yourself are opposed to it. Quite a few other authors have spelled in detail why they support the NPOV tag.

As just one example, blatantly biased sources in the lead are being used to define Zionism and beyond that they're being poorly referenced using misleading cherry picked quotes.

The article about NPOV does not speak about requiring consensus for their being a NPOV tag. It just says that a single author must see POV issues:

This means that in the opinion of the person who added this link, the article in question does not conform to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

It also says that editors should work together to solve these issues. So I'm asking if you're willing to work with some of us on the other side to get rid of issues like using authors who hope their books make Zionists uncomfortable as supposedly credible non-biased sources to define it. Bob drobbs (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

"Quite a few other editors" does not equal consensus. Take it to WP:NPOV/N. TarnishedPath^talk 00:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Or better yet, start an RFC, as per active arbitration remeidies "[c]hanges challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page". TarnishedPath^talk 01:00, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

You said "My reading is that there is consensus against the NPOV tag.". So, let me turn this back on you. If "quite a few other editors" does not equal consensus, on what basis are you claiming that you feel there is consensus against this tag?

And as you ignored the last part of my message, can I take your response as an indication that you're unwilling to work with me and other to address the POV issues we're pointing out in this article?

As just one example, a source stated in the preface of his book that his hope was to make Zionists uncomfortable:

This author hopes that the discomfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them..

How on earth can we be using his views on Zionists if they were factual and non-biased? Do you think this is okay? Bob drobbs (talk) 02:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Please don't keep WP:REHASH the same argument. No one is here to WP:SATISFY you. @Valereee asked at the start of this thread whether an RFC would be required and I think their question was an apt one. TarnishedPath^talk 03:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

How on earth can we be using his views on Zionists if they were factual and non-biased? I'll tell you how: because the book you are quoting, Adel Manna's Nakba and Survival (2022) was:

• written by a historian who taught at multiple universities, including in Israel [7]
• published by University of California Press (who, as a bonus for Wikipedia readers, offer free access to the whole book)
• reviewed in a 4-review roundtable in The American Historical Review [8] and also in Journal of Palestine Studies [9]
• cited by other historians like Alan Dowty (in an Oxford Handbook) [10], Alon Confino [11], and Amos Goldberg [12]
• celebrated (the university's word!) at Columbia University [13] and included in a book series at Brown University [14]

The WP:BIASEDSOURCES guideline says However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. But even if we removed this source (which no one is stopping you from proposing on the talk page), which is only cited for one sentence in the whole article, there are nine other sources cited for that sentence, including Benny Morris, Ian Lustick, Avi Shlaim, and Hillel Cohen. They're not "his views," they're the views of multiple scholars on various sides of the political spectrum. Levivich (talk) 04:08, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't have any objection using non-neutral sources if they're sourced as an opinion. The problem is using biased sources and presenting their opinions as fact. Shouldn't this justify a NPOV tag until it's resolved?

There's also the issue of cherry picking the claim "as few Palestinians as possible", but then ignoring the parts of the same sources when they spell out counter-examples.

"...attests to the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times ... These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” ..."

Why are we ignored the fact that these same sources have the opinion that Zionists had high level polices to not expel as many Palestinians as possible? Doesn't this also justify a NPOV tag until it's resolved? Bob drobbs (talk) 18:05, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

A fuller quote of Manna 2022 p. 4, emphasis mine:

... 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 important question at that stage, from their perspective, was what could be done through means that would not hurt their own interests. Plan Dalet was important during a certain phase in the war; however, the Zionists employed the same policies and instruments both before that plan and after it as well. The prohibition of return, the expulsion of thousands of those who had remained in the Galilee and elsewhere, and the destruction of villages and eviction of their population under military rule, particularly from 1948 to 1956, represented other links in the chain of the ethnic cleansing policy.

As we shall see later, 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” were not spontaneous but rather the result of a high-level policy of Israeli leaders based on their political interests and also connected to the positions adopted by the leaders of those religious and political sects.

So basically the opposite of how you presented it. Manna is not saying that Zionists had high level polices to not expel as many Palestinians as possible, he is literally saying that they had such a policy, that by 1948 it became clear that this had unanimous support of Zionists, and the only exceptions were for non-Muslims (Christians and Druze). If other sources (like any of the 9 other sources cited for that sentence) made this point (and I don't know if they do or not), then I'd be in favor of changing "Palestinian Arabs" to "Palestinian Arab Muslims" for the sentence in the lead and the body. If other sources don't make this point, then I'd be in favor of adding to the body somewhere (but not the lead) that "According to Adel Manna, there was an exception for non-Muslims" or something like that. Levivich (talk) 19:05, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

RS opinion on “colonialism"

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 return of Jewish refugees from Europe and Middle Eastern countries to the ancestral Jewish homeland, in a manner that has been described by some as colonialism but disputed by others. According to The New York Times, Israel was "peopled not by colonial forces" but by refugees from persecution in Europe and Arab lands. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 02:24, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not "According to The New York Times," it's according to Roger Cohen, and an analysis in a newspaper isn't WP:DUE. There are plenty of high-quality academic books about Zionism to summarize; the views of individual journalists aren't significant enough for a high-level summary article of a topic with as much available scholarship as this one, not when compared to the views of scholars in the field. We could have 100 "According to [journalist's analysis published in reputable newspaper]..." statements in this article if we did that. And besides, no individual -- scholar or journalist -- is so important that their view should be stated in the lead of this article (or almost any Wikipedia article). I agree with the revert. Levivich (talk) 02:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Roger Cohen is not an expert in any discipline relevant to this article. His opinion damn sure doesn't belong in the lede, where you tried to place it. And frankly, not that my experience is any more relevant, it's kind of absurd. I have family who emigrated to Israel. I wouldn't call them "refugees from New Jersey."Dan Murphy (talk) 02:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

This handwave to another POV:

"The war has seen another significant shift: the broad embrace of the Palestinian cause as an extension of movements for racial and social justice in the United States. It has also been adopted by the Global Majority, sometimes known as the Global South, as an expression of the battle of Indigenous peoples — read Palestinians — against white colonial oppressors and interlopers."

and this hyperbole:

"Across the world, from the Americas to Africa, the quest to create a state of Palestine supplanting Israel has become the North Star of many young people. Israeli “colonialism” is increasingly shorthand for the Zionist project of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people after their millennial persecution, rather than for Israel’s post-1967 colonial settlement of the occupied West Bank."

Followed by a desultory "Not all the protesters think this way, of course. They are appalled by Israel’s conduct of the war but do not dispute its right to exist".

"News analysis" is stretching things, plainly a lot of opinion in this piece and certainly not leadworthy. Selfstudier (talk) 09:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

References

These are good points. Currently, "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 a land outside Europe" does not show NPOV.

Academic sources relevant to the discussion include:

"Zionism declared that it had no desire to rule others (i.e. Arabs), and was not willing to have others rule it. The Zionist position was that Arab demands should be met in the framework of autonomy. The Zionist Congress of 1921 defined Palestine as a 'common land' and talked about undisturbed nationalist development of the Jews and the Arabs. The following Congress, in 1923, spoke of the integration of the Jewish people in the revival of the east...

Foregoing Jewish majority rule in Palestine, willingness to grant full Arab autonomy in Palestine and support for the movement of Arab independence and unity - all considered by the Jews to be far-reaching concessions- did not satisfy the Arabs. They demanded institutions that would guarantee Arab majority rule".

"Documents indicate that the American Zionist leaders went beyond the question of Jewish-Arab relations: they proposed plans that dealt with such questions as water, the future refugee problem, regional economic cooperation and the role of international organizations in the Middle East, with a view to assuring Jewish-Arab coexistence and cooperation".

"Palestine under the Mandate knew not only years of violence and hostility but also partnerships and the creation of understanding, mostly as a result of the wish to realize joint interests. The working of the Haifa municipal council at the time of the Mandate reflects this well. The cooperation that crystalized in it was a breakthrough with respect to the possibility of administering a mixed city in conditions of national conflict".

Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 23:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Why are these academic sources relevant to the discussion? How did you select them? Levivich (talk) 23:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

They show that unlike the British mandate, which represented colonialism, the British had somewhere to go back to, compared to Jews who (in addition to fleeing persecution and returning to their indigenous homeland) had no intention of colonizing Palestine but rather had intentions of coexistence with Arabs. American Zionists then attempted to further regional cooperation, which was exemplified by the working of the Haifa municipal council. Academic sources were requested in the comment "There are plenty of high-quality academic books about Zionism to summarize; the views of individual journalists aren't significant enough for a high-level summary article of a topic with as much available scholarship as this one, not when compared to the views of scholars in the field." Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

None of these three sources are books. They're not even widely-cited papers; less than 10 citations each (and that's after 20-25 years of publication). The journals have low impact factor (for whatever that's worth). They're all Israeli -- don't you think we should consider non-Israeli sources as well as Israeli sources, like the Wikipedia article currently does? One is geographer, another is an archaeologist (Segev is a historian). I'm not sure why you think these obscure papers are "high-quality academic books." Levivich (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

OK forget that question, I just read the first one, Katz. Your quotation omitted the words "During these years," at the beginning, before "Zionism declared that it had no desire to rule others". And then there's this part, a couple pages later, emphasis added:

Chances of reaching an agreement were remote from the outset, since as soon as the Zionist enterprise launched its campaign to change the balance of demography and settlement in Palestine in favour of the Jews, Arab nationalists felt compelled to halt or impede this process. Agreement would be completely antithetical to Arab interests, as Arabs would have to concede vital issues such as land and immigration in any agreement with the Jews. Similarly, the Jews could not abide any significant concessions on these two issues, as they ran counter to the fundamental principle of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.

