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Revision as of 08:08, 11 August 2024 editTarnishedPath (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, IP block exemptions, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers17,542 editsm →Recent additions done against consensus, and request to get collaborative← Previous edit Latest revision as of 11:05, 8 January 2025 edit undoTarnishedPath (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, IP block exemptions, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers17,542 edits don't need section sizes template twice 
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|author = Erez Linn
|title = Misplaced Pages entry on Zionism defines it as 'colonialism', sparking outrage
|date = September 17, 2024
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|url = https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/09/17/wikipedia-entry-now-calls-zionism-colonialism/
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| title2 = Misplaced Pages blasted for ‘wildly inaccurate’ change to entry on Zionism: ‘Downright antisemitic’
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| url2 = https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/3160214/wikipedia-blasted-inaccurate-change-entry-zionism/
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| title3 = War over Misplaced Pages’s Definition of Zionism Pits Provoked Users Against Biased Editors
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| title4 = Misplaced Pages's redefinition of Zionism draws severe rebuke: 'History is being rewritten'
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| url4 = https://allisrael.com/blog/wikipedia-s-redefinition-of-zionism-draws-severe-rebuke-history-is-being-rewritten
|accessdate4 = September 23, 2024
|author5 = Aaron Bandler
|title5 = Misplaced Pages Describes Nakba As “Ethnic Cleansing”
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|url5 = https://jewishjournal.com/community/375765/wikipedia-describes-nakba-as-ethnic-cleansing/
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|author9 = Shraga Simmons
|title9 = Weaponizing Misplaced Pages against Israel: How the global information pipeline is being hijacked by digital jihadists.
|date9 = November 11, 2024
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|author12 = Arno Rosenfeld
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{{Consensus|'''Current consensus (January 2025):'''
* In ] it was found that there was consensus that 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" is compliant with NPOV and should remain in the lead.
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__TOC__ __TOC__


== RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism ==
== Colonial project? ==
{{archive top|This discussion has been open for more than a month, the last !vote was nine days ago, and a request for closure has been registered at ].


A pulse check done by means of headcounting finds that 18 editors do not find that the sentence in question violates NPOV, and 7 editors find that it does. The 18 editors who find it does not violate NPOV includes one editor who feels that, while it's NPOV, it has an inappropriate ]; and another editor who feels it's NPOV but would be better in the body than in the lead. Two editors, additionally, unambiguously expressed their sense that this was a bad RfC (one or two more expressed this in more ambiguous terms).
{{re|Selfstudier|האופה}} Can the two of you please discuss here what you think this should say?


To take care of the low-hanging fruit first; while I'm cautiously inclined to personally agree with the editors who opined this was a bad RfC (in that, perhaps, it was not ''ideal''), there was no consensus here supporting that position. Therefore, we can proceed with a full evaluation of the RfC.
In particular, ], can you please offer what you think should be said here as a direct quote from a source you cite? And maybe choose verbiage to acknowledge that the term "colonial project" may be interpreted differently by a general audience today than how it was interpreted by Zionists in late 19th century Europe?


As these things often do, this came down to a battle of ], with the "no" camp citing the breadth and quality of sources supporting the sentence. The "yes" camp (more or less) did not dispute the reliability of the sources being cited but how the language of the sources was being interpreted to arrive at this sentence and that "a Jewish majority" would be more accurate than "as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". This ultimately came down to a ] argument which was unconvincing as the "no" side effectively rebutted all the objections.
If the original was in a language other than English, we should include the quote in the original language. Languages evolve, and a translation that may have been appropriate in the late 19th century may not be appropriate today. If you could use help with translation, we might be able to arrange that.


The "yes" camp also included a number of arguments that did not cite any of our policies or guidelines. While it's appreciated, it's not absolutely necessary for a !voter to explicitly state or link a policy or guideline they're referencing and the closer should make every effort to connect an argument with an underlying policy or guideline when there is ambiguity in the !voter's comment. That said, to not explicitly state or link a policy or guideline is an acceptance by the !voter that they are content to leave decoding their !vote in the hands of the closer, whose ability to do so may not always be perfect. Applying that maxim, here are a few of many examples of "yes" arguments I attempted to decode by linking to one of our policies or guidelines, as a full indexing of these types of arguments would be too long to recite here.
I think ] has a point that the term "colonial project" may be inflammatory and therefore constitute POV editing in today's political environment. With luck, we might find a way to include that term as a direct quote from some Zionist from late 19th century Europe in a way that ] and others will find acceptable.


*An editor stated that they had received 16 off-WP requests to have it removed. I liberally construed this to be an argument that those 16 requests should be considered when determining closure, however, our ] procedures make it clear that only "editors" can reply to an RfC; moreover, even if our procedures allowed this type of proxy commenting, discussions on WP are ] and our ] policy states ''"The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view."''
] (]) 07:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
*An editor asserted that the sentence should be removed as it constituted something they referred to as a {{xt|"blood libel"}}, but such a concept does not appear to be covered by our ] policy.


These, and similar, "yes" !votes that did not invoke (or properly invoke) our policies and guidelines had to be discounted. As a reminder, per ], "''Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Misplaced Pages policy''".
:Early Zionists sometimes referred to their project as "colonial" in the sense of establishing agricultural settlements (in Hebrew ''moshavot'') and reviving Jewish life in the ancestral homeland. This quote appears to be used anachronistically in this context, to imply as if the Zionists were adherents of the contemporary sense of colonialism, the control of resources and people by countries, notably imperial powers, in foreign lands. This usage is more political than encyclopedic and totally unnecessary here. ] (]) 08:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
::Agricultural land and water sources are resources, so agricultural settlements (or colonies) control resources. ] (]) 14:02, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


Anyway, to cut to the chase, there '''is a consensus that the sentence referenced in the OP is compliant with NPOV and should remain''' in "the lead and the body".
:{{Re|Iskandar323}} The text was added by yourself on 5 June, care to comment? The lead is a summary of the body and I assume you are relying on the material in para 4 of the lead. "Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a colonialist, racist, or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement. Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist." ] (]) 09:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


As a general reminder, ], and any decision the community has arrived at here is not etched in stone and may be revisited or adjusted in the future if there's a consensus to do so. And, should such revisitation occur, this closing statement is not itself a demonstration of anything other than what was reflected by the community's collective mind at this one moment in time. It should not be used as a reference point in the future as to why one position is more or less valid than any other. ] (]) 20:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC) }}
:: Although it is true that Zionists called their settlements "colonies" (moshavot), it is more relevant here that they called their whole enterprise colonization. They used that word in English, and they used it in German. The minutes of the Zionist Congresses used that word hundreds of times, not for individual settlements but for the overall enterprise designed for mass settlement. Zionism only stopped calling itself colonial when the concept of colonialism developed a bad odor in world opinion. It is simply not true that the meaning of the words has changed in the interim (suppose a century from now the Mormons decide to settle all of Mars—we will call it colonization just the same). Of course one can identify differences between colonization by a nation state and colonization by some other group of people, but those differences were recognised back then in just the same way as they are recognised today. That difference is one of the motives behind modern analyses that distinguish "settler colonisalism" from other types. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 11:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
<!-- ] 19:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1736017267}}
:::Yes, whatever Zionism is ''believed'' to be today, it ''emerged'' as an expressly colonial endeavour. Hence, the World Zionist Congress established the ]; the ] was established in the UK; and the like. This shouldn't be in the lead as a criticism, but as a basic description of the movement's early formulation. After 1948, the nature and characterisation of Zionism naturally morphed. Much more recently, the conceptual framework of "settler colonialism" has been applied, but that is a distinct label from the basic colonial characterisation, which early Zionism was open and unabashed about. ] (]) 14:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Does this sentence violate NPOV and should it be removed from the lead and the body?
:I support inclusion of the word colonization or colonial in the lead; As others have said, Zionism began as an openly colonial project, aligned geopolitically and in many ways ideologically with European colonialism. We should not leave that out of the article because of a modern day aversion to the attitudes of the past. ] (]) 22:08, 8 June 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" ] (]) 18:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
<s>The problem is that "colonialism" has multiple meanings. There's the way it is most commonly used today - with all the negative value judgment of the colonial enterprise as in the ] article- "maintaining of control and '''exploitation of people''' and of resources by a foreign group of people. Colonizers monopolize political power and '''hold conquered societies and their people to be inferior''' to their conquerors". And there's colonialism in the sense of moving to a new place and establishing a settlement there- a colony - as in ]- migration and establishing long term presence, without any negative associations. Zionists thought of themselves in the latter sense, while the proposed edit will likely be understood in the former.] (]) 16:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>