In 1936-37, the official Zionist leadership despaired of reaching any agreement with the Arabs, although they had nurtured this hope for many years. Yet deep in their hearts, they had known since the 1920s that the conflict with the Arabs would be ongoing, as Zionist and Arab interests were fundamentally opposed to each other. In practice, they denied the inevitability of the conflict - for purposes of public consumption, to ease their liberal and socialist conscience, and also in the hope or delusion that the Arabs, despite everything, would agree to an accommodation. Like Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, who headed the Jewish Agency Executive from 1935 and had fervently believed in the possibility of an agreement at the outset of his career, also lost hope in 1936-37 and accepted the inescapability of violence, becoming the symbol of 'anti-Arabism' and advocating the need for a Jewish majority and Jewish force of arms to realize the Zionist vision. Thus, the Zionist leadership reached the conclusion that a mutually agreeable solution was out of reach: objectively, the conflict could not be resolved in a way that would fully satisfy both sides. Achieving the goal of Zionism - a state in Palestine - inevitably entailed injury to the Arabs, and therefore every Zionist attempt to come to agreement with the Arabs without conceding their objectives would be doomed to failure.

That part seems pretty relevant, eh? How come you didn't read Katz and were like, "oh, wow, that Wikipedia article is spot on-- it says the same thing this geographer Katz wrote 25 years ago in an obscure paper with 6 citations in a journal with an impact factor 0.4!" I'm not going to read the other two, I'll assume they also say the same thing that everybody else says. Levivich (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

That is uncivil. I humbly request your good faith attention. As I stated, "Zionism... aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe" does not show NPOV. I propose "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 return of Jewish refugees[15] from Europe and Middle Eastern countries to the ancestral Jewish homeland, in a manner that has been described by some as colonialism but disputed by others". If respectful discussion is not possible, administrative involvement will be needed. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 00:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Allthemilescombined1, FWIW, you've come into a highly contentious topic and started making suggestions that seem to indicate you haven't read this talk page thoroughly enough. Editors here have been working very hard for months to find some area of compromise for this article, even though many of them disagree with one another on many things, including sourcing. I'm sure they're all trying to be patient with less-experienced editors coming in, but tempers do get frayed. IMO that was a pretty mild sarcasm that doesn't rise to actual incivility. Not particularly helpful, but not uncivil.

If you'll read this talk page rather thoroughly (I'd recommend including the most recent archive, Talk:Zionism/Archive 26, too, as you can see that even with this talk archiving after fifteen days it has a dozen active discussions) so that you can bring yourself up to speed, you'll probably find fewer editors making sarcastic remarks about your suggestions. Valereee (talk) 10:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I’m not casting aspersions at anyone in this chat, but although I’ve been welcomed kindly by some editors, to whom I’m grateful, I’ve also experienced contentious editors. I’ve noticed editors who have made mild-mannered prickly comments as a means of wearing down dissenting editors and making the edit (and larger space) feel like it is hostile and inhospitable. I personally see sarcasm as thinly veiled intention, so I will not accept the notion that a mountain of microaggressions is acceptable in a space that is supposed to, principally, be AGF. Encouraging sarcasm is a slippery slope to AGF evaporating in the long term. Said with all respect, but we must admit that things add up, and no one would be left feeling antagonized in the long run if we were doing a good job at being kind to each other consistently. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 16:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not encouraging sarcasm. To be clear, I think it's seldom persuasive. But I've never found slippery slope arguments -- a logical fallacy, btw -- compelling. Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to communicate 100% of the time without making mild-mannered prickly comments. This is a contentious topic. Tempers get frayed. Patience gets tried. If you'd like to argue this sidebar further, let's take it to your talk or mine. Valereee (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

References

issues for potential RFC

It was mentioned in the above sections (language in the lead consensus, NPOV balance issues in lead, best sources list, and how some sources describe Zionism, now archived to Zionism/Archive_25 Zionism/Archive_26 Zionism/Archive_27 I think, see [16]) that several editors do feel there is a balance issue with several sentences in the lead. Here are a few of my ideas for the potential multi-part RFC which should be modeled after the one at Talk:2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions#Requested_move_19_September_2024 which I'd say is an exemplary discussion on a very contentious topic, i.e. a series of constructive propositions or resolutions, with binary support or oppose for each. They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but in some cases would result in a change that would make another one weaker or unnecessary.

1. Include "colonization" in the lead? Line 1
2. Include "colonization" in the lead? Paragraph 2 (mutually exclusive with #1)
3. Include "settler-colonialism" in the lead?
4. Include "exceptionalism" in the lead?
5. Change "as few Arabs as possible" to "Jewish majority"?
6. Change "as few Arabs as possible" to "largest Jewish majority possible" (mutually exclusive with #5)?
7. Remove summary about different mainstream types of Zionism sharing a view toward violence?
8. Remove summary about different mainstream types of Zionism sharing territorial displacement?
9. Include "homeland" in the lead?
10. Include "national home" in the lead?
11. Include "self-determination"?
12. Include "democratic" in the lead?
13. Include "pluralistic" in the lead?

Andre🚐 20:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

As has been commented previously, this is slightly backwards, the lead should follow the body and we should be asking the question, "Does it?" and where necessary, fixing it up with good sources. Maybe we should start with the colonialism sections of the article given that there has been some recent editing on that per below section. Selfstudier (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

The problems exist in the lead right now, so this is where I think an RFC might be useful. As discussed by others, the lead is often the only part that people read of the article anyway. an RFC doesn't have to happen if we are having productive discussion, but you mentioned earlier you were waiting for an RFC, and progress seemed to have stalled out. An RFC for the lead wouldn't preclude progress in the body. Anyway, I appreciate any substantive critique or discussion of the 13 points above that I see as worthy of discussion, but feel free to propose different ones. Andre🚐 21:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

In that case, pass. Selfstudier (talk) 21:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Andrevan, in your 13 item list, you left out adverbs, conjunctions, commas, and dozens of other substantives. No person in his right mind could regard a proposal of this kind to be anything other than a recipé for wasting years of time on a talk page that has been, so far, consistently inconclusive on just one or two of those terms. It is a recipé for editorial stagnation, with zero value.Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, Selfstudier, that's fine, and it's your prerogative, but you also indicated you were waiting for an RFC before. What did you think the RFC was going to be about if not the wording of the lead section? I mean I suppose we could have just a general RFC about whether the article itself is NPOV before even proceeding to any substance, but that would take 30 or 60 days to produce a NOCON probably. Whereas we could have a bunch of substantive constructive questions all at once and then after 30 or 60 days either make changes to the lead or have some consensus that it's fine as-is. Obviously if I'm the only one who feels that way it's a waste of time, but we had several users such as Bob, and I forgot who else, opining on the archived pages. They may not be active at this very moment so it should provide plenty of time for discussion or to refocus the discussion, though I'd say for users who are happy with the current page, I'd say that's a blind spot to the issues that others have also agreed are present, particularly in the lead. Andre🚐 22:16, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

In the section where I said I was waiting for an RFC it was either about Line 1 which everybody seemed to give up on, I know not why, or it was about colonization, which was what the convo had turned into by the time I commented. In other words it was yet another circuitous undirected affair. I don't mind if you want to have an RFC like the one described, when I said pass, I just meant don't expect me to buy into it.

You can have more than one RFC, you know that, and the RFC doesn't have to be about "the lead", it could just be about a sentence, say, and ask the question should (sentence) be in the lead, that's just an example. At any rate, if we go down the RFC route, I think it needs a more focused approach. Selfstudier (talk) 22:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

13 is way too many, I don't think all of these are even live issues, and I don't really agree with even the entire idea of asking "should <word or phrase> be in the lead?" for a series of words and phrases. I think a more productive approach would be for editors who want to change something (and who get reverted after boldly making the change) to put forward their case, with sources, quotes, etc., as to why the change should be made, and to limit the number of simultaneous changes that need to be discussed. For example, this week, we added "criticized," "democratic," and "pluralistic", each of which apparently need a discussion... I don't know about everyone else, but I absolutely cannot keep up with this volume of discussion. Levivich (talk) 17:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It was 13 points but not 13 discussions. Maybe clearer if I group it into 4 or 5 groups each having several sub-options. Andre🚐 22:08, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, agree. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the sentence about as much land as possible and as few Palestinians as possible is so badly done with cherry picked quotes out of context and biased sources presented as fact that a RFC should be If it should be removed from the article entirety.

Bob drobbs (talk) 18:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that sentence should be rephrased or removed. I think a phrasing about the "Jewish majority" wanted by Zionists is how better sources frame it. That's why I included that as an option for an RFC proposal. Everyone said my proposal was too long, but if we condense it down or somehow make it shorter and simpler maybe we can start there. Andre🚐 22:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Is zionism "considered" settler colonialism, or is it "criticized" as such?

The characterization of Zionism as settler-colonialism is not necessarily criticism, so I suggest that we adopt the phrasing "considered" or "described" rather than "criticized". Recent edits started using "criticized" instead, which I disagree with. DMH223344 (talk) 22:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily probably, but those authors are few and far between. It's popularity is certainly due to it's presumed effectiveness as a vehicle of criticism. Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej (2022). "Tracing Settler Colonialism". Politics & Society. doi:10.1177/0032329221999906. fiveby(zero) 00:02, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Saying that descriptions in RS that are factual per the RS are intrinsically criticism of something renders their descriptions as something other than that they literally say. We don't do that in any other context, like saying people who describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the Holodomor, as merely "criticizing" these things, we say that they are being described.

And since we are dealing with scholarly consensus, we should not do otherwise here. I support the prior longstanding text, and I believe it should be restored until consensus is obtained to say otherwise. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 11:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Zionism/Archive 25#Penslar on colonialism/settler colonialism where I lifted some relevant quotes when I thought we were going to discuss this issue. Penslar is willing to see it as settler colonialism but does say there is a "deep divide" among scholars. So not "criticism" but a matter of scholarly debate (what you said, Andrevan...).

Note that he also says "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." so it's a recurring theme according to Penslar. Selfstudier (talk) 12:11, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I meant there is scholarly consensus concerning the colonial aspects of Zionism, even among its supporters or those who believe that those aspects are justifiable, about which there is disagreement. I have not seen any reliable scholarly source saying that for example the Nakba did not happen and pushing the "a land without people for a people without a land" argument in recent reliable scholarship, let's say post 2000.

That goes the point @Zero0000 raised that we'll then have to end up saying "criticized or praised as", but I think it's best to avoid that language altogether. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

While this can indeed be intended as criticism, alternative descriptions of Zionism can be intended as praise. Either we say "criticised as" and "praised as" in balanced fashion, or we say neither. I vote for neither. Zero^talk 12:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

All histories of Zionism allow that (a) Palestine was settled by (b) a huge number of emigrés from other countries and (c) that, from its formative years down to the 1950s, the term commonly used for this project was 'colonisation'. Those are the facts. What objectors protest is the use of the term, settler colonialism, as applicable to Israel, as opposed to many other colonial adventures of a similar type. The single objection to this is that all Jews were emotionally/symbolically attached to Palestine as the homeland of their forefathers, unlike the other examples. The error in all of this is to take a cultural value as the decisive consideration in describing why and how historical facts occurred. In Marxist terms, adopting a superstructural feature to explain the material, economic, sociological factors which constitute the substructure of the historical process. To simplify illustratively, it is a bit like explaining the emergence of ancient Israel in terms, not of archaeology, the collapse of prior empires under climate changes, demographic marauding as populations collapse, etc.etc., but as a result of the belief, developed cultically among people who came together and called themselves Israelites, that their Yahweh has promised them that land, and thus the subsequent history consisted in their implementing this belief. Collective emotions can at times tip the scales of history, but the fundamental forces are not emotional or ideological.

Since no one can doubt modern Israel arose out of a project of colonization, that word must stand. All one needs to add is 'though whether it has been a variety of settler colonialism or not is disputed.'(with an array of illustrative statements from RS in the notes/or a link to the precise wiki page discussing the former. One cannot say nothing, because the topic is thoroughly debated, and the text must not shy from controversy, but simply state it succinctly.Nishidani (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes this is a good point, there is indeed scholarly dispute over settler-colonialism, but not colonialism, and one of the edits removed its usage in the latter sense from the "Characterization as colonialist and racist" section. That should be restored, and for the settler-colonialism edit in the "Zionism as settler colonialism" @Nishidani's addition should be included after its restoration. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 13:07, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

We are dangerously close to igniting another long and unproductive thread on 'colonization'. Do see your "what objectors protest is..." at work on the talk page of course. The other day Levivich was trying to explain colonization and colonialism to an editor. A failure of this article is that one can't, in that situation, simply say "go read the article section". I think more care and more reader focus is warranted. It might seem sometimes like writing to, what, an early secondary school level? I sometimes wonder, if some of the comments here are an indication of the WP:AUDIENCE, whether the lead needs to state plainly that there where more than a half-million Arabs living there at the turn of the century? Anyway not all objections based on the issues you point to. All this discussion moves too fast, without ample consideration and doesn't seem to result in anything productive. Hell, i'm still thinking about your "outside Europe" vs. "in Palestine".

To Zero0000 point, there are many superseded nationalist histories of course, i thought practice was already that these should only be used in very limited ways and if they are to somehow alert the reader to whats going on? Where you thinking of a different category of sources which "praise" Zionism? fiveby(zero) 14:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the audience point is insightful and it's worth trying to explicitly cover more of the basics in the lead. Levivich (talk) 06:50, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

My remarks were not aimed to start another futile thread, but to sum the scholarship versus feelings which has been, in my view, characteristic of these humongous episodes, and provide a compromise. If there are people out there who baulk at 'colonization' tout court, then they are not interested in the scholarship but in a 'compromise' which elides the very term so commonly used in the best studies. If they follow the scholarly debate, then (a) settler colonialism is increasingly the default term in colonialization theories, but has been questioned or worried over (by Zionists), and therefore one mentions setcol with the appropriate qualifying remarks. Despite our endless chatting, the text here in any version is straightforward, not abstruse. And while dumbingdown so that the hypothetical 'audience' may grasp the issues more easily (they can do that with the article, the problems arise on the talk page), any familiarity with what audiences are presented with on the IP issues tells us that it is already so thoroughly dumbdowned and surveilled for political correctness in the newspapery/TV mainstream , that most of what historians know is lost on 'them' (or it would be 'news' to them). I don't know how many times in random conversations (not started by myself) with well-educated people, usually where newspapers are being read, I drop a remark on this (e.g. 'when Zionism was launched 95% of the population of Palestine was Arab', a core fact for the lead), I prefer statistics and meet with raised eyebrows and astonished looks. The obvious is not mentioned.* I even note that our text has sources that most Jews reject settler colonialism. The two sources do not state that, and it is impossible to ascertain because (a) most people, Jews included, are unfamiliar with the term and (b) there has been no global polling to determine what percentage of Jewish people reject the term. The simplest of commonsensical tweaks in phrasing can settle this, if there is a willingness to accept both the obviousness of colonialism as objective, and the contentiousness of settler colonialism as an adequate descriptive theory.

• A few nights ago in a TV debate, someone touched on UNWRA's difficulties in getting aid to starving people, and Maurizio Belpietro sunk him relentlessly by repeating something like: 'It is a terrorist organization, there were 6 members whom Israel identified as Hamas operatives! 'No one replied. It was such a devastating 'fact'. I thought:'is there no one there, among many journalists, who know that UNWRA employs 30,000 people, and therefore Belpietro's persuasive gobbledegook should be exposed for its monumentally tendentious fallaciousness that 6 members of Hamas's social organizations, constituting 0.02% of UNWRA means that UNWRA is a pro-Hamas facilitator of terrorism He got away with it, because even journalists either keep mum or don't do their homework, which wiki must do for them.Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree mostly on scholarship versus feelings, which again clearly on display at this talk page. Failed to take into account your final sentence as a compromise wording for including 'colonialism'. Think i probably prefer Selfstudier's pointing to Penslar as a way out of this mess, if a way out is to be found. fiveby(zero) 15:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion between "colonization," "colonialism" and "settler-colonialism," which is one of the big problems with the article right now. Zionism was indisputably a movement involving colonization. The agricultural colonies by land purchasing primarily. Settler-colonialism is a term of art in history and post-colonial studies. It usually focuses on the British imperial colonialism in North America and Australia. While a number of sources do describe Israel in similar terms, it is a minority of sources that use "settler-colonialism," and usually if not universally critically - it's a critical view, which should be clear from the sources that do so, and not the academic consensus view. Colonization is, as I said, not really up for dispute, the problem is conflating these related but distinct concepts. Particularly, Israel lacked a parent country, and is seen by others as a form of decolonization since it entailed Britain giving land back to local Arabs and Jews, the latter of whom had a long connection and several rather long-lived colonies in the Yishuv, and were arguably basing their claim on being indigenous to the area thousands of years ago. Whether or not someone who disagrees finds that to be rubbish is really not the point. The point is that the article is not NPOV is we simply treat "settler-colonialism" as a consensus aspect of Zionism, since that isn't the case in reliable sources, there's quite a critical aspect and is itself subject to critical dispute. Andre🚐 21:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There is no confusion (unless you find it all confusing), but it is pointless repeating what has been said and resaid. What concept do you think covers a proposal (Zionist) and then enactment to change a 95% Arab majority in a country into one with a Jewish demographic majority (who as the present government states '“have an exclusive and inalienable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”) primarily by promotion of mass immigration into that country by Jews all around the world? Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "a consensus aspect of Zionism". Most authors will point out what the consider the core aspects of Zionism or at various times what was the "Zionist consensus". I'd think we would be hard pressed to find one that did not consider a demographic majority in Palestine and eventual state part of that. Sure there was some debate as to whether 'colonialism' fit, so we've got 'settler-colonialism'. In order to decolonize one needs a colonialism to undo. As Sabbagh-Khoury makes clear the basis of it's popularity is politics and the aim single state, right of return, etc. I think we might be able to find a consensus that the definition mostly fits (what's your opinion on Penslar?) tho it is fairly new. I don't know why would would expect or be able to ever see some consensus that the paradigm is useful. Not including if there is room for it in the article would be passing over a great deal of literature. The section right now is short, does attempt to alert the reader to what's going on with Rachel Busbridge (whoever she might be) probably generally the right approach? All the colonialism content in the body is a bunch of throw-away "according to X" and "Y says" so hard to tell. fiveby(zero) 14:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with what Selfstudier said about Penslar: a matter of scholarly debate, not a consensus. As to the colonialism to undo, it was the Ottoman and British who controlled the area. Andre🚐 18:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