=== Discussion/survey (RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism) ===
:{{tq2|Zionists thought of themselves in the latter sense...}}
:this is just not true. See the writing of the leaders of the movement, and the scholarly discussion on these writings. ] (]) 18:39, 7 June 2024 (UTC) :Please specify the RFCbefore discussions, thank you. ] (]) 18:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
::Note that the text is preceded in the article lead by the following hidden comment "The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change." This hidden text was added by an admin as noted at ] where RFC opener discussed this question previously. ] (]) 18:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
<s>::I am quite family with thew writings of the Zionist leaders, and none of them thought their project was about conquering, controlling and exploiting inferior people. ] (]) 19:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:::Yes an admin labeled this sentence as having consensus. That decision was made only after a few days of discussion with only a few editors weighing in on the topic.
:::Strawman. Not the issue at hand, which is, was it a "colonial project", yes it was. ] (]) 19:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:::This issue has been discussed heavily on the talk page with no resolution. You actually suggested creating a RFC to discuss it , and bringing in a bunch more voices on whether or not this sentence violates NPOV seems very appropriate. ] (]) 23:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
<s>::::Not in the sense described in our article on "Colonialism" ] (]) 19:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:I posted this and I strongly support removing it. 'Consensus' was rushed through without waiting a reasonable amount of time for comment and it has a huge number of issues:
:::::There is no such link in the material that you reverted in . ] (]) 19:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:: 1) It presents opinions as if they were fact
<s>::::::The confusion as a result of multiple meanings I described above is obvious, wether or not a link exists. The text I restored has been in the article for years (with minor variations). I don't think there is agreement here to change it to the version you like, ] (]) 19:19, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:: 2) It presents opinions from authors who are hostile towards Zionists as if their views on Zionism were fact
:::::::What are the multiple meanings of "colonial project"? ] (]) 20:24, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:: 3) Synth issues, combining things like "Zionist leaders" or "some zionists" into "Zionists"
<s>::::::::read above ] (]) 20:30, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:: 4) Stripping important context away like "by 1948" to imply this was true of all Zionists throughout all of history
:::::::::I did, answer the question, please. ] (]) 20:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:: 5) Cherry picking when an author says something which agrees with this claim, but ignoring when the same author contradicts.
<s>::::::::::read it again, I am not going to repeat myself. ] (]) 20:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:I've only reviewed the very reference in depth depth, but here are some of the problems.
:::::::::::You just did. ] (]) 21:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:In the into to his book, Manna is pretty clear that he's hostile toward Zionists:
:::You've of course omitted the most relevant part of that paragraph which mentions settler colonialism specifically. "While frequently advanced as an imperialist regime, colonialism can also take the form of settler colonialism, whereby colonial settlers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace an existing society with that of the colonizers, possibly towards a genocide of native populations"
:: ''""This author hopes that the dis-comfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them to seek out the truth ...""''
:::Is your point that the early zionists didnt' think they were doing anything negative? ] (]) 21:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:The claim which was put into the article has the time frame was stripped from it:
<s>::::The early Zionists did not "invade" anything - they emigrated to a land with the authorization of its sovereigns, and the only territory they "occupied" was territory they bought or leased. I don't see anything negative in that, ] (]) 21:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:: ''"...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"''
:::::You're citing the fact that Zionists got permission from colonial authorities to settle in Palestine as evidence that it ''wasn't'' colonialism?? ] (]) 22:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
:In the same book the author say that some history "refutes" the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing, but this is ignored:
<s>::::::I don't think the Ottoman Empire colonized Palestine ("The Ottomans neither colonized the territories they conquered nor carried Ottoman Islamic law to all the new settlements" ), but let's assume ad argumentum that they did - getting permission from a colonial power to move to Palestine is not the same as colonizing it yourself - or do you think the ] also colonized Palestine? How about the ]? Arabs who moved there during the Ottoman rule? ] (]) 22:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:: ''"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."''
:Though I support both renderings in this article, I would point out that my edits changed the phrasing in the lead from a "colonial project" to "colonization" ] (]) 00:15, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:The second source Khalidi is presented as an opinion elsewhere in the article, but somehow in just this one place is presented as fact. I didn't review all of the other sources, these first two seem like more than enough reason to remove this sentence from the lead and body of the article.
:This sentence seems to have some many issues it doesn't seem possible to fix it. It should be removed. Then it can be replaced relying on the 'best sources' which are being collectively compiled. ] (]) 18:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
The sentence is currently sourced as follows<ref name="ZionistLandJewsArabs">{{multiref
|{{harvnb|Manna|2022|ps=, pp. 2 ("the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state"), 4 ("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"), and 33 ("The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers.")}};
|{{harvnb|Khalidi|2020|p=76|ps=: "The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium—a majority Arab country—into a new state that had a substantial Jewish majority. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized during the war; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land."}};
|{{harvnb|Slater|2020|ps=, pp. 49 ("There were three arguments for the moral acceptability of some form of transfer. The main one—certainly for the Zionists but not only for them—was the alleged necessity of establishing a secure and stable Jewish state in as much of Palestine as was feasible, which was understood to require a large Jewish majority."), 81 ("From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state"), 87 ("The Zionist movement in general and David Ben-Gurion in particular had long sought to establish a Jewish state in all of “Palestine,” which in their view included the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria."), and 92 ("As Israeli historian ] wrote: 'During every round of the national conflict over Palestine, which is the longest running conflict of its kind in the modern era, Zionism has tried to appropriate additional territory.'")}};
|{{harvnb|Segev|2019|p=418|ps=, "the Zionist dream from the start—maximum territory, minimum Arabs"}};
|{{harvnb|Cohen|2017|p=78|ps=, "As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years."}};
|{{harvnb|Lustick|Berkman|2017|pp=47–48|ps=, "As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). ''Ipso facto'', this meant Zionism's success would produce an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions."}};
|{{harvnb|Stanislawski|2017|p=65|ps=, "The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony."}}
|{{harvnb|Rouhana|Sabbagh-Khoury|2014|p=6|ps=, "It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement—certainly to the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion, that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... Following Wolfe, we argue that the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement."}};
|{{harvnb|Engel|2013|ps=, pp. 96 ("From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine ..."), 121 ("... the ZO sought ways to expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive ... Haganah undertook to ensconce small groups of Jews in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights ... their leaders had hoped for more expansive borders ..."), and 138 ("The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ in 1948: non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal. Israel’s leaders were thus not sad at all to see so many Arabs leave its borders during the fighting in 1947–48 ... the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.")}}
|{{harvnb|Masalha|2012|p=38|ps=, "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period the demographic and land policies of the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine continued to evolve. But its demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs' (Masalha 1992, 1997, 2000)."}};
|{{harvnb|Lentin|2010|p=7|ps=, "'the Zionist leadership was always determined to increase the Jewish space ... Both land purchases in and around the villages, and military preparations, were all designed to dispossess the Palestinians from the area of the future Jewish state' (Pappe 2008: 94)."}};
|{{harvnb|Shlaim|2009|p=56|ps=, "That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question."}};
|{{harvnb|Pappé|2006|p=250|ps=, "In other words, ''hitkansut'' is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible."}};
|{{harvnb|Morris|2004|p=588|ps=, "But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority."}}}}</ref> ] (]) 18:59, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
{{st}}
'''yes''' I've read through the hidden text and the visible text. The claim that "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" should be removed to restore NPOV. ] (]) 02:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
::Which hidden text? ] ] 03:20, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Some lists required expanding. ] (]) 00:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::@] I'm not sure what this response is supposed to mean, so I'll echo @]'s question in hopes of understanding. What do you mean when you say that you've ''"read through the hidden text"''? What ''"hidden text"'' are you referring to? ] (]) 01:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::One example is: Note that the text is preceded in the article lead by the following hidden comment "The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change." This hidden text was added by an admin as noted at ] where RFC opener discussed this question previously.) ]]] ] (]) 01:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Thank you for the clarification. ] (]) 01:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)


{{hat|LLM generated arguments and taking the bait. ] (]) 00:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)}}
For the editors who think that Misplaced Pages should ''not'' describe Zionism as "colonialism," can you name one book about Zionism that does ''not'' describe it as colonialism? ] (]) 21:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