what do you mean by the second sentence? I don't know what you are talking about when you link a colonialism to undo with the respective Ottoman empire and the British mandate period.Nishidani (talk) 19:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

the unwinding of Ottoman and British imperial rule. Andre🚐 19:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

So what you means is

As to the colonialism to undo, (that was) the unwinding of Ottoman and British imperial rule?

I still don't know what on earth you mean by that. The Ottoman empire had nothing to do with colonialism in Palestine, and Britain was not a colonial power in Palestine but the executor of a mandate for the colonization of Palestine by Jews. SheeshNishidani (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

colonial development during the mandate period was the culmination of a longer running process that stretched back well into the Ottoman period. Contrary to British colonial rhetoric, the districts of the Ottoman Empire that later formed the Palestine Mandate were undergoing rapid change in the decades before the First World War as they were increasingly incorporated into global networks of trade and political reform, all under the umbrella of a centralizing Ottoman state. Andre🚐 21:19, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh dearie me, more slippage from the gravamen of what is being discussed. The 'colonialism' we were supposed to discuss is related to the 'colonization' of another land and the exploitation of its resources to the detriment of the indigenous population (here majority). 'Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.' The Ottoman Empire did not 'subjugate' the population of Palestine and do so by populating that land with Turks. The British did not conquer by subjugating Palestinians, but by overthrowing the Turkish army and taking on a LoN mandate to bring that country to independence - by definition not stricto sensu an extension of the British Empire's dominians to include Palestine, since the terms of its interim rule were subject to a higher authority, the League of Nations. The expression 'undo (Ottoman and British ) colonialism', means, to take up Fiveby's word, a process of 'decolonization' of the foreign power controlling a territory to achieve self-determination for a people, here, who were neither Turkish nor English. To now cite a snippet from the googled abstract of Jacob Norris's book that both the Ottoman and British were engaged in 'colonialism' (in the general sense of that word) in developing the infrastructure of Palestine is muddying things: the former developed infrastructure to include Palestine within the empire's trade and commercial network; the latter supervised institutional growth there to (b) provide 'administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone", and (b) favour Jewish immigration to create a pro-British Jewish homeland (to the detriment of the interests of the indigenous population in practice). Neither of these fit the standard definition of colonialism as vide the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy cited above. The fact that the infrastructural improvements were designed to extract resources advantages to the large external economies of the two empires is typically 'colonial', as exemplified by Moshe Novomeysky's creation of the Dead Sea Works, which Norris's book studies closely. But, had you read the book, you would not have talked about 'undoing' this kind of colonial heritage, since it formed an important basis, as the fourth largest producer of potash in the world, for the nascent Israeli economy. Is that what had to be 'undone'? It was not British colonialism that was undone: one could argue, and this is how your expression struck me as implying, the overthrow of its administrative presence to enable its proxy, the Zionist leadership, to create a colonial society in Palestine, umhampered by external constraints. Nishidani (talk) 11:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani as an aside, was looking for more sources here and got distracted by this from Ilan Pappé, p. 613 paragraph begining "Israeli historians hesitate...", do you happen to know where he is referring to with "as I argue elsewhere"? fiveby(zero) 12:16, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

At a guess, Ethnic cleansing of Palestine? Selfstudier (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You're right, that was 2006, thinking it was later for some reason. Probably here tho? fiveby(zero) 13:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Mainly the editor for that one. Selfstudier (talk) 14:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Pappé's position has changed several times (no bad sign: it means he is less ideological (immune to developments in scholarship)than he is usually taken to be). He did assume from the 1980s that Zionism was colonialist, and this is still present in his The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006 Oneworld 978-1-851-68467-0 pp.8, 10-14, but a sea-change emerges in the (excellent and neglected) 2008 paper you cite, where nationalist impulses come to the fore over a simplistic colonialism mode. Sorry not to be able to be more helpful. Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, maybe not useful for the article but was a little surprised to see it. He gets a big black mark from me tho for failing to cite. fiveby(zero) 22:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Pappe 2022, p. 32: Zionism was a settler colonial movement, very much like the movement of other Europeans who moved to the Americas, parts of Africa as well as Australia and New Zealand. Levivich (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep, still with the settler colonial construct, can't really see where the nationalist thing comes from unless referring to the 48 war. Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

"Pappe explains that he "will argue that Zionist settlers—indeed Zionist thought and praxis—were motivated by a national impulse but acted as pure colonialists." Notice the term "pure colonialist", which is especially odd given that the title of the article refers to "diluted colonialism" ”.He accepts that the main models of settler colonialism will not work for Zionism and Palestine, as normally "nationals were sent by a mother country". (Colonialism John Strawson Israel Studies Vol. 24, No. 2, Word Crimes; Reclaiming The Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Summer 2019), pp. 33-44, p.39) Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Strawson's paper has to be handled with care. He's right to note the shifts in Pappé's views, but only in a somewhat one-sided focus on BDS's use of colonialist language, and is totally silent on the numerous parallels with colonialism drawn by Israeli and diaspora scholarship also in the last decades, something with which he shows no such intimacy. His paper promotes the idea that this discourse is about 'fringe politics' and he 'picks on' Pappé, but the latter is not, in any case, one of our best sources (he's a good thinker, the problem we have always here by IP consensus is that he does not sufficiently document his arguments with detailed sourcing footnotes, so that it is difficult for editors to thresh out personal interpretation from facts). Since Strawson mentions Maxime Rodinson, with whose views I have considerable sympathy, I suggest editors read Rodinson for background. He can't be used on this because of our 'decent scholarship' criterion. But he thought on his own two feet before this rhetorical battle became known and battled over, and his range of knowledge, of politics, sources and history on that area, was dauntingly formidable. Nishidani (talk) 11:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

The response attacks my use of research, as though using search tools to find sources is a bad thing(?), without providing much to bear for assertions, or really refuting the claim, I don't see any sources cited pertaining to the topic. This conflates settler-colonialism, colonialism, and colonization. Zionists were colonizing, as in colonization, the land in the 1880s. Those agricultural colonies were often based on land purchases which were not subjugatory in nature, and not colonial since they weren't acting as forward settlers of Britain, and at that time displacement was also not yet part of the picture. Nor is subjugation a necessary condition of colonization. Colonization is the most general term and simply refers to the range of establishment of colonies. Colonialism, referring to a system or style of governing a polity, as we've also established, often involves exploitation, generally to enrich the mother country, which indeed the Ottomans were doing, as Norris illustrates in depth. The Ottomans and the British were both colonial empires that extracted labor and raw materials from their colonies, though of course the British are more generally considered colonial and engaged in extensive settler-colonial activities. The Ottomans didn't have settler-colonialism or colonization, but they did have a colonial and expansionist empire. The Arab fellahin were also exploited, and the Ottomans waged several wars, notably against the Mamluks and Byzantines. The connection with trade with intimate, such as for example the British commercial monopolies in India for tea and spices. Not all colonies were settled by the empire. That is usually in reference to Australia or North America where factors led to a good number of Dutch, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., seeking imperial conquest and also setting up "New Spains" or "New Yorks." The Ottomans were also a colonial empire. It didn't have colonization, but it had colonialism, it has metropolitan imperial rule and expansionism. There were no "New Istanbuls," but Istanbul itself was Constantinople, and the Mamluks and Byzantines also controlled Palestine before the 600s and 1500s. Palestine was a colonial province of these large imperial concerns even though it wasn't the subject of settler-colonialism at that time. There was also a continuous Jewish population from the Middle Ages and repeated attempts of groups of Jews to settle there. This type of colonization did not have a mother country and did not involve enriching the mother country through trade and exploitation of raw materials. Because the Ottomans and the British were engaged in colonialism, that's why the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan, was an unwinding of colonialism, similar to the independence of other former British holdings such as in Africa, which was explicitly made comparison to. Subsequently, one can look at the West Bank as settler-colonialism, but in 1948, the West Bank was Jordan and Gaza was Egypt. Also, this New Historian view is not the dominant view in all the reliable sources, but a revisionist modern and indeed critical view. Andre🚐 01:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

A SparkNotes-type gaunt précis mingling random aspects of 3 concepts (colonialism, colonization, colony) regarding 2 empires over several centuries gets us nowhere (except if one takes up the gambit and starts several threads parsing the inadequacy of these epitomes, in which case we go everywhere on this talk page for the next decade). I asked you a simple question earlier and you ignored it bec ause it bears directly on the issue we are discussing here. I'll repost it.