:Relying solely on sources that portray Zionism as aiming to minimize the Arab presence risks cherry-picking and oversimplifying a complex historical movement. While some scholars emphasize demographic goals, many prominent historians, including Benny Morris, Anita Shapira, Walter Laqueur, and Shlomo Avineri, highlight the diversity within Zionism. These historians show that Zionist leaders also pursued peaceful coexistence, economic cooperation, and cultural revival. Ignoring these perspectives skews the narrative and fails to meet Misplaced Pages's standards of neutrality and balance. A comprehensive view requires incorporating the full spectrum of scholarly interpretations.
<s>:You could start with המהפכה הציונית (The Zionist Revolution) by David Vital. There are many more. ] (]) 21:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:1. Benny Morris
::Is that the same as , written in 1975? ] (]) 22:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
:In ''Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001'', Benny Morris discusses Zionist leaders’ views on coexistence:
<s>:::I don't think so, it was published in 1978, and "The Origins" seems to be part 1 of a trilogy, which this isn't. ] (]) 22:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:<blockquote>“From early on, the Zionist leadership sought ways to coexist with the Arab population. They acknowledged the Arabs' attachment to the land but believed that a demographic Jewish majority was necessary for self-determination. This did not preclude peaceful relations with the Arab population.” '''Source:''' Morris, Benny. ''Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001.'' Vintage Books, 2001, pp. 45–47.</blockquote>
::::OK that's very old, and ]. And if Google Books is correct, it was published by the WZO. If there are many more as you say, it should be easy to link to a book written in the 21st century, in English, by an independent publisher. ] (]) 22:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
: ----
:::::Hi. Check out by Dr. Benny Morris (starting from "Colonialism is commonly defined as"). With regards, ] (]) 11:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:2. Anita Shapira
::::::Benny Morris, in a book review, doesn't agree with Khalidi's ''The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017''.
:In ''Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948'', Anita Shapira explores the transition in Zionist strategies:
::::::And? ] (]) 12:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:<blockquote>“Initially, the Zionist movement sought peaceful coexistence, with an emphasis on agricultural development and cultural revival. The shift toward a more militant stance was a response to increasing hostility and rejection by the Arab leadership.” '''Source:''' Shapira, Anita. ''Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948.'' Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 118–120.</blockquote>
::::::Thank you, now we are getting somewhere. No doubt Benny Morris is real 21st scholarship. But, a few "buts":
: ----
::::::# I know it's a bit pedantic, but that's not a book about Zionism, and neither is Khalidi's book a book about Zionism. That's Morris reviewing Khalidi's book about the conflict. A book review shouldn't be given as much ] as a book, and a book about the conflict -- for this article -- shouldn't be given as much weight as a book specifically about Zionism (or the history of Zionism).
:3. Walter Laqueur
::::::# I'm not sure that either Khalidi or Morris have ever written a book about Zionism? They are experts in the conflict, but I wouldn't call either of these "]" for this article.
:Walter Laqueur, in ''A History of Zionism'', highlights the diversity of Zionist attitudes:
::::::# Nevertheless, even if we "count" this, we have one scholar (Khalidi) saying Zionism was colonialism, and one scholar (Morris) saying it wasn't. Call it a tie. So that begs the question: which, if either, is the mainstream view?
:<blockquote>“Not all Zionist leaders viewed the Arab population as an obstacle. Many believed in the possibility of coexistence and sought alliances with moderate Arab leaders. The idea of a shared future was integral to some streams of Zionist thought.” '''Source:''' Laqueur, Walter. ''A History of Zionism.'' Schocken Books, 2003, p. 78.</blockquote>
::::::I assume I don't have to prove that there are, say, three books entirely about Zionism that call it "colonialism," although I can post three if anyone wants. (If we open it up to looking at books about the conflict in general, and not just Zionism specifically, then there will be even more books like Khalidi's.) That leaves the question: are there more books/scholars (and I mean 21st century real scholars like Morris and Khalidi) that share Morris's view that it's not Zionism? I'm going to guess without looking that we'd find something by ] agreeing with Morris's view that Zionism was not colonialism. And some would argue about whether Karsh "counts" but let's skip ahead and say Morris and Karsh are two. I could post like six examples that say "colonialism." So are there like six or more examples like Morris or Karsh that say "not colonialism"? What I'm getting at is that I think "colonialism" is the mainstream view and Morris is in the minority. "Prove me wrong"? ] (]) 12:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
: ----
<s>:::::::Why would Karsh, an academic historian and professor (emeritus) of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College not count? ] (]) 12:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:4. Shlomo Avineri
::::::::Extreme bias, still, let's count him, still going to be a minority. ] (]) 12:36, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:In ''The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State'', Shlomo Avineri discusses Herzl’s inclusive vision:
<s>:::::::::And Khalidi or Morris are not biased? C'mon, let's be serious. ] (]) 12:41, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:<blockquote>“Herzl envisioned the Jewish state not as a colonial outpost but as a refuge for Jews and a place where Jews and Arabs could coexist peacefully. He believed economic development would benefit all inhabitants of Palestine.” '''Source:''' Avineri, Shlomo. ''The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State.'' Basic Books, 1981, pp. 126–128.</blockquote>
::::::::::Both biased, of course, all sources are biased. Not extreme though. ] (]) 12:42, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
: ----
<s>:::::::::::I find Khalid to be every bit as extreme as Karsh, just from the other side. That's not a serious argument for exclusion. ] (]) 12:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:5. Itamar Rabinovich
::::::::::::I totally agree, Khalid is extreme too, I don't see why we give preference to his work over that of Karsh. ] (]) 15:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:In ''The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948'', Rabinovich critiques one-sided interpretations:
:::::::::::::Who is Khalid? ] (]) 15:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:<blockquote>“The Zionist leadership was divided over how to deal with the Arab population. While some leaders emphasized demographic dominance, others promoted coexistence and even federation with the Arabs.” '''Source:''' Rabinovich, Itamar. ''The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948.'' Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 34–36.</blockquote>
<s>::::::::::::::It's an obvious typo - Khalidi ] (]) 18:35, 13 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
: ----
:::::::::::::Bring sources, that's where we are at. Like this one, for example https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-socialism/socialism-zionism-and-settler-colonialism-in-israelpalestine/845325220666E2F7BD373A1271E24060
:::::::::::::"It was also a settler-colonial project. Until the Second World War, Zionists commonly referred to their ‘colonization’ of Palestine with no pejorative implications. ] (]) 15:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC) :These sources illustrate that while some Zionist leaders prioritized creating a Jewish majority, others emphasized peaceful coexistence and collaboration with the Arab population. ] (]) 19:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
::What diverse sources! ] (]) 19:57, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Aside from bias, I don't think Karsh has ever written a book about Zionism (as opposed to a book about the conflict). But I think we'd all agree to "count" Karsh so as not to be distracted by arguing about him, and still, Morris and Karsh would make a minority of two, so the question remains: who else is there among 21st-century scholars who say Zionism was not colonialism? (And note: the number of ''books about Zionism'', meaning BESTSOURCES, that say it's not colonialism is currently 0.) ] (]) 12:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
::These sources make it clear that the Zionist leaders and thinkers had different opinions about this topic. The sentence in question presents opinions as fact and violates WP:NPOV. ]<sub>]</sub> 20:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::You are moving the goalposts (slightly, but moving them nonetheless). You first asked for " one book about Zionism that does not describe it as colonialism" and I gave you one, , which you dismissed on a pretext ("not 21st century"). Now you are asking for something else - multiple books that explicitly says it is "not colonialism" - that's not the way academic books on a topic are usually written, as opposed to polemics seeking to prove or disprove a point. ] (]) 12:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::What was that about moving goalposts? There is no unresolved question here and no real argument against colonization (or colonial project). ] (]) 12:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC) :::C'mon Alaexis. Look at the dates of the sources. Look at who's writing them. You know this doesn't represent modern scholarship. And let's not enable the obvious socks please with "I agree" statements. ] (]) 20:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
:::No responsible editor can miss that these sources don't even come close to outweighing the 12+ modern authors in the citations. We've got to stop playing these bullshit games. ] (]) 20:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::I thought I explained it: Levivich first wrote 'can you name one book about Zionism that does not describe it as colonialism'. When that was done, he switched to "who else is there among 21st-century scholars who say Zionism was not colonialism" - ] ] (]) 13:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::@] Regarding those 12 modern authors in the citations, should their views be included in the article as opinion or as fact?
::::::::::I'll take a book about Zionism -- 21st century independently written/published -- that either doesn't describe it as colonialism or says explicitly it's not colonialism, but to your point, Morris's book review disproves it: there you see him explicitly say not colonialism, so that is in fact how academic works are written. There are so many books/works about Zionism that say it's colonialism that if the mainstream view was that it ''wasn't'' colonialism, we'd have no problem coming up with many modern works that say so explicitly. As an example of this, I can show you modern scholarship that explicitly says the mainstream view is ''not'' that it's settler-colonialism, but I'm not aware of any that say it's not colonialism at all. ] (]) 12:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::I said books are usually not written this way, not that you can't find an example or two that do. Morris is well known for his polemical style, and that is a book review - not a book. ] (]) 13:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s> ::::Start with the first source. Manna says he hopes his book will cause Zionists discomfort, so it certainly appears he has anti-Zionist bias. Can you explain why his views should be included in the article as if they were factual? ] (]) 23:42, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
::::Thank you for your input, Levivich. I understand your concerns, but I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that the sources I presented do not represent valuable scholarship or that they are outdated.
::::::::::::I would still count crossing the first goalpost ("doesn't say colonialism") as a score :-) But we're still at zero examples...
::::'''On the Sources' Dates and Relevance:'''
::::::::::::You know, 1978 was before the Israeli archives were opened, before the ], anything that old is obsolete when it comes to scholarship on this subject, so that doesn't count. That's why ]. Plus it appears to be out of print, published by the WZO, and in a language I do not know how to read so I can't verify it. ] (]) 13:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
::::The sources I referenced—Laqueur, Morris, and others—remain foundational to the historiography of Zionism. While some are not "modern" in the strictest sense, their contributions are widely cited and continue to influence contemporary scholarship. Moreover, more recent works, such as Anita Shapira’s ''Israel: A History'' (2012) and Shlomo Avineri’s ''Herzl's Vision'' (2014), build on these foundational sources and offer nuanced insights:
:::::::::::::Modern Zionism dates to the late 19th century, you think there's some mysteries document hidden in Israel's archives that suddenly exposes the true nature of Zionism as a colonial project that wasn't known before? You will note that the most notable of the New Historians - Morris - is actually one that holds the position that it is not colonialism.
::::* Anita Shapira emphasizes that Zionism's primary goal was self-determination, noting, "The goal of Zionism was not to displace Arabs but to create a refuge for Jews. While demographic concerns influenced policy, many Zionist leaders sought coexistence with the Arab population, particularly in the early stages of the movement" (''Israel: A History'', p. 102).
:::::::::::::If you keep inventing pretexts (has to be a book, has to be explicitly about Zionism, has to be 21st century, has to be in English, has to be in print, can't be published by WZO) - then naturally you are going to arrive at the result you want.
::::* Shlomo Avineri clarifies that Herzl envisioned a model of mutual benefit, writing, "Herzl’s vision was one of mutual benefit and coexistence. He believed that economic development and modernization would serve both Jews and Arabs, rather than aiming to marginalize or exclude the Arab population" (''Herzl's Vision'', p. 147).
:::::::::::::But here you go- Sachar's "A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time ", 3rd edition revised and expanded, published in 2007 ] (]) 13:37, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
::::These works demonstrate that scholarship on Zionism is diverse, and earlier foundational texts continue to inform modern interpretations.
::::'''Balancing Modern and Foundational Sources:'''
::::While recent sources contribute new perspectives, Misplaced Pages's policies emphasize representing a range of views, including foundational works. Modern interpretations are essential, but they do not "outweigh" or negate the contributions of earlier, seminal scholars. Excluding these works risks skewing the historiographical balance.
::::'''Neutrality and Avoiding Cherry-Picking:'''
::::The current lead risks over-relying on critical perspectives from modern authors like Khalidi and Pappé, which frame Zionism as a colonialist movement. My intention in referencing sources such as Shapira and Avineri is to ensure balance and to reflect the diversity of Zionist motivations—self-determination, cultural revival, and responses to antisemitism—alongside its contested aspects.
::::'''Avoiding Personal Criticism:'''
::::I encourage us to focus on the substance of the sources and their interpretations rather than implying bad faith or dismissing arguments as "games." Constructive engagement helps ensure the article aligns with Misplaced Pages's neutrality and verifiability standards. ] (]) 21:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
::@] Apologies, but despite your citations, I seem to be having issues finding these quotes ''(It's probably on me, but I'd like to clarify regardless)''.
::
::''I can't find a version of Anita Shapira's Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948 online, so I can't comment there.''
::
::
:: ] (]) 21:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
{{hab}}
: Regarding these 12 sources, how many (if any) should be treated as if their views are factual vs. given as opinion?
: Again, starting with Manna, in the intro to his book he says hopes his book will cause Zionists discomfort. He certainly appears to have an anti-Zionist bias. Maybe he should be included as an opinion, but can anyone explain why his views should be included in the article as if they were factual? -- ] (]) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