'What concept do you think covers a proposal (Zionist) and then enactment to change a 95% Arab majority in a country into one with a Jewish demographic majority (who as the present government states '“have an exclusive and inalienable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”) primarily by promotion of mass immigration into that country by Jews all around the world? 17 October 2024)

Spoiler alert. If, unlike numerous sources already surveyed, you don't have a concept under which that process can be described, then you are claiming Zionism belongs to a class of its own, a singularity in history (in which the event(s) can be narrated but not conceptualized except on its own terms as 'Zionism').Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

More time spent reading sources thoroughly, rather than clipping abstracts to ad-libs distractive answers to the topic's essential issues, would enable us to get somewhere here.

I agree "described"/"considered" is better than "praised"/"criticized" (absent a showing that RS are using the word "criticized"), and have reverted the edits. Also, @Andrevan, please don't use "ce" as the edit summary for edits like this, which change the meaning of the sentence. If you're going to change a neutral word ("considered") to a word that has a positive or negative meaning (eg "criticized"), it's better to just write in the edit summary that you changed "considered"->"criticized" than "ce," as I think copyedits, by definition, are edits like grammatical changes, fixing typos, changes that don't change meaning or connotation. Levivich (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean, that's a bit of wikijargon, but I'll make my edit summary more clear in the future. In the extra-wiki world, copyedit also includes changing word choice for accuracy. Andre🚐 22:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Or inaccuracy, presumably. Selfstudier (talk) 08:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

C'mon. Bitspectator ⛩️ 13:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

"Because the Ottomans and the British were engaged in colonialism, that's why the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan, was an unwinding of colonialism" — Actually the 1947 plan in total proposed to take land away from Arabs and give it to Jews. Moreover, it's disappointing to see a resurrection of the broken old argument that a small number of Jews in Palestine served as stand-ins for the Jews of the world. If the British plan was to seize Palestine from the Ottoman Empire and hand it over to the inhabitants, an argument could be made that it was a decolonisation plan. However, that was not the British plan and it sure as hell was not the Zionist plan. Zero^talk 02:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say the 1947 plan was fair or equitable, but it can still be post-colonial despite that. It dismantled the colonial instrument of power and replaced it with at least in part, an independent, self-governing, multiethnic, democratically legislated state. While it's true that the 1947 plan allocated more land area (56%) to the Jewish state even though the Arab state had a larger population, and that the Zionists accepted the plan while the Arabs did not, it is also true that the reason why the international community including the UN enacted the plan was because they intended the Jews of the world, or more specifically Jewish refugees from the Nazis in Europe, to move there, which they did, followed by many of the Jews of the Muslim world as well after the 1948 war. So in terms of handing it over to the inhabitants, they did, but the Zionists had already set up a system of self-governance, while the Arabs had not. The Arab population was disorganized politically, suffering economically, and socially divided. Many willingly sold their land as they were in dire straits. The 1948 war led to other events. The Arabs, who rejected the plan, were promised to be able to return. The Arabs also indicated they would reject any partition plan. They immediately rejected the internationally adopted plan by the UN and defied the resolution and resorted to force to defy it. Either way, the British Mandate ceased to exist and the British forces withdrew. Andre🚐 04:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

None of this supports a decolonisation thesis. Actually it reads like it comes from Myths and Facts. Zero^talk 05:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say the 1947 plan was fair or equitable

And no one asked that of you. You were questioned over the statement

the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan,

All the language there is POV-packed and distortive. The idea that the Partition plan consisted of a land grant wherein a sovereign power cedes part of its territory to two ethnic constituencies within it is a non-starter. The Arabs certainly did not 'receive'* land : Jewish purchases from 1896 to 1948 amounted to 5.7-6% of Palestine, the rest remained available, by 1947, to the Arabs who lived and worked on it. The partition plan sanctioned 31% of the population taking possession of 56% of Palestine, and the ensuing war ended up with Zionists achieving 78% of the land, and declaring the massive Arab infrastructure 'enemy property', a legal gimmick which led to its expropriation. It is these fundamental facts, demographics, economics - the statistical realities, not the narrative spin, which your repeated suggestions continue to sweep under the carpet. And it is that factual reality which underlines what studies on colonialism in this area do. Nishidani (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

'receive' in that context only makes sense for one party if one remembers the term 'receiver of stolen goods'. One doesn't use that loaded negative term any more than one should 'euphemise' the hard historical realities, which in my view is what most of these proposals are doing. Nishidani (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Noting the beginning of this thread, "The characterization of Zionism as ...", instead of 'considered', 'described', or 'criticized', may one ask would it be ok to say 'characterized'?Chjoaygame (talk) 08:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be an improvement. Andre🚐 19:13, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

natural punctuation; insert commas

I have inserted a pair of commas, as natural punctuation, for ease of reading. No change of meaning. Chjoaygame (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Highlight and better source needed in first sentence?

Can someone explain the highlight and the BSN template in the first sentence? DMH223344 (talk) 21:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Steven1991 Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to provide better sources for the claim or classification? Because it looks totally different from how it was before 7 October 2023. Steven1991 (talk) 22:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Working on it, it appears that some references have been misplaced, Conforti 2024 also here. fiveby(zero) 22:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your information. Steven1991 (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

What's wrong with Gans? The quote seems appropriate. DMH223344 (talk) 22:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I thought the problem was with Conforti when i looked, but only tagging page needed right now. Some of the cites are a muddle, but it happens. fiveby(zero) 22:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

conforti doesnt seem to support the claim at all, why not just remove it? DMH223344 (talk) 23:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Said i wouldn't, if i started removing cites i thought were inappropriate there would be a whole lot more fights on the talk page. fiveby(zero) 23:42, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

DMH223344, regarding this, alphabetical by author but don't worry about it as long as they are inside the refbegin/refend templates. Just throw 'em in there, probably a bot that formats and alphabetizes around somewhere. fiveby(zero) 01:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Conforti was in there to support the cultural nationalism claim but that was removed in favor of ethonocultural nationalism so unnecessary now. Selfstudier (talk) 09:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Can the claim in the introduction of the article be referenced, preferably in exact wording, to the publication of the cited author? Steven1991 (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there some technical reason that people perhaps aren't seeing the full bullet list of 10 sources for the 'most land/fewest Arabs' line? Does the template not render on some platforms or something? I've checked it on desktop and mobile and can see it just fine, but a number of people seem to just not see the sources for some reason. Levivich (talk) 00:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I've been changing them to Template:multiref, but look fine here. Will log out and look tho. Looks fine logged out. fiveby(zero) 01:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Political Zionists

"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinians as possible."

Should the article be specified that it was mainly political Zionists who believed this? Many Cultural Zionists, including the founder of that section of Zionism, Ahad Ha'am, was a strong critic of political Zionism. Ha'am believed the solution was to bring Jews to Palestine much more gradually, while turning it into a cultural center. At the same time, he said it'd be necessary for Zionism to inspire a revival of Jewish national life in the diaspora. Ha'am criticized political Zionism as unoriginal and merely a thinly veiled transplantation of European imperialism. He supported "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews". Many followers of his ideology, such as Martin Buber and Judah Leon Magnes, were adamantly in favor of a binational state and lobbied against a partition of Palestine. Lightiggy (talk) 16:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a source(s) saying that? It's likely true but no one cares what I think, need RS saying so. Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I think yes if needed, Laquere and Gorny probably. Some territorialists also, they wanted "as few Arabs as possible" so suggested elsewhere and were worried about lions. Problem as i see it is "Zionist consensus", what authors say are the core aspects, how rational some of these views were, how to present to reader, and a best sources look for how much content to include? I think maybe all groups outside the pale were told they were not really Zionists, but maybe responded with: no, we are the real Zionists. fiveby(zero) 17:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Brit Shalom and Ihud are mentioned in the lead, but no real content and what there is under "Beliefs" is i think misleading. Laquere frames as internal criticism, mostly minority and if i recall on Palestinian question: "rare". fiveby(zero) 17:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, Lightiggy. Andre🚐 18:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

As in RS, when we say "Zionism" or "Zionists", we mean the mainstream. Brit Shalom and Ihud were outside this mainstream and as benny morris says brit shalom was "ultimately marginal" and had a very limited membership in terms of numbers. Gorny traces the development of political differences, highlighting that before the arab revolt there was more flexibility, although the ideological framework still constrained differences in tactics (after the arab revolt, the zionist factions were more unified politically and tactically). While Gorny traces the development, since that is the main interest of his book, other authors speak more broadly and decisively about Zionist intentions; for example

slater: "From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state; if all other means failed, they were to be “transferred” by one means or another, including, if necessary, by force."

Similarly, Morris describes Zionism as "elementally expansionist" and "Zionism was politically expansionist in the sense that from the start, its aim was to turn all of Palestine (and in the movement's pre-1921 maps, the East Bank of the Jordan and the area south of the Litani River as well) into a Jewish state." and separately describes the desire for as small an Arab population as possible (I dont seem him doing that in the same context, but he does also say "The Zionists were intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs" in the same passage.) DMH223344 (talk) 19:11, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism changed drastically over the last 70 years, so Zionism back in the days of Ahad Ha'am is definitely not the same Zionism of today. Today, there are different flows of Zionism that advocate for different things. while I think the majority want to keep the status quo, some do fall under different values. אקסינו (talk) 14:20, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The sources that are cited for this were all written in the 21st century, so presumably they know how Zionism changed over the course of the 20th century. They would say if this aspect of Zionism had meaningfully changed. Levivich (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

From my reading, what the sources have to say about that, is that political Zionism quickly became mainstream Zionism, and the other forms of Zionism--including those that wanted some other arrangement with Palestinians--were a small minority. In other words, political Zionism is the only kind of Zionism that matters, it's the kind of Zionism that established and governed Israel. Levivich (talk) 14:42, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionist symbols and modernizing of Jews

"Zionist ideology rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish and viewed religion as an essentially negative factor. Zionism maintained the outward symbols of Jewish tradition but redefined them in secular-nationalistic terms. In this way, Zionism saw itself as bringing Jews into the modern world by reshaping Jewish identity in terms of identification with a sovereign state, as opposed to Judaic faith and tradition."

was recently added and then removed from the lead. the edit summary removing the addition was "reverting some bold addition to lead that I think are overly stated and not npov"

The first sentence I think is uncontroversial. The statement from the body of the text cites Yadgar 2017 but there are plenty of other RS that describe the negation of the diaspora in similar terms.

The second sentence is supported by discussion in the body which cites Rabkin, which I believe some editors took issue with because of his antizionist perspective. Although I dont think it is controversial to describe Zionism as reframing Jewish tradition and symbolism in nationalist terms.

The last sentence of this addition is one of the main points from the introduction of Shlomo Avineri's "The Making of Modern Zionism" (ie, Zionism as a modernizing force). Avineri's conception of Zionism is a mainstream conception, and when scholars want to analyze Zionist ideology they often refer to Avineri as an authoritative source.

I suggest we revert this removal. DMH223344 (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

It's actually quite controversial, it conflates secularism with Zionism as a whole, and it I assume is relying heavily on Yadgar, a critic of Zionism. It needs to contrast with other sources and how they treat this. Rabkin is also an antizionist as you said. Zionism does not view religion as a negative. I think you should quote the verbatim from the page - and please add page numbers - so we can contextualize the information. For example, Religious Zionism obviously didn't view religion as a negative. For example in Yadgar, Religious-Zionist proclaimed adherence to Judaism as a religion (as opposed to the secularist Zionist camp, which proclaims itself either indifferent or outright hostile to this religion) We need to take a proper cross section. What happened to the BESTSOURCES list for framing lead weight? Andre🚐 18:04, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

From section "Zionism, Jewish Religion, and Secularism": In its dominant iterations, the Zionist idea stresses this distinction to clarify that the secular, national aspect of this identity must gain precedence over the religious, or theological aspect of Judaism, in order to remain loyal to the notion of a nation-state of Jews. Similarly, influential streams in Zionist ideology tended to view that same Jewish “religion” as essentially negative, being, in their reading, an inhibiting agent that suffocates the national vitality. Indeed, for them, Jewish religion is responsible for what they viewed as the diminishing of the Jewish people in “exile.”

As for the comment, "it conflates secularism with Zionism as a whole," Zionism developed as a secular movement and the dominant strains have been secular. When RS describe "Zionism", they usually mean these mainstream formulations of zionism. If they are referring to religious zionism, they usually (if not always) say "religious zionism." DMH223344 (talk) 18:30, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That quote is careful to qualify it as the secularist stream of Zionism as one of the mainstream streams of Zionism but we shouldn't paint with such a broad brush in the article summary. We also need to see what other sources say that might be different and portray the range of opinions in weight in reliable sources, not only take speciic sources for summarizing the lead. We shouldn't oversimplify that by saying that is all Zionism as it ignored Religious Zionism. As you can see in the other Yadgar quote, some were simply indifferent to the religious aspect. Andre🚐 18:38, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

"That quote is careful to qualify it as the secularist stream of Zionism" is that true? it says "mainstream" and "influential" which is exactly what we mean when we talk about "Zionism" as a whole. RS do not typically qualify every claim they make as applying to all of Zionism or just to mainstream Zionism or to just religious zionism. It makes sense to do the same here, so when we say "Zionism" we mean the mainstream zionist movement and ideology. DMH223344 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it's careful to distinguish different "iterations" of Zionism and "influential streams." That is your clue there are other streams that need to be considered. Andre🚐 18:47, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, in this case I don't think it decreases readability to rephrase as: "Mainstream Zionist ideology rejected traditional Judaic definitions of what it means to be Jewish and viewed religion as an essentially negative factor." DMH223344 (talk) 18:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I still object to the framing and its inclusion in the lead for the reasons I already stated. Andre🚐 22:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

So is the primary issue with the choice of the word "negative"? Or do you not agree about inclusion of rejecting tradition?

What about the points about redefining identity? DMH223344 (talk) 04:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

As I said, this is glossing over the various strains of Zionism. Religious Zionists don't fit under that, and other secular Zionists were indifferent. A wording that reflects that would be more balanced. Andre🚐 22:08, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

How is it glossing over the various strains if it specifies that this applies to mainstream zionism? DMH223344 (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

It's just not the case, it's focusing overly much on a specific piece of the story. It also conflates modern with historical. Most people who identify as Zionists today wouldn't say that they view religion as essentially negative. That should be obviously not verifiable by inspection. It's referring to the Zionist revolutionaries and their secular outlook. A lot has happened since the 1940s. Andre🚐 01:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

It does not conflate modern with historical. The discussion is in the context of the development of the zionist movement. DMH223344 (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The point of these three lines is to express the sense in which Zionism was a "revolt against tradition," which is a main feature of Zionism as described in RS.

What aspects of Zionism as a "revolt against tradition" are missing here? DMH223344 (talk) 03:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism was both a revolt against tradition and a return to it. Zionism created new traditions even as it imported existing traditions and gave new meaning to others. Andre🚐 04:10, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

So Zionism was black and white, good and bad, salvation and ruin, etc.etc.etc. One cannot approach a definition of anything by establishing a paradigm that embraces everything in terms of antitheses, though this is extremely fashionable in popular 'national characteristics' literature (I can provide massive references for that assertion,) Nishidani (talk) 07:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Most complex human phenomena such as multifacted, Big Tent movements and ideologies are good and bad and contain contradictions. Nuance, perspective, and contested narratives. "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress." Niels Bohr. Andre🚐 07:44, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The emphasis in the literature is much greater (almost entirely) on the revolt and redefinition aspect. Even when discussing rediscovery, Avineri emphasizes the redefinition aspect for example:

the modern Jew has lost his old identity, yet the new identity does not sit well with him. Zionism is, to Nordau, the re-creation of a collective, communal Jewish identity, its rediscovery in terms relevant to the modern age. It is a return to Jewish identity from the atomized anomie of Emancipation—a return necessitated by the impact of liberalism and nationalism. In an article, “On Zionism” (1902), Nordau sharply distinguishes Zionism from the traditional, religious Jewish messianic yearnings. “Zionism rejects all mysticism, does not believe in a Return to Zion through miracles and wonderous happenings, but sets out to create it through its own efforts.”11 Zionism, according to Nordau, grew out of the pressures and social forces of the modern age, and its solution to the Jewish question is a modern one, within the context of contemporary nationalism

In introducing Zionism, Avineri:

Zionism was the most fundamental revolution in Jewish life. It substituted a secular self-identity of the Jews as a nation for the traditional and Orthodox self-identity in religious terms. It changed a passive, quietistic, and pious hope of the Return to Zion into an effective social force, moving millions of people to Israel. It transformed a language relegated to mere religious usage into a modern, secular mode of intercourse of a nation-state.