::1. If we exclude anti-Zionists like Manna, does that mean we exclude pro-Zionists like Morris, too? 2. Fact/opinion is a false dichotomy. We state opinions in Wikivoice when they're mainstream opinions (eg Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players of all time). ] (]) 03:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
:::From the references, do you think that Morris presents the mainstream opinion here?
::::''"underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an '''overwhelming Jewish majority'''"''
:::The article has an entire section on "demographic majority", and I suspect that if we were to use the best sources on the topic, instead of a collection of biased sources synthensized into nonsense, we'd see the mainstream opinion is that Zionists, certainly by 1948, wanted a clear demographic majority, not necessarily "as few Palestinians as possible". ] (]) 03:42, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Responded on your talk page. ] (]) 04:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
::'''No.''' Levivich lays it out well. If we wanted to quibble, we could opt for something like {{tq|At least by 1948,}} at the beginning of the sentence. But that would probably require a footnote to further explain what we mean by that and give the range of dates given by experts. At the moment the wording implies that anyway without the debate over when exactly it is/was/becomes true. ] (]) 22:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Lacks impartial tone'''. While it's literally true that Zionists wanted to have a Jewish majority, and were concerned about the risk of a growing Arab minority as a potential threat due to the risk of conflict between the peoples and the clear antipathy between the peoples, not without plenty of history already, the phrasing continues to be awkward. The idea of "as few Arabs as ''possible''" is not the clearest way to explain "the largest feasible majority Jewish state." It creates an implication that Zionists perhaps wanted that number to be 0, but we know that not to be the case. "Lowest possible" is not the best summary of the sources. I think we can do a better job of explaining that Zionists sought to create a Jewish majority state, without implying that expulsion was an express goal of Zionism. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 06:20, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Misplaced Pages says:
*:* {{tqq|as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible}}
*:The cited sources say:
*:* {{tqq|maximum territory, minimum Arabs}} - Segev
*:* {{tqq|maximum land and minimum Arabs}} - Masalha
*:* {{tqq|the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible}} - Shlaim
*:* {{tqq|as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible}} - Pappé
*:* {{tqq|as few Arabs as possible ... the smallest possible number of Palestinians ... fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers}} - Manna
*:* {{tqq|as much of Palestine as was feasible ... a large Jewish majority ... as few Arabs as possible ... a Jewish state in all of “Palestine,” ... appropriate additional territory}} - Slater
*:* {{tqq|increase the Jewish population of Palestine ... expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive ... in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights ... more expansive borders ... the smallest possible minorities ... ‘Jewish’ ... by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants ... non-Jews ... numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal ... as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible}} - Engel
*:* {{tqq|increase the Jewish space ... dispossess the Palestinians}} - Lentin
*:* {{tqq|a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible}} - Cohen
*:* {{tqq|as few Arabs as possible}} - Stanislawski
*:* {{tqq|getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... demographic elimination}} - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
*:* {{tqq|transformed most of Palestine from ... a majority Arab country—into ... a substantial Jewish majority ... the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas ... and the theft of Palestinian land and property ... There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority ... Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land.}} - Khalidi
*:* {{tqq|on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions ... an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions}} - Lustick & Berkman
*:* {{tqq|displacement of Arabs ... to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority.}} - Morris
*:Misplaced Pages is using the same language as the cited sources. ] (]) 00:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*::IMPARTIAL: {{tq|Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tones can be introduced through how facts are selected, presented, or organized}}. I'm not disputing the facts, just the tone. You'll note that many of the best sources refer to the "majority" and "minority" language, which is different from how the article does. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 19:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Note to closers, mine is a "yes" ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 22:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''<s>yes</s> no''' it does seem to be the case, so this looks very much like a blue sky situation, their own pronouncements stated they wanted a Jewish State (hell Israel is even called that now, sometimes).We have ] for a reason. So yes we can say this. ] (]) 11:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*:{{Re|Slatersteven}} The way the RFC is phrased requires a '''No''' if you think the sentence should be kept? ] (]) 11:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Thanks I think the problem was trying to word "it is not neutral but does not violate NPOV, as it is what is said by zionists". It is almost an Ish question. ] (]) 11:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Bad RfC''' as it fails to neutrally discuss the sources that support the statement and instead editorializes about the assumed politics of just one of the sources. ] (]) 12:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*:I'm not sure what issues you see with rfc which is just a question. But one of the many issues, is that the text engages in a SYTH of different claims, and each case seems to cherry pick whatever paints the most number of Zionists to look as bad as possible.
*:As a few examples, in the reference Morris says "overwhelming Jewish majority" but the text says "as few Palestinians as possible" Shlaim says "Most Zionist leaders" but the text just says "Zionists".
*:Looking at this same set of references someone could have also written "Most Zionist leaders wanted a demographic majority". ] (]) 17:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Well, you might write that, I wouldn't. ] (]) 17:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Not really, when we (and RS) say "Zionists" or "Zionism" we mean the mainstream movement and its leadership. ] (]) 17:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Misplaced Pages says:
*::*{{tqq|Zionists ...}}
*::The cited sources say:
*::* {{tqq|the Zionist leadership ... Zionists of all inclinations ... The Zionists}} - Manna
*::* {{tqq|the Zionists ... all the major leaders ... The Zionist movement in general ... Zionism}} - Slater
*::* {{tqq|the Zionist movement ... the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion ... the Zionist project ... the Zionist movement}} - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
*::* {{tqq|Zionist ideology ... Zionist praxis}} - Morris
*::* {{tqq|the core of Zionism}} - Pappé
*::* {{tqq|the Zionist dream}} - Segev
*::* {{tqq|the Zionist Yishuv}} - Masalha
*::* {{tqq|the Israeli desire}} - Stanislawski
*::* {{tqq|Ben-Gurion ... 'Our ...' ... Zionism}} - Lustick & Berkman
*::* {{tqq|political Zionism}} - Khalidi
*::* {{tqq|Zionism ... the ZO ... Haganah ... their leaders ... Israel ... the state’s leaders ... most Zionists ... Zionist imaginations ... the bulk of the Zionist leadership ... Israel’s leaders ... Israel ... the state}} - Engel
*::* {{tqq|many ... Zionist leaders and activists}} - Cohen
*::* {{tqq|the Zionist leadership}} - Lentin
*::* {{tqq|most Zionist leaders}} - Shlaim
*::The word "Zionists" (or "Zionism") is the right word to summarize those sources. ] (]) 00:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::The RfC was constructed, and advertised, non-neutrally. It's a bad RfC. ] (]) 19:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No.''' This is not biased wording, since it is in marked agreement with the pertinent sourcing. I don't have a substantial objection to rewording it somehow anyway, but this present wording is not actually "broken" at all. I also agree that this was not really a proper RfC because ] wasn't followed and the question posed is not neutrally phrased. But the horse is already out of the barn with the level of input so far, so we might as well proceed (especially since the evidence presented contradicts the RfC opener's apparent position against this language being used; that is, the non-neutrality of the OP has had no effect except perhaps short-circuiting their own proposal). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 09:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*This is a really badly formed RfC but I would say that the sentence, especially in the first para, is problematic. This is the comment I just wrote in what I guess is now the RFCBEFORE discussion, a couple of sections up this page: None of the 13 (actually fewer, as Sand and Engel aren't used for this point) sources are unreliable, although they are not all as strong as they could be. However, the key point is that in relation to this quote, many are talking about very specific moments in Zionist history (i.e. the Nakba and maybe the period leading up to it) and/or about some or many Zionist leaders (specifically the political Zionists in the case of Khalidi or of the Labour Zionists of Ben Gurion's generation in the case of Lustick and Berkman and Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury), and not about Zionism in general. A couple describe it as the esoteric, inherent or secret logic of Zionism rather than its explicit policy (Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury, Pappe, Morris, Lentin). So the only sources here that come close to saying this was generally true are Segev (we quote him as saying this is the Zionist dream from the start but I've not got the book and the google snippet is too small to see the context) and Slater (but he is a weaker source, not a historian, let alone of Zionism, who frames his book as a contrarian revision of what we know). ] (]) 19:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*:I think this is really the key problem with the current phrasing - it totally removes the context that is present in at least in some of the references and generalizes their claims to Zionism as a whole since its very inception.
*:The overgeneralization also leads to ignoring the RSs that contradict this claim, if the chronology is taken into account - e.g., Rubin (2018). "Vladimir Jabotinsky and Population Transfers between Eastern Europe and Palestine", that talks about Jabotinsky's initial opposition to the idea of population transfer of Palestinian Arabs (i.e., the " as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part) and his change of heart around 1939. ] (]) 20:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*::The lead is a summary. Specifically, it is a summary of the mainstream Zionist movement with some brief coverage of dissident's within the movement. We summarize in the same way that RS do. You want the lead to cover jabotinsky's change in positions in the lead? That's obviously undue for the lead. ] (]) 20:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::The summary should summarise accurately. If it says "all Zionists" when the sources say "some Zionists" (or even "most Zionists") then that's not accurate. If it says "Zionism want x" when the sources say "in the 1930s Zionists wanted x" then that's not accurate. ] (]) 15:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::The disputed content states "Zionists '''wanted''' to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many ], and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" ''(Emphasis mine)''. Wanted, past tense, & as ], that is reliably sourced to cover the mainstream movements at the time. There will always be outliers in every category, but outliers are generally removed from summaries for succinctness, then described later in the more detailed analysis.
*::::We could have a separate line describing these outliers &/or that in modern times, some movements have diverged from the original mainstream, but that doesn't contradict the current line in question. ] (]) 16:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::it doesnt say "all zionists" ] (]) 17:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No/Bad RFC''' - discussion has been had before, also no RFCBEFORE done and RFC is poorly formatted overall. I think SMcCandlish describes it best. ] (]) 23:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No''' - of the 14 sources are cited:
*#All were published within the last 20 years
*#All written by experts in the field (11 historians, 2 political scientists, 1 sociologist), including Palestinians and Israelis, left-of-center and right-of-center
*#10 are published by academic presses, 2 by "leftist" presses (Zed, Verso), 2 by mainstream publishers (Farrar, Oneworld)
*#1 expressly says all Zionists; 10 say "Zionists," "Zionist movement", "Zionism", or "Zionist activists"; 2 say Zionist leaders; 1 says "political Zionism" (see 2nd set of quotes I posted above)
*#10/14 convey the idea of ''maximum land''
*#7/14 convey ''maximum Jews''
*#10/14 convey ''minimum Arabs'' (which is just another way of saying ''maximum Jews'')
*#12/14 juxtapose land and demographics (see 1st set of quotes above)
*#<u>11/14 say "always", "from the start", "inherent" or similar (see third set of quotes below)</u>
:Other words could be used to express the same meaning, of course, but ] means the article should say that Zionism sought maximum territory with minimum Arabs. ] (]) 06:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC) <u>ETA ] (]) 18:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)</u>
::{{tq|...minimum Arabs (which is just another way of saying maximum Jews)..}}
::No, those are two different claims - "maximum Jews" implies maximizing Jewish immigration, "minimum Arabs" implies population transfer of Palestinian Arabs - those are two distinct goals achieved using completely different means. ] (]) 11:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Do please source that opinion. ] (]) 12:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I will look for relevant sources, though I'm curious - what would you consider to be a source for "...minimum Arabs (which is just another way of saying maximum Jews)..."? ] (]) 12:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{tq|those are two distinct goals achieved using completely different means}} is what I would like to see sourced. ] (]) 13:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Yes,I understand - I just asked whether you think that the opposite claim conflating those two goals also needs to be sourced, and if it does - what would be the best source for that. ] (]) 13:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Well, we already have sources doing that but no sources doing what you suggest so I am asking for some. ] (]) 13:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::You can't have Jewish immigration without Arab emigration. For just one example of a source saying this, here's ]: {{tq2|The idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century. And driving it was an iron logic: There could be no viable Jewish state in all or part of Palestine unless there was a mass displacement of Arab inhabitants, who opposed its emergence and would constitute an active or potential fifth column in its midst. This logic was understood, and enunciated, before and during 1948, by Zionist, Arab and British leaders and officials ... Both before and during 1948 all understood the logic of transfer: Given Arab opposition to the very idea and existence of a Jewish state, it could not and would not be established, as a viable, lasting entity, without the displacement of the bulk of its Arab inhabitants.|source=}} ] (]) 15:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Morris doesn't mention Jewish immigration here, but rather links the idea of transfer to Arab opposition to the very existence of Jewish state. ] (]) 17:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::OK, here's Morris in ''Birth'' (aka "Morris 2004", one of the 14 citations for the sentence under discussion in this RFC), which has an entire chapter (ch. 2) about 'transfer', and which specifically talks about Jewish immigration (bold added):
:::::: {{tq2| The same persuasive logic pertained already before the turn of the century, at the start of the Zionist enterprise. There may have been those, among Zionists and Gentile philo-Zionists, who believed, or at least argued, that Palestine was ‘an empty land’ eagerly awaiting the arrival of waves of Jewish settlers.5 But, in truth, on the eve of the Zionist influx the country had a population of about 450,000 Arabs (and 20,000 Jews), almost all of them living in its more fertile, northern half. How was the Zionist movement to turn Palestine into a ‘Jewish’ state if the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants were Arabs? And '''if, over the years, by means of massive Jewish immigration, the Jews were at last to attain a majority, how could a truly ‘Jewish’ and stable polity be established containing a very large, and possibly disaffected, Arab minority''', whose birth rate was much higher than the Jews’? <p>'''The obvious, logical solution lay in Arab emigration or ‘transfer’.''' Such a transfer could be carried out by force, i.e., expulsion, or it could be engineered voluntarily, with the transferees leaving on their own steam and by agreement, or by some amalgam of the two methods.}}
:::::: {{tq2|Rather, the Zionist public catechism, at the turn of the century, and well into the 1940s, remained that there was room enough in Palestine for both peoples; there need not be a displacement of Arabs to make way for Zionist immigrants or a Jewish state. There was no need for a transfer of the Arabs and on no account must the idea be incorporated in the movement’s ideological–political platform. <p>'''But the logic of a transfer solution to the ‘Arab problem’ remained ineluctable; without some sort of massive displacement of Arabs from the area of the Jewish state-to-be, there could be no viable ‘Jewish’ state.'''}}
:::::: {{tq2|To be sure, the Zionist leaders, in public, continued to repeat '''the old refrain''' – that there was enough room in the country for the two peoples and '''that Zionist immigration did not necessitate Arab displacement ... But by 1936, the mainstream Zionist leaders were more forthright in their support of transfer'''.}}
:::::: {{tq2|What emerges from the foregoing is that the Zionist leaders, from the inception of the movement, toyed with the idea of transferring ‘the Arabs’ or a substantial number of Arabs out of Palestine, or any part of Palestine that was to become Jewish, as a way of solving the problem posed by the existence of an Arab majority or, down the road, a large Arab minority that was opposed to the existence of a Jewish state or to living in it. As Arab opposition, including violent resistance, to Zionism grew in the 1920s and 1930s, and '''as this opposition resulted in periodic British clampdowns on Jewish immigration, a consensus or near-consensus formed among the Zionist leaders around the idea of transfer as the natural, efficient and even moral solution to the demographic dilemma'''. The Peel Commission’s proposals, which included partition and transfer, only reinforced Zionist advocacy of the idea. All understood that there was no way of carving up Palestine which would not leave in the Jewish-designated area a large Arab minority (or an Arab majority) – and that no partition settlement with such a demographic basis could work. The onset of the Second World War and the Holocaust increased Zionist desperation to attain a safe haven in Palestine for Europe’s persecuted Jews – and reinforced their readiness to adopt '''transfer as a way of instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe'''. <p>* * *<p>But '''transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population'''; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.}}
:::::Is that enough to establish that Morris says that Zionists believed "transfer" of Arabs was necessary to make room for Jews, that it was an inherent and inevitable part of Zionism? He wrote an entire chapter proving this point. It's one of the things Morris is famous for. ] (]) 18:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Not quite - in all but one quote above the necessity of transfer is explained by Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state:
::::::p. 41:
::::::{{tq2| ...how could a truly ‘Jewish’ and stable polity be established '''containing a very large, and possibly disaffected, Arab minority''', whose birth rate was much higher than the Jews’?<br/><br/> The obvious, logical solution lay in Arab emigration or ‘transfer’.}}<br/>
::::::on p. 43, immediately after the part you quoted Morris says:
::::::{{tq2| The need for transfer became more acute with the increase in violent Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. The violence demonstrated that a '''disaffected, hostile Arab majority or large minority would inevitably struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state'''}}<br/>
::::::on p.45, before the part you quoted, there is the following passage:
::::::{{tq2|The outbreak of the Arab Revolt in April 1936 opened the floodgates; the revolt implied that, '''from the Arabs’ perspective, there could be no compromise, and that they would never agree to live in (or, indeed, next to) a Jewish state'''.}}
::::::as a sidenote, the part you omitted from this page's quote says:
::::::{{tq2|Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionist movement, had generally supported transfer. But in 1931 he had said: ‘'''We don’t want to evict even one Arab from the left or right banks of the Jordan. We want them to prosper both economically and culturally'''’; and six years later he had testified before the Peel Commission that ‘'''there was no question at all of expelling the Arabs'''. On the contrary, the idea was that the Land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan would contain the Arabs . . . and many millions of Jews . . .’ – though he admitted that the Arabs would become a ‘minority.’}}
::::::which shows that the idea of population transfer was far from being a consensus among Zionist leadership. <br/>
::::::on p. 59 Morris once again talks about
::::::{{tq2|...the problem posed by the existence of an Arab majority or, down the road, a large Arab minority '''that was opposed to the existence of a Jewish state or to living in it'''.}}
::::::This page's quote is the only place where he makes a connection between Jewish immigration and transfer, but notice that this connection appears only following the beginning of WWII and the Holocaust, that is, '''more than 40 years after establishment of the Zionist movement''':
::::::{{tq2|The onset of the Second World War and the Holocaust increased Zionist desperation to attain a safe haven in Palestine for Europe’s persecuted Jews – and reinforced their readiness to adopt transfer as a way of instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe.}}<br/>
::::::One more quote that you didn't mention, but is highly relevant in context of the wider discussion about transfer:
::::::{{tq2|The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but '''in response to external factors or initiatives''':<br/>In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a '''by-product of Arab violence''' and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was '''triggered by the Arab revolt''' and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;...}}
::::::In other words, according to Morris, the idea of transfer wasn't some "built-in" feature of Zionist ideology from its very inception, but an historical development that followed Arab violent response to the Zionist project. Moreover, Zionists were not the only ones who arrived at this conclusion; the same sentiment was equally shared by many within the British and Arab leadership:
::::::{{Tq2|By the mid-1940s, the logic and necessity of transfer was also accepted by many British officials and various Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah and Prime Minister Ibrahim Pasha Hashim and by Iraq’s Nuri Said. Not the Holocaust was uppermost in their minds. They were motivated mainly by the calculation that partition was the only sensible, ultimately viable and relatively just solution to the Palestine conundrum, and that a partition settlement would only be lasting if it was accompanied by a massive transfer of Arab inhabitants out of the Jewish state-to-be; '''a large and resentful Arab minority in the future Jewish state would be a recipe for most probably instantaneous and certainly future destabilisation and disaster'''.}} ] (]) 19:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{tq|"In other words, according to Morris, the idea of transfer wasn't some "built-in" feature of Zionist ideology"}} is synth. Morris literally says: "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" ] (]) 19:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Perhaps, "built-in" wasn't the best characterization and I should've used a different word - my point is that according to Morris the "inevitability" of transfer was a result of Arab hostility, rather some a priori ideology, and that it was a reaction, not a pre-planned action.
::::::::See the full passage, from which the "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" quote was taken:
::::::::{{tq2|My feeling is that the transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s was not tantamount to preplanning and did not issue in the production of a policy or master-plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion. But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that '''a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure'''."}} ] (]) 20:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::"rather than some a priori ideology" what is this supposed to mean? That "transfer" was purely a practical solution, rather than an ideological one?
:::::::::Morris:
:::::::::{{tq2| The Zionists were intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs; their enterprise, however justified in terms of Jewish suffering and desperation, was tainted by a measure of moral dubiousness.}}
:::::::::Indeed Arabs were hostile towards a movement which was "intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing" them. What you're saying is that if the Arabs had accepted their dispossession, then "transfer" would not have been a consideration of the Zionist movement? ] (]) 21:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::The RFC is not about whether there was {{tq| Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state}} ] (]) 19:51, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I know - I brough up this point in response to the claim that, according to Morris, "you can't have Jewish immigration without Arab emigration", while the actual quotes above show he links the need for Arab emigration to Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state, not to Jewish immigration. ] (]) 20:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No ''' I am keeping it short, since other editors have already argued about this above and in older discussions. This topic appears to have already reached consensus not too long ago. The content also seems to be very adequately sourced. ] (]) 14:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' I'd like to remind editors here of recent additions to ], specifically ''"Editors limited to 1,000 words per formal discussion – all participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion."'' - ] (]) 20:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
*:FWIW, there was ] of not including quoted material in the word count limit. I tend to agree. @], was this your understanding of the final outcome there? ] (]) 12:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:: probably needs an ARCA (or wrap it up in the current case). At any rate, it seems unreasonable to include refs/quotes. ] (]) 13:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::There's also ]. I don't think anyone has to worry about quoted sources putting them over the limit. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that it isn't necessary to convince everyone in a discussion, just convince enough people to establish consensus. If consensus clearly favors your position there's really no need to go back and forth with someone who's likely never going to agree with you. ] (]) 13:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' I'm generally sympathetic to the idea of rewording the lead, including the second part of that sentence. But I really don't see here any substantiated, good justification for it. Actually, the excellent comments left by Levivich have made me more in favor of keeping the current wording. ] ] 01:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No'''. The sourcing is clear-cut, high-quality, and covers authors writing from diverse perspectives; nor has anyone actually presented anything ''contradicting'' it to substantiate the idea that it's even controversial. The sources make it clear that it is simply not controversial to state that a core component of Zionism has historically been to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel at any cost, including keeping the Arab population to a minimum. Some aspects of the topic are esoteric or complex, but this one is extremely basic and uncontroversial - hence why it was so easy to find broad, high-quality sourcing for it. --] (]) 03:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Yes''', on net. Some issues have been well explained by Andre above. Additionally, this sentence, like others, makes a sweeping and politically contentious claim but fails to give context indicating what time period this applies to and doesn't mention change over time - for example, do modern-day Zionists, or all factions thereof, seek the expulsion of ]? The sentence implies that they do, despite this being a completely novel claim as far as I can tell. Pointing to sources about historical Zionism isn't enough to address this issue since this isn't a purely historical subject. If it applies to the time period prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, it should say so and the lead should then say how modern-day Zionist factions relate to Arab people/Palestinians within and without Israel. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 22:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:{{tqq|fails to give context indicating what time period this applies to and doesn't mention change over time}} - Because the sources say it ''didn't'' change over time:
*:* {{tqq|as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century}} (Morris 2002) and {{tqq|inherent in Zionist ideology ... in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise ... during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement}} (Morris 2004)
*:* {{tqq|The history of Zionism, from the earliest days to the present}} - Shlaim
*:* {{tqq|always}} - Lentin
*:* {{tqq|From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period ... always}} - Masalha
*:* {{tqq|From the outset of the Zionist movement ... During every round of the national conflict over Palestine, which is the longest running conflict of its kind in the modern era}} - Slater
*:* {{tqq|From the outset}} - Engel
*:* {{tqq|from its inception}} - Khalidi
*:* {{tqq|from the start}} - Segev
*:* {{tqq|for years}} - Cohen
*:* {{tqq|an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement}} - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
*:* {{tqq|the core of Zionism}} - Pappe
*:* Lustick & Berkman are discussing pre-state Zionism specifically
*:* Stanislawski is discussing 1948 specifically
*:* Manna's book is about early Israel (1948-1956) specifically
*:The Misplaced Pages article says {{tqq|Zionists wanted}}, past tense, not "want", present tense, but the sources support the meaning of "always" or "from the beginning", except for 3 that are talking about specific time periods (from the beginning to 1948, in 1948, and during the early Israeli state 1948-1956). The other 11 says "always" or "from the start" or "inherent" in the very idea or similar. ] (]) 17:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*::A list consisting mostly of one-to-four word quotes is less than convincing that all the relevant sources are indeed imputing this POV to ''all'' of Israel's history and ''all'' factions of Zionism today. Again: {{tq|do modern-day Zionists, or all factions thereof, seek the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel? The sentence implies that they do}}. And I still have yet to see a policy-based justification for the article failing to include {{tq|how modern-day Zionist factions relate to Arab people/Palestinians within and without Israel}} and how they relate to the ] ] to the Israel-Palestine conflict. You've clearly read a lot about this topic, so I ask directly: '''Why is this not being included?''' <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 22:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::The statement is in past tense, so no it does not imply that. ] (]) 22:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::It is immediately followed by a statement that Zionism is the state ideology of Israel, which is a present fact, so yes, it does imply that. Especially when there remains no mention of any subsequent change. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 01:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::But that isn't the right conclusion to make at all, especially considering that the next sentence starts with "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948," ] (]) 01:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)