DMH223344 (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Page needed

Can someone explain to me when a page is needed on a citation? I thought it would only be required on controversial or surprising claims and my understanding from WP policy is that we dont typically need page numbers. I'm fine to add page numbers on the locations where the pn template was added, but I'm trying to understand what the reasoning is behind adding so many of these tags. DMH223344 (talk) 16:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Customary to give page numbers, afaik, I usually do. Selfstudier (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

It's best practice, DMH223344, and, precisely because there is so much bad or sloppy editing in the IP area, the principle should always be that of meticulousness. That is why I use the SFN template so often, because it is the neatest way to provide also the pagination so every addition can be verified. Sometimes, that can't be done if say google books doesn't give you the page, but that is overcome by providing a link to that page or a page range close to it. Without the page no., one is left to go to a library and read the whole book cited to track down the specific passage in question. It is not only a courtesy to readers, but an affirmation by serious editors of their commitment to rigour. Nishidani (talk) 16:51, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

got it, that's fair, thanks everyone. It might take me a couple days to get around to adding them. DMH223344 (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That was my project for the existing missing page #'s. Your other work seems more important. And BTW sfn will not work inside another <ref> such as multiref or other list, has to be {{harvnb}}. fiveby(zero) 18:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Have I been throwing around sfn inside ref? My mistake, I'll try to use harvnb in those cases DMH223344 (talk) 18:55, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Didn't notice if you did, just noticed the footnotes disappeared when i tried to use sfn. But don't worry about cleaning things up, just ping when done. fiveby(zero) 19:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Consider that others are trying to verify and follow the work. It's only common courtesy to provide page numbers. If it's taking several days to add them for you, it'll be even longer for people less familiar with the quoted portions to verify. Please just add page numbers or chapter locations for everything that isn't a short journal article. Andre🚐 18:52, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Chapter locations are too much of a page spread to be useful, esp. in the form pp23.47, (esp.)p.45. Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The difficulty is that I usually only have access to the epub versions which dont have page numbers. DMH223344 (talk) 19:03, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Mark "edition=epub" "type=epub" (Template:Cite_book)? Can look in a pdf or print later if someone has access. fiveby(zero) 19:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That could work, or, just find the text, and search it in the Google Books or TWL version to find what page it's on. Andre🚐 21:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Emphasis on "colonization" in first sentence

Describing Zionism as "colonization" in the first sentence is editorializing and not neutral. The term carries a strong negative connotation and does not fully capture the motivations behind the Zionist movement, particularly its emphasis on the return to an ancestral homeland in response to anti-Semitism and persecution in Europe. While the article should acknowledge the perspectives of critics who view Zionism through a colonial lens, the current wording risks appearing overly biased. I would like to suggest revising the language to reflect the diversity of views on Zionism and ensure a more balanced presentation. Heptor (talk) 17:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

This and other matters are already under discussion above (with the benefit of sources, rather than opinion). Selfstudier (talk) 18:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. For the benefit of anyone else who may consider to comment, it's in section Talk:Zionism#WP:SYNTH_in_lead. Heptor (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

FAQ?

How do people feel about a FAQ for this page, answering, e.g., about why it says "colonization" in the lead, etc.? I would take a stab at writing it but I don't think I can do it in a diplomatic way :-) Do folks think a FAQ is a good idea? Bad idea? Any suggestions about questions and answers? Levivich (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

By 'colonization' the article lead is following our best sources, the article body, and most dictionary definitions. The migration to and settlement of an area and in order to establish political control. This does not mean that there might not be other reasons for settlement nor does it deny any historical connection of the people to that area. For a fuller explanation please see the "Colonization" section. fiveby(zero) 22:51, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

We need a FAQ on how to respond to nonsense in the press, taking ur name in vain, @DMH223344:. Never mind, its the JP, what would you expect? Selfstudier (talk) 10:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Accurate article to be fair. KronosAlight (talk) 17:49, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it's not. The very first thing they say is wrong. DMH didn't add "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinians as possible" to this article, I did. But it wouldn't align with JPost's narrative if they had to report that "User:Levivich" was the one who added that line to this Wikipedia article.

Then there's the part where they say: "On July 3, the first paragraph read "... [quoting lead that doesn't mention colonization] ..." As of Monday, the first line reads, "... [includes colonization]"..." That's also wrong. On July 3, the lead included "colonization". It was only taken out on July 3 in this edit by a now-blocked WP:LTA, which was quickly reverted. But it doesn't help JPost's narrative to report that "colonization" has been there for a long time, or that's it was removed by LTAs. Considering the version without "colonization" had only been on the page on July 3 for less than an hour, one wonders how the JPost reporter even found it. Did they go diff-by-diff and just cherrypick this one revision? Or did the LTA--who has a history of giving interviews to the media (in fairness, so do I)--point them to it?

And then there's this: OF THE sources cited by DMH223344 on the Zionism page, the majority are by Palestinian or anti-Zionist historians. Patently false, just look at the reference list, it's clearly not a majority of "Palestinian or anti-Zionist historians". JPost mentions Manna, Khalidi, Rouhana, and Masalha. But they don't mention--get ready for this list--Abramson, Alroey, Avineri, Baker, Beauchamp, Ben-Ami, Biger, Bloom, Burton, Busbridge, Cohen, Collins, Conforti, Dieckhoff, Dowty, Karsh, Falk, Flapan, Gans, Gelvin, Gorny, Hacohen, Hazony, Hirsch, Hirst, Laqueur, LeVine, Lustick, Massad, McGonigle, Medoff, Morris, Motyl, Olson, Penslar, Rabkin, Robinson, Safrai, Sela, Shafir, Shapira, Shillony, Shimoni, Shlaim, Slater, Sternberg, Sternhell, Taylor, White, Wolfe, Yadgar, Cleveland, Quigley, Roy, Goldman, Almong, or Britannica. That's a long list of non-Palestinian names! Some of those are probably anti-Zionist, but definitely not a majority. Of course it doesn't support JPost's narrative to report that the article uses these sources.

Those are just three examples of falsehoods or material omissions from the JPost article. I could keep going. Levivich (talk) 18:23, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

And another thing: JPost doesn't report that Benny Morris (2004) wrote that "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 underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority." They don't report that Anita Shapira (1992) called Zionism "colonial" thirty years ago. They don't report that Yoav Gelber (2007), who disputes that it's "colonialism," nevertheless calls it "colonization." They don't report that Zionists created institutions with names like "Palestine Jewish Colonization Association" and "Jewish Colonial Trust". Because none of that would fit their narrative that these claims are only made by Palestinians and anti-Zionists. Levivich (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, i don't know that your two examples pointing to use by early Zionists can go very far. The word a bit more complex meaning today. But the use by historians today of course does. fiveby(zero) 21:11, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

100% agree, it'd be WP:OR if it was just based on use by early Zionists, it's the modern historian sources that make it WP:NPOV-compliant. Levivich (talk) 21:26, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't expect nuanced critique on Wiki process from JPost, and it's not solely or even primarily DMH's fault, but the problem with the article though is that we don't report that Gelber and Pappe have a significant disagreement. The article devotes precious little time to explaining that Zionism is a controversial and contested ideology and that there are a number of different camps among scholars that don't all agree. Instead, we spend most of the time oversimplifying the disagreements among scholars and presenting it as though it's basically a consensus view of Zionism. Not to mention extensive WP:SYNTH in the summaries. The current lead says that defenders of Zionism don't dispute its status as settler-colonialism. Some don't, and some do. Andre🚐 21:46, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily... looks reworded without checking the citations. Which is it, something proponents "do not necessarily reject" today or "did not necessarily reject" then? Is this historical present (had to look that one up). fiveby(zero) 22:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Just as a heads up, VRT is currently getting multiple emails a day (I've answered about 5-10 today myself). It would be great if a short FAQ were created to cover specific points which are currently being the taget of media coverage. Using "normal" boilerplate answers is not cutting it regarding this article. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that even among Wikipedians there's a good amount of disagreement and discussion. Creating an FAQ would be fine for a stable consensus, but I would say we don't have one right now. There are open issues and the article has gone through a lot of changes. The media coverage may not be pinpointing the problems in a way that would meet our standards but all the smoke is obscuring the active discussion that in my opinion isn't ripe for codification as an FAQ. We did an extensive BESTSOURCE exercise and I'd say the current article is quite a large deviation from the consensus scholarly opinions in BESTSOURCES. Right now, there are significant NPOV and WEIGHT issues. Andre🚐 22:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I understand that the lack of a stable consensus complicates things, but the current version of the article still presents itself as "correct" and based on published, reliable sources. Since this is the live version, it’s being treated as such in responses to inquiries.