* '''Yes''' - the current phrasing is problematic in several respects:
::::::::::::::{{tqq|you think there's some mysteries document hidden in Israel's archives that suddenly exposes the true nature of Zionism as a colonial project that wasn't known before?}} Yes, actually, that's exactly what the New Historians found in the archives, isn't it, and why people now call the Nakba an ethnic cleansing when they didn't before? Also there are other primary source documents that were declassified or published decades later, such as the diaries of leaders like Hertzl and Ben-Gurion, which caused historians to re-evaluate history. That's how it works, of course: documents get declassified, historians revise history. I'm not familiar with Sachar, thanks for that, I'll take a look. ] (]) 13:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
# Unlike the wide consensus that Zionists wanted to achieve significant Jewish majority,<ref>{{cite book |last=Gorny |first=Yosef |author-link=Yosef Gorny |title=Zionism and the Arabs, 1882–1948: A Study of Ideology |date=1987 | page=2 | quote="Thus, the desire for a Jewish majority was the key issue in the implementation of Zionism..." }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Morris |first=Benny |author-link=Benny Morris |title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999 |year=1999 |page=682| quote=Zionism had always looked to the day when a Jewish majority would enable the movement to gain control over the country...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ben-Ami |first=Shlomo |author-link=Shlomo Ben-Ami |date=2007 |title=Scars of War, Wounds of Peace | pages=22-23 | quote="Zionism is both a struggle for land and a demographic race; in essence, the aspiration for a territory with a Jewish majority..."}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict |last=Finkelstein |first=Norman G. |author-link=Norman Finkelstein |year=2003 | page=7 |quote="Within the Zionist ideological consensus there coexisted three relatively distinct tendencies—political Zionism, labor Zionism and cultural Zionism. Each was wedded to the demand for a Jewish majority, but not for entirely the same reasons."}}</ref> the claim about "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" is controversial and is contested, for example, by Morris<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morris |first=Benny |date=1991 |title=Response to Finkelstein and Masalha |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2537368 |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=98–114 |doi=10.2307/2537368 |issn=0377-919X |quote=Why is it, then - if a policy of expulsion was in place and being implemented - that more than half of the pocket's inhabitants, many of them Muslims, were left in place? Even in (Muslim) villages where atrocities had been committed - Majd al Kurum, Bi'na, Deir al Assad-the inhabitants were not driven out. Why is it - if there was an "overt" policy of expulsion, "executed with ruthless efficiency," according to Finkelstein - that Northern Front Command's brigades failed to order out onto the roads the (Muslim) villagers of Arrabe, Deir Khanam, Sakhnin, and so on?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | author = Benny Morris | title = Gideon Levy Is Wrong About the Past, the Present, and I Believe the Future as Well| publisher = Haaretz | date = January 21, 2019 | url = https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2019-01-21/ty-article-opinion/.premium/eventually-there-will-be-one-state-between-the-mediterranean-and-the-jordan/0000017f-e7a0-d97e-a37f-f7e5c55d0000 | quote=...there was no policy of “expulsion of the Arabs,” and so some 160,000 Arabs remained, about one-fifth of the country’s total population.}}</ref> in context of 1948 war.
<s>:::::::::::::::More goalpost moving. We were not discussing the Nakba, a 1947-1948 event, but the origins of Zionism.</s>
# The use of past tense and sentence's placement before "''Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948''" implies it supposed to be a general description of mainstream Zionism from its inception till 1948. However, it ignores major difference in attitude between different Zionist fractions (e.g., Jabotinsky's pre-1939 vehement objection to the idea of population transfer),<ref>{{cite journal | last=Rubin | first=Gil S. | title=Vladimir Jabotinsky and Population Transfers between Eastern Europe and Palestine | journal=The Historical Journal | volume=62 | issue=2 | pages=1–23 | year=2018 | quote=When a paper misquoted Jabotinsky as speaking in favour of the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine, Jabotinsky quickly sent a letter of correction to the editor. ‘I did not say those words or any words that could be interpreted along these lines.’ ‘My opinion’, Jabotinsky emphasized, is the contrary ‘that if anyone tried to push the Arabs out of Palestine, all or a part of them – he would be doing, first of all, something immoral and – impossible’.}}</ref> as well as between earlier proposals for Arab-Jewish cooperation<ref>{{cite book|url=http://passia.org/media/filer_public/18/bd/18bd9c6f-c597-47e6-bc27-bad3ab88c960/cd_vol1.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240723094618/http://passia.org/media/filer_public/18/bd/18bd9c6f-c597-47e6-bc27-bad3ab88c960/cd_vol1.pdf|archive-date= 23 Jul 2024|title=Documents on Palestine, Volume 1 (until 1947) | chapter=Resolution Passed At The 12th Zionist Congress, Proposal For An Arab-jewish Entente, Carlsbad, 4 December 1921|pages=97-98| quote=We do thereby reaffirm our desire to attain a durable understanding which shall enable the Arab and Jewish peoples to live together in Palestine on terms of mutual respect and co-operate in making the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which will assure to each of these peoples an undisturbed national development.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Gorny |first=Yosef |title=From Binational Society to Jewish State |date=2006 |work= |url=https://brill.com/display/title/12577 |access-date= |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-474-1161-1}}</ref> and later pragmatic approach formed in reaction to Arab violent opposition to the very existence of Jewish state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Benny |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/birth-of-the-palestinian-refugee-problem-revisited/8AE72A6813CEA7DDDE8F9386313F0D97 |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-81120-0 |edition=2 |series=Cambridge Middle East Studies |location=Cambridge |pages=43 |quote=The need for transfer became more acute with the increase in violent Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. The violence demonstrated that a disaffected, hostile Arab majority or large minority would inevitably struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state.}}</ref>
<s>:::::::::::::::I can certainly see that released archival documents would shed new light on plans and goals of the 1947-1949 war, and whether or not the depopulation of Arab towns was pre-planned - but what has that got to do with the origins of Zionism 70 years earlier? Teh protocols of the 1st Zionist Congress from 1897 were open to all historians in 1975 ] (]) 14:25, 9 June 2024 </s>
# The qualifier "as much/few... as possible" does a lot of heavy lifting here, by masking the major differences mentioned above, and by allowing to dismiss every evidence of attitudes inconsistent with any part of the current phrasing by saying "well, that's what X considered to be possible". So, while formally true, the phrasing is misleading on substantial level.
::::::::::::::::That one wasn't goalpost moving, it's using the Nakba as an example of something, other than Zionism, that was re-evaluated when archives were unsealed, and as an example of the broader point, which is that as time goes on, historians learn new things about history, which is why we need to look at recent scholarship and not 50-year-old scholarship. This is true in every historical field (hence, Misplaced Pages has the WP:AGEMATTERS policy), but it's ''especially'' true when it comes to the history of Israel/Zionism, because there has been so much re-evaluation in the subject area over the last 50 years.
:{{Sources-talk}} ] (]) 18:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::As a concrete example of this, here is ] writing in 1998 about "," and the first section of that paper is called "'''Early Zionism Revisited'''", where he says {{tqq|In the new historiography, Zionism began as a national awakening in Europe but turned into a colonialist movement when it chose Palestine as its target territory.}} And I'd say that ''even that paper'' is outdated because it's 25 years old. Whatever was revisited by 1998 has been revisited again by 2024: Pappe has written many books and papers since, and so have Morris and Karsh and Khalidi and many other scholars. So we look at current scholarship, frankly the more recent, the better. As a kind of rule of thumb, I go with "21st century," it's an easy place to draw a line. ] (]) 14:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
::I'm not sure what the purpose of your first four citations are. No one here is disputing their desire for a Jewish majority. Your citations , , and are all to Morris, with the one most explicitly making the argument you're making being from 33 years ago. I have no idea what the purpose of is. Because "the need for transfer became more acute" in the 1920s, they didn't actually want as few Arabs as possible? I'm not sure what you want us to be looking at in . and are primary sources.
<s>:::::::::::::::::I don't dispute that archival material can shed new light - I am disputing that there's anything in the Israeli archives (or any other archives for that matter) that could shed light on the origins of Zionism, when all the protocols of that movement were previously available. ] (]) 16:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::This is completely incomparable to ] and ]. ] ] 18:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::I looked and ]'s '''' (Knopff 2007, 3rd ed.) describes Zionism as colonization, many many times in the book. Let me know if you want quotes. ] (]) 15:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:::* The purpose of my first four citations is to show that the phrasing "wanted a Jewish majority" would be much more NPOV-compliant than the current one
:::::::::::::::yes, please. ] (]) 16:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
:::* Regarding the thesis that there haven't been any pre-planned coordinated campaign to leave "as few Arabs as possible", Morris is far from being the only one making this claim - here from ].
:::::::::Zionism is nationalism it's not colonialism. Political Zionism promoted settler colonialism as being necessary to achieve the goal of a Jewish majority state. Eventually this becomes the mainstream.
:::* shows that the idea of transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership before late 1920s - Morris explicitly talks about {{tq2|"...transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s..."}} and states that:{{tq2| The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives: In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;.. }}
:::::::::This article includes the history before that view gained political consensus. The influence of cultural Zionism and non-political Zionists is foundational and precedes and even actively opposed a settler-colonial project. this article should include all content relevant to an encyclopedia article.
:::In other words, while the theoretical idea of minimizing the number of Arabs through population transfer was floated by some Zionists for some time, it only began to be seriously discussed by Zionist leadership and reached a consensual status in the 1930s.
:::::::::Many early Zionists were vulnerable displaced people who were dependent on Israel and did not have any other country where they could live. They were opposed to an open-ended conflict aligned with european colonial ideologies. it was europeans who had displaced them, after all. Of course, it is normal that early zionists in large numbers wanted consensus, stability and meaningful security. When the geopolitical circumstances changed to include more armed support from the United States and Germany the politics of Israel became more aggressive. Nowadays claiming "all teh land" is the norm.
:::* and are not primary sources
:::::::::This article is broader in its coverage than to simply dismiss Zionism and its history as settler colonialism (a separate article). ] (]) 13:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::This discussion has already moved on. ] (]) 14:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC) :::] (]) 20:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::{{tq2|The purpose of my first four citations is to show that the phrasing "wanted a Jewish majority" would be much more NPOV-compliant than the current one}}
:::::::::::Ok, I'm copying and pasting my comment to the new section. ] (]) 14:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::They don't show that. Most BESTSOURCES say "Jewish majority" ''and'' "as many Jews as possible". You say we should remove "as many Jews as possible" because there are some sources that say "Jewish majority" ''without disputing'' "as many Jews as possible". Your is Finkelstein. Do you think he disputes "as many Jews as possible"? The argument doesn't make sense. And your is Morris again.
{{od}}
::::{{tq2|Morris is far from being the only one making this claim}}
I have the ebook so references are to "chapter, section" rather than page number. Bold and blue links are mine.
::::Then find every BESTSOURCE that makes it, and we can compare to ].
{{cot|Sachar quotes}}
::::{{tq2|here another example from Efraim Karsh}}
* Chapter 1
::::This is an opinion article from a magazine from 24 years ago. This is not a BESTSOURCE.
** Ch. 1, Forerunners of Zionism: "They were: that the salvation of the Jews, as foretold by the Prophets, could take place through natural means, that is, by self-help, and did not require the advent of the Messiah; that '''the colonization of Palestine''' should be launched without delay; and that the revival of sacrifices in the Holy Land was permissible ... Moving so far beyond traditional Orthodoxy that some colleagues branded his views heretical, Kalischer urged: the formation of a society of rich Jews to undertake '''the colonization of Zion'''; settlement by Jews of all backgrounds on the soil of the Holy Land; the training of young Jews in self-defense; and the establishment of an agricultural school in the Land of Israel where Jews might learn farming and other practical subjects ... Kalischer’s notion of “practical messianism” in fact was appealing enough to win over a small but influential group of contemporaries who joined him in founding '''a “Society for the Colonization of the Land of Israel.”''' ... In later essays, Smolenskin made plain that all methods were legitimate in sustaining the national ideal, not excluding '''the physical colonization of the Land of Israel''' ..."
::::{{tq2|shows that the idea of transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership before late 1920s}}
** Ch. 1, European Nationalism and Russian Upheaval: "''Rome and Jerusalem'' was unique in its prefigurations of later and better-known Zionist doctrines ... Predating ], ] envisaged the self-interested collaboration of other governments in reviving a Jewish protégé nation in the Middle East, and the active help of the “Jewish princes”—], ], and other millionaires—who would fund and organize '''Jewish colonization in Palestine'''."
::::It literally doesn't. It says "the need for transfer became more acute". Became more acute. Not "wasn't seriously considered". It does not say that.
** Ch. 1, Chovevei Zion: "Indeed, before his death in 1891, he managed to provide the ] with a coherent ideology and an organizational framework, to strengthen the foundations of '''Palestine colonization''', and to achieve a quasi-legalization for the movement in Russia."
::::{{tq2|In other words, while the theoretical idea of minimizing the number of Arabs through population transfer was floated by some Zionists for some time, it only began to be seriously discussed by Zionist leadership and reached a consensual status in the 1930s.}}
* Chapter 2
::::Definitively answered by ].
** Ch. 2, The ]: "It was rather a group of youthful idealists that decided finally to take the initiative in establishing a creative foothold in Palestine. In January 1882, thirty young men and women gathered in the Kharkov lodgings of a university student, Israel Belkind, to discuss the “plight of the nation.” Most of them had been reared in middle-class families. All either were attending university or, in some instances, had received professional degrees. They were all imbued, too, with a mixture of ardent Jewish nationalism and fiery Russian populism. In their minds, as in those of most of the Russian students of their generation, social reform and national fulfillment were interlinked. Thus, after extended discussion, the group decided that the revival of Jewish life in the Holy Land on a “productive” basis must begin immediately, without awaiting full-scale support from the wider Jewish community. Then and there ]—a Hebrew biblical acrostic of “House of Jacob, let us go.” In ensuing meetings, nineteen of the youths made the commitment to abandon their studies or professions in favor of immediate departure to the Land of Israel; the others would recruit new members '''to establish a model agricultural colony in Palestine'''. “We have no capital,” noted Chaim Chissin, a founding member, in his diary, “but we are certain that once we are we shall be established. On every side we find an enthusiastic display of sympathy for the idea of '''the colonization of the Land of Israel''' and we have already received promises of aid from societies and influential persons.” ... Where were the funds that at least would enable them '''to develop a model colony of their own—their very ''raison d’être'' for having traveled to Palestine'''? ... Afterward he attended a ] conference in Jassy, where he instantly sensed the potential of the emergent Zionist movement. The indefatigable Englishman thereupon departed for Constantinople in the hope of persuading the Ottoman government '''to grant the Jews a charter for colonizing the Holy Land'''."
::::{{tq2| and are not primary sources}}
** Ch. 2, "The Well-Known Benefactor": "With the passage of time, '''the Zionist colonies''' became Rothschild’s major philanthropic interest."
::::I didn't say was. I said and were. is a direct quote from Jabotinsky with no commentary other than a straightforward description of the context the quote was said in.
** Ch. 2, The Bridgehead Widens: "More significantly, he appeared to disengage himself from personal control of the settlements by turning over their management to a separate and ostensibly independent body, '''the ]—the PICA'''."
::::I'm not interested in continuing this conversation unless you can provide an alternate wording citing secondary BESTSOURCES on Zionism in which they dispute the points the current wording is making, and it gets anywhere to the same level as ]. If you or anyone else can do that I will !vote yes. ] ] 21:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
* Chapter 3
:::::{{tq2|Most BESTSOURCES say "Jewish majority" and "as many Jews as possible". You say we should remove "as many Jews as possible" because there are some sources that say "Jewish majority" without disputing "as many Jews as possible". Your is Finkelstein. Do you think he disputes "as many Jews as possible"? The argument doesn't make sense}}
** Ch. 3, From Theorist to Activist: The ]: "In the ], Herzl had created his “Society of Jews.” Now he was determined to organize the “Jewish Company,” a bank to be entitled the ] ... The older methods of piecemeal '''colonization in Palestine''', deprived of international legal recognition, no longer were adequate ... This was simultaneously to improve the coalition of the Yishuv—Palestine Jewry—'''by colonization''' and industrialization, and to endorse once again all possible diplomatic efforts to acquire a charter of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land."
:::::The most non-NPOV part is "as few Arabs as possible" - I'll do my best to put together a list of RSs that talk about "Jewish majority" and yet refute the claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core Zionist goal throughout the pre-1948 period - hopefully will have the time to do it over the weekend. ] (]) 21:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
** Ch. 3, The Kaiser and the Sultan: "He still did not have the bank, the financial instrument he had regarded as crucial to both negotiations and '''colonization''' ... Afterward, presumably, '''the issue of colonization''' would be taken up again. Herzl found the idea appealing. With some effort, he finally secured the Zionist Actions Committee’s reluctant approval to deposit letters of credit totaling 3 million francs in Ottoman banks; the sum would be '''guaranteed by the Jewish Colonial Trust'''."
::::::That's exactly what I, and I think some others, are looking for. That would be appreciated. ] ] 21:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
** Ch. 3, The British Connection: "On February 5, 1902, he summoned the Zionist leader back to Constantinople to “furnish information” on current progress. Upon meeting with Ottoman officials in their capital nine days later, Herzl could only fight for time. In a desperate maneuver, he suggested that before any funding of the Public Debt was possible, the sultan should take the initiative in offering the Jews the general concession of '''a land colonizing company'''."
:::::::Just finished compiling the list, along with analysis of the currently used sources - due to the length constraints, I posted it as a separate topic:
** Ch. 3, Achad HaAm, Easternesr, and the Democratic Faction: "In “Lo Zeh HaDerech,” we have noted (this page), he urged his fellow Chovevei Zion to reconsider their emphasis upon actual physical settlement in Palestine. Yet his purpose was not merely '''to postpone colonization''' until juridical and diplomatic guarantees were secured from the Turks, but to ensure that the national spirit of the Jewish people was fully ignited ... Moreover, while ], no less than Herzl, deplored “infiltrationism” as a technique for reviving the Jewish nation, the former’s disciples—Weizmann, Motzkin, and the largest numbers of east European Jews—still '''preferred gradual and methodical colonization in the revered Holy Land''' to a paralysis of suspended animation, waiting breathlessly for Herzl’s diplomatic achievement of a charter. Well prior to the ] in August 1903, it became evident that the al-Arish project had reached a dead end."
:::::::] ] (]) 16:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
* Chapter 4
::::::::Thank you. I will !vote '''Yes''' to reward you for this effort. I have some criticisms of what you've written, which I will leave in that thread, but I'm happy to keep the door open to a rewording. ] ] 17:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
** Ch. 4, Zionism After Herzl: "As a result, the Seventh Zionist Congress, meeting in Basle from July 27 to August 2, 1905, was obliged to give urgent attention to its future stance. In overwhelming numbers, the delegates '''rejected any colonizing activities outside Palestine''', and voted unequivocally in favor of emigration and settlement there, with active encouragement of Jewish agriculture and industry ... Thus it was that ''Gegenwartsarbeit''—“work in the present,” ]—embracing both '''colonization in Palestine''' and cultural activity in the Diaspora, became a meaningful Jewish force."
** Ch. 4, The Second Aliyah: "At the turn of the century, we recall, both the “old” ] and the “new” Yishuv still depended mainly on outside help—Chalukkah charity for the old, Rothschild or Zionist philanthropy for the new. Although more than 50,000 Jews were living in the Holy Land by then, only 5,000 were to be found in '''the twenty rural colonies'''."
** Ch. 4, The Collective Settlement: "The onset of the ] coincided with a growing momentum of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine. It was helped in considerable measure by Baron Rothschild’s PICA. '''New colonies''' included ], Mescha, ], and ] founded in 1901–02, and Beit Gan in 1904 ... With land and loans supplied by PICA, '''the new colonies eventually showed modest profits'''."
** Ch. 4, The Conquest of Hebrew: "The Alliance schools, too, were conducting the major portion of their instruction in the Hebrew language, as were the schools in '''the Zionist agricultural colonies'''. Additionally, sixty Zionist schools in the towns and outlying '''farm colonies''', comprising 2,600 pupils, were using Hebrew as their sole medium of instruction. This program was decisively augmented by the iron willpower of the Zionist settlers themselves, and notably the immigrants of the Second Aliyah."
* Chapter 5
** Ch. 5, A Crucial Intermediary: "It was only during his travels in Palestine that ] had come to admire '''the Zionist colonies''' and to sense their potential rejuvenating influence among the Jewish people."
** Ch. 5, A Declaration Is Issued: "To sustain the momentum, meanwhile, ] invited leading German and Austrian Jews to Constantinople to discuss '''Jewish land colonization and autonomy in Palestine'''."
* Chapter 6
** Ch. 6, High and Early Hopes in the Holy Land: "As far back as December 1917 the foreign secretary had approved the departure of a ] for Palestine to organize relief work and supervise repair of damage to '''the Jewish colonies'''."
** Ch. 6, The "Constitution" of the Mandate: "This major concession to the Arabs evidently registered only slowly on '''the Zionists'''. In their earlier correspondence with the British they had expressed at most a perfunctory interest in the Transjordanian area; '''their colonies''' were all to the west."
* Chapter 7
** Ch. 7, The Revival of the Zionist Organization: "Each of its members became responsible for a specific facet of the Zionist reconstructionist effort in the Holy Land. Thus, departments were organized for political affairs, immigration, labor, '''colonization''', education, and health ... The '''colonization department''' was responsible for the development of new Jewish agricultural villages."
** Ch. 7, The Growth of Urban Settlement, the Struggle for Labor Unity: "The ] leadership watched this development closely. It was persuaded by then that in the cities, as on the soil, labor’s task was to conquer the Palestine Jewish economy and shape it altogether in its image. In fact, rudimentary workers’ organizations had appeared in '''the Jewish colonies''' as far back as the 1880s and 1890s, but the PICA directors had managed to stamp out most of them."
** Ch. 7, The Creation of the Jewish Agency: "A formula acceptable to both Zionists and non-Zionists was worked out as early as the Zionist Congress of 1925. It set as the goals of a ]: continuous increase in the volume of Jewish immigration; redemption of the land as Jewish public property; '''agricultural colonization based on Jewish labor'''; revival of the Hebrew language and of Hebrew culture."
* Chapter 8
** Ch. 8, Arabs and Jews Before the Mandate: "While Arab banditry was an endless harassment to '''the Zionist colonies''', it signified no particular nationalist animus."
** Ch. 8, A Failure of Perception, a Renewal of Violence: "For the ], particularly, the economic benefits of Jewish settlement appeared to be the decisive response to Arab nationalism ... For ], “only the narrow circles of the Arab ruling strata have egotistical reasons to fear Jewish immigration and the social and economic changes caused by it.” The Arab masses, at least, would understand that '''Jewish immigration and colonization''' brought prosperity."
** Ch. 8, The Revisionist Answer: "What ] demanded, he said, was “the systematic and active participation” of the mandatory in the establishment of the Jewish commonwealth. '''Mass colonization''' was not a private enterprise, nor a project for voluntary organization; it was state business requiring the active assistance of the state power. ] idea, in short, was to recruit Britain as a full-fledged partner in the building of the National Home—as opposed to ]’s policy, which regarded '''colonization in Palestine''' as essentially the task of the Jewish people."
{{cob}}
These are not the only mentions, but should be enough to demonstrate that Sachar describes Zionists as colonizers, and of course Zionists described themselves the same way. ] (]) 20:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)