If there are ongoing discussions that might result in changes, a short, reusable statement (e.g., "There are ongoing discussions regarding the usage of X, and the article may change when consensus is reached...") would be really helpful for VRT. This way, we can ensure we're communicating accurately without misleading readers. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Now I sound like a customer support agent with no Wikipedia knowledge...but it’s hard to follow all the talk page discussions, and with the talk page protected, I’m forced to defend the current version without being able to easily point people to join discussions. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Josve05a: last month you gave as examples of VRT FAQs:

1. why do we use the word "colonizer" and not "de-colonizer"
2. why have we recently rewritten the entire article

Are these still frequently asked? Any others? Levivich (talk) 22:46, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Those are the primary ones, as well as the phrase “as many Jews and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Then the answers are:_

(a1)Because the term 'colonization' is endemic in Zionist literature for the first half century, as secondary sources note, while references to 'decolonization' in that formative period, if they exist, are very rare.

(b1) Apart from FA articles, most articles are under constant revision. Since most edits are tweaks, from time to time it is necessary to overhaul the often repetitive or poorly organized page in order to improve the article as a whole.

(c1) Because simultaneously with the first years of Zionism and the Basel Programme, Zionists were well aware of the fact that the population of Palestine around the 1900s was 95% Arabs and 5% Jews, and the creation of a Jewish state required that ratio to be, if not reversed, then radically altered to achieve a strong majority based on the prospective inflow of European immigrants. Through the history of Zionism, as numerous best sources attest, transferring the indigenous Arabs elsewhere to make room for Jews was a core concern of the movement, as many histories, starting with that of Nur Masalha, document. Nishidani (talk) 07:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

In response to @Nishidani’s answer to b1, I think a valid counter-argument would be that Zionism as a historically significant active movement predates the decision to go with Israel as the “Jewish homeland” (Uganda was seriously considered, etc.). From the perspective of Zionists, the marginalization of Palestinians was something that happened as a byproduct of the way things played out later in the history of the movement, rather than a core tenant of said movement, and there are still many self-proclaimed Zionists (especially in religious Jewish communities) who argue that the modern state of Israel is not reflective of the “true” Zionist perspective or whatever. Additionally, there was a subset of early Zionists who viewed their goal as being merely giving Jews a safe space in Israel (rather than the installation of an exclusively Jewish government), which didn’t inherently require the removal of Palestinians. (Not looking to make a moral argument here obviously, just trying to convey that POV.) As such, I think it’s a good idea to reword that line from the opening paragraph to be more inclusive of the many forms that Zionism has taken (and continues to take) over the years. Yitz (talk) 01:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

While I'm not sure it is wise to create a dependency between what is often going to be a reader's susceptibility to misinformation/manipulation and the amount of energy editors expend, if you want a test subject, maybe reach out to this guy, to see what would help them. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

• My problem with "FAQs" as manifested in other articles is that they often, perhaps most of the time, become vehicles for WP:OWNership of the articles by specific factions of editors with specific POVs on the subject matter. They tend to function as "engraved in stone" marching orders for new editors venturing into a subject matter. That danger cannot be discounted here and therefore I'd oppose created a "FAQ" Coretheapple (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
• Meh, there is a FAQ at Mandatory Palestine to deal with one recurring irritation and it doesn't prevent it, presumably because no-one bothers to read it. I suspect that would happen here too, since we have plentiful evidence of failure to read the talk page.Selfstudier (talk) 14:49, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Details in Lead

I removed some details from the lead which I thought were too low level for the lead. (A first step would be to include this information in the body at least, but we all know wikiwarriors prefer to only edit/read the lead)

Here is the edit which reverts my deletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zionism&curid=34484&diff=1252758875&oldid=1252756272

• the number of pogroms is way too detailed for the lead
• I dont see how details about passports are leadworthy
• The MV Struma attack? From this statement it's not even clear that this ship was targeted because of the presence of jewish individuals (let alone zionists). Definitely not lead worthy

I suggest we remove this content from the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 20:57, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The MV Struma line is inexplicable, for sure not leadworthy. I'm neutral on the other two. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:01, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@KronosAlight: Changes challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page. This edit fails that so you should self revert.

The Struma thing, on top on not being lead worthy, is also not mentioned in the body. It should be removed solely for that reason. - Ïvana (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You’re right, somebody should add the killing of 700+ Jewish refugees fleeing Europe for Palestine in a boat that was turned back and then sunk with a nearly 100% fatality rate.

I’m guessing that it won’t be anyone else here though, so I guess I’ll have to do that tomorrow. KronosAlight (talk) 22:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is that leadworthy for an article about Zionism? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it’s one of the important moments of the actual historical movement of the Jewish people back to Israel from Europe/Asia, rather than just endless elite discourses about ideology. KronosAlight (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why? Why not also the SS Patria, which was sunk by the Haganah? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it was one of the key moments in which the British forcibly sent back Jewish refugees to die in the death camps of Europe, except that the Russians got there first.

If your claim is that the sinking of SS Patria is morally comparable then I simply don’t think you should be allowed to contribute to any of these articles, given that the entire point of the plan (which went horrifically awry, per the article itself, no opinion added by myself) was to prevent the British army from sending Jewish refugees back to the slaughterhouse of Europe. KronosAlight (talk) 22:35, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

"morally comparable"? Do you believe any of my comments have been about morality? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:44, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I respect many of the contributions you’ve made in this Talk page.

I don’t think you helped yourself by implying, as you did in your reply to me, that there was some moral equivalent to the Soviet sinking of the MV Struma and SS Patria. KronosAlight (talk) 22:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

This is a discussion about what is leadworthy. There is no mention of morality whatsoever. No implication. No subtext. None. Morality has nothing to do with Wikipedia or what is leadworthy. Nothing. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You think WW2 and the Holocaust are too low-level to include in the lede? KronosAlight (talk) 22:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Non sequitur. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Well it’s not actually a non sequitur, given that the lede didn’t mention either the Second World War or the Holocaust until I added those elements to it.

You could have added those elements.

Did you? KronosAlight (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

There are three bullet points. This thread is about those bullet points, and whether they should be removed. Do you believe that those bullet points are "WW2 and the Holocaust"? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

>“the number of pogroms is way too detailed for the lead”

If you prefer, we could round up the number of Jews slaughtered by the Russians in pogroms?

If you have a better way of describing the 200+ pogroms of 1881-82 in Russia and their impact on the migration of Russian Jews to Palestine in that period, please do contribute that.

>I dont see how details about passports are leadworthy

Feel free to move that into the body of the article instead. There’s plenty of very easy to find sources. Plenty of the existing ones cover it too, but if you want to double down then there’s plenty to find.

>The MV Struma attack? From this statement it's not even clear that this ship was targeted because of the presence of jewish individuals (let alone zionists). Definitely not lead worthy

Ah, well if it wasn’t targeted because of “Jewish individuals” (“let alone Zionists”) then… KronosAlight (talk) 22:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why are you asking me to do your work for you? These are your additions that you would like to include.

To be clear, the pogroms are clearly relevant to the development of Zionism (basically every RS will mention them), but the fleeing of Jews to Palestine as a result of some passport detail is certainly not relevant (there is nothing Zionist about it; Zionism was never about *individuals* moving to Palestine). Much more relevant is the impact the pogroms had on the development of Zionism and the forerunners of Zionism.

Ah, well if it wasn’t targeted because of “Jewish individuals” (“let alone Zionists”) then…

? DMH223344 (talk) 23:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@DMH223344. There's an important article that might bear on this. Stefania Ragaù In search of Zion: reconsidering the political category of Zionist utopias Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Volume 23, 2024 - Issue 3-4 22 May 2024pp. 690-711. It is interesting ebcause it exposes the teleological premise underwriting much Zionist analyses of 'yearning', which prioritzed the goal of Palestine. Originally, of course, things were far more complex than that. Nishidani (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference DMH223344 (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia necessities

Apparently it’s necessary that I, or someone else, attain consensus on this before editing the existing article:

The Lede should at least mention the existence of both World War II and the Holocaust.

I’ll leave it to others to consider what that says about Wikipedia’s community.

I have sourced paragraphs ready to go about that period between 1881-1939. Crucial period of this history!

No objections to that history between 1881-1939 being included in the lede? KronosAlight (talk) 23:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Kronos, it takes a lot of work, patience and collaboration to make progress in this topic area. Notice that we have engaged your contributions with specific feedback. It's up to you to incorporate that feedback and share a substantive suggestion.

You seem mostly concerned with mention of WWII and the Holocaust--I agree these should be included in the lead. It shouldnt be too hard to look at what the body contains about WWII and the Holocaust and summarize that in the lead (as per policy). You are also welcome to make contributions to the body itself as well. DMH223344 (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Recent additions are problematic and I have reverted them, specifically:

"as intensifying violence and persecution in Russia and Europe led to an influx of Jewish refugees making the passage to Palestine" implying that Jews wishing to go to Palestine could not because of the 1939 white paper. This is false because as the white paper article says "..at the end of the five years in 1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been used". I also do not see what relevance the MV Struma has for Zionism? Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)