*'''No''', this sentence is well sourced and captures the mainstream narrative regarding the mainstream zionist movement's objectives. ] (]) 18:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
<s>:Thanks for this. Go back and read what I wrote above about the multiple meanings of colonization. When someone writes, e.g " establish a model agricultural colony in Palestine" it is the exact parallel of a colony on Mars. This is also exactly what ] wrote at the top of this thread - 'Early Zionists sometimes referred to their project as "colonial" in the sense of establishing agricultural settlements (in Hebrew moshavot) and reviving Jewish life in the ancestral homeland. This quote appears to be used anachronistically in this context, to imply as if the Zionists were adherents of the contemporary sense of colonialism" ] (]) 20:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::So tell me which do you think is true:
::# You know something about the multiple meanings of colonization that Howard Sachar doesn't know, and Sachar made a mistake when he used the word "colonization" in his book, OR
::# Sachar knows about the multiple meanings of colonization, and decided to use that word anyway
::I think it's #2.
::And BTW, you should drop the comparison of colonizing Palestine with colonizing Mars, because there are no people who live on Mars. So even if the Zionists ''thought'' they were colonizing a barren, empty land, they were wrong. Either way, this article says "colonization" because the sources say "colonization," and it really doesn't matter if ''editors'' think that's not the right word to use, because it's the word the sources use. ] (]) 20:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::The fact that Mars is barren is exactly the point - it demonstrate you can "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it - which is the common, modern connotation of colonization, which was missing from early Zionist use of the term. ] (]) 21:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::Sure, you can "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it ... ''if there are no people there!'' Anyway, do you think Sachar doesn't know the modern connotation of "colonization" and made a mistake using the word, or that he knows the modern connotation and used it anyway? ] (]) 21:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::No, you can also an "colonize" a land, in the sense of building communities there, w/o subjugating a population you believe to be inferior and exploiting it even if there are people there. Do you think The People's Temple colonized Guyana when they established their there?</s>
<s>:::::I think Sachar didn't anticipate that 15 years later, wikipedia editors would try to use his choice of words in order to paint Zionists as subjugators. ] (]) 21:28, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::You're absolutely right, Misplaced Pages should ''not'' call Zionists "subjugators." Let's instead use the exact same word Sachar used: "colonization." ] (]) 22:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::Or, we could just say what the article has said for a long time - "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine", without any potentially POV-laden terminology. ] (]) 22:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::] says Misplaced Pages articles should say what mainstream scholarship says. So if mainstream scholarship says "colonization" (and it does), then it would be "POV-laden" to ''not'' say "colonization." ] (]) 23:03, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::Somehow this article existed for years without this characterization, even as a "featured article" without anyone claiming it violates NPOV. ] (]) 23:09, 9 June 2024 (UTC)</s>d
::::::::::This was a featured article from 2003 until 2004, when it was delisted. The ] said (bold mine): {{tq2|The early Zionists were well aware that Palestine was already occupied by Arabs, who had constituted the majority of the population there for over a thousand years. The Zionist leaders generally shared the attitudes of other Europeans of the period in the matters of race and culture. In this view the Arabs were one of the world's many primitive races, who could only benefit from Jewish '''colonisation'''. This attitude led to the opposition of the Arabs being ignored, or even to their presence being denied, as in Israel Zangwill's famous slogan "A land without a people, for a people without a land". Generally though, such myths were propaganda invented by leaders who saw the Arabs as an obstacle to overcome, but not a serious one.}} The ] changed that line from "Jewish colonisation" to "Jewish immigration."
::::::::::So the FA version of this article said "colonisation." {{awesome}}
::::::::::After all this discussion, we are still at ''zero'' modern books about Zionism that don't describe it as colonization. ] (]) 04:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::Sure. And similarly, the current version of the article mentions colonization and colonies, multiple times, in a paragraphs discussing the actions of early Zionists like Montefiori, and if you wanted to include something like the featured article version, about the thinking of early Zionists that the natives would benefit form Colonization, somewhere in the body, that would porbbaly be fine.</s>
<s>:::::::::::But as you obviously realize, that is not the same as ''describing Zionism as a colonial project in the first sentence of the lead of the article'' ] (]) 11:52, 10 June 2024 (UTC)</s>


*'''No''', not as a matter of policy, but it may be best to reword anyway. Misplaced Pages is a website anyone can edit, and readers, knowing this, are likely to see such an accusatory claim in the lede as dubious. What may avert this is to move this language to the body, where it can be backed up with all the sourcing justifying it, and soften the tone in the corresponding lede sentence. ] &#124; ] 03:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
{{od}}
*:This sentence already appears verbatim in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section, in addition to the lead ] (]) 12:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Is it feasible to ask the people who list and delist "Featured Articles" what needs to happen to get this again listed as FA -- and whether any use of a term somehow related to "colonial project" or "colonization" can impact that?
*::so? '']''<sup>]</sup> 15:33, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::@] suggested to move the current sentence to the body and rewrite the lede sentence - I just pointed out that the current sentence already appears verbatim in the body, in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section. ] (]) 17:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::We could change what's in the body so as to more properly reflect the whole bunch of sources saying this one way or another and leave the lead as the summary, if you like. ] (]) 17:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::I'm currently preparing an in-depth overview of the currently cited sources, showing that they DON'T support the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the current phrasing. In addition, I collected a list of RS, which haven't been cited yet and that contest this claim - I need a bit more time to write it up in a organized and readable form - it should be ready by tomorrow.
*::::Hopefully, it will convince you and the others that both the lead and the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section need to be rephrased, and I do agree that that section could be the right place to elaborate about the controversy and the different POVs. ] (]) 17:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No''' the sentence is supported by the best sources, from authors having differing viewpoints. No one has presented sources with sufficient weight to contradict the sources used which support the sentence. Per ], "{{tq|neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views}}. '']''<sup>]</sup> 06:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*Pinging @], @], @], @], @], @], @], @], @], @] and @] as editors who were involved in the discussion at ] where that sentence was discussed. '']''<sup>]</sup> 07:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Yes''' I'm not sure if the same weight should be given to sources who are Zionist and sources who are anti-Zionist within the ideological definition of the movement. From a personal experience, the majority of the people I know are Zionists, and have in fact asked me as an editor to remove that blood libel (I received about 16 different requests, an amount I've never encountered before). None of them want to have as few Palestinians as possible in Israel, but Misplaced Pages says they do. I told them Misplaced Pages turned into a weapon for spreading propaganda and there's nothing I can do about it. ] (]) 09:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Moreover, you have plenty of news articles spawning just about this sentence claiming it is a provocative propaganda. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are written by Zionists. How often do you have news articles spawning about "facts" in Misplaced Pages being non NPOV propaganda? At minimum it is highly controversial. But it's fine, Misplaced Pages knows better about Zionists than what the Zionists believe in, so carry on. ] (]) 09:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Sensationalist reporting in the press doesn't dictate how we interpret our policies. '']''<sup>]</sup> 10:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::No, but if you have heavy reporting in numerous reliable sources, it means that maybe our statements are not as mainstream as we claim they are. Discounting so many press reports and adding only the sources supporting one theory can be seen as POV-pushing. More so when it is brought at the opening paragraph as the actual definition. ] (]) 11:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::Those "reliable sources" haven't presented any evidence to the contrary either, just a lot of noise. ] (]) 12:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::I'm not sure what evidence is expected, that Zionism as an ideology does not strive for as few Palestinians as possible? If there are 10 papers over 130 years of the existence of the Zionist movement claiming such a thing, majority of them not by Zionists whatsoever, I highly doubt you'll find a research article claiming the opposite.
*:::::In essence, a researcher can state that Zionists enjoy eating hamburgers. You will not find any research stating that Zionism has nothing to do with hamburgers. Does that make his statement true because there's no opposition? ] (]) 14:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::These aren't 10 papers from the last 130 years, these are 14 books from the last 20 years written by the world's leading experts on the history of Zionism. You really think your Zionist friends know more than ], ], ], and ] (and 10 others) about what happened in Israel before 1948? ] (]) 15:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::+1 ] (]) 15:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::Seems like some were refuted below, and their quotes were actually ]ed, while the rest of the text stated the opposite. ] (]) 13:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::We go with the best sources, not noise in what is often sensationalist reporting. '']''<sup>]</sup> 12:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::So today's news media is more likely to write complimentary things about Zionism than the well-researched RS (e.g., academic books of history) used in this article. The latter are still better sources. ] &#124; ] 17:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No'''. The statement is well sourced and other sources can easily be added if needed. It literally took me seconds to find these reliable sources:
:{{talkquote|The objective of Zionism was and remains the exclusive control of historic Palestine through incremental removal of the Palestinians, replacing them with Jewish settlements.]}}<br>
:{{talkquote|From its inception the Zionist movement and ideology has been colonial and eliminationist in its essence aimed at the removal of the indigenous population and replacement of Palestinians with the exogenous colonial settler population from Europe.]}} ] (]) 10:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I highly doubt it took you seconds to find these "reliable sources". Your second link is a ("Journal of oriental studies") that is not ranked or cited on journal ranking system I have searched in, including SJR, JCR, and can't be found on Google Scholars either. Basically I couldn't have found it even if I wanted. In fact, not only it's not listed or cited anywhere, but if you'll go to the journal's it claims that they're listed on citefactor, but when you click the link they take you to a different journal of claiming that it's the same journal. I don't know how you found that gem... ] (]) 12:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::It did take seconds to find the first, I just forgot to adjust the statement for the second source that I added ].
:::{{tq|it claims that they're listed on citefactor|q=yes}} .
:::{{tq|can't be found on Google Scholars|q=yes}} it's there. Search for "The historical-ideological roots of the Zionist-Israeli settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of Palestine" and you'll find it. the journal's editorial team (if you're interested) and a list of books and papers that have been published by and indexed by Google Scholar.
:::Obviously, both sources are solid RS. ] (]) 21:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The citefactor link is still a different journal and ] is well-known to be nonselective in what "journals" it includes, such as predatory journals. (e.g. ) <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 20:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I repeat: the two sources are solid RS and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on this. ] (]) 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I'm usually very accurate with what I write. Please show me the journal ranking in . ] (]) 23:41, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::So am I, and no, I don't need to prove anything to you. I said what I needed to say. If you still feel that the sources are unreliable, then ] is that way. Best of luck to you. ] (]) 23:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''No''' The latest claim based on sourcing produced well after this RFC began appear to be directed principally at excising the phrase "as few Arabs as possible" on the grounds that it would be more NPOV to say that "a state with a significant Jewish majority" was what Zionism/Zionistts wanted. It is difficult to see how in all the circumstances a significant Jewish majority could be obtained without Arab displacement and in fact this is what has actually occurred (and continues to occur for that matter). Can the wording of the lead be improved in regard to issues of temporality, perhaps but the RFC question addresses the removal of an entire sentence well supported in high quality sourcing. A subsequent RFC with less ambitious goals might produce a different outcome. ] (]) 12:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Meh'''. The sentence tries to cram too much into a few words. I would stretch it out a little. After thinking for at least 30 seconds: "{{tq|Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land as possible and a substantial Jewish majority. The latter was to be achieved by massive Jewish immigration, removal of Palestinian Arabs, or both.}}" I left out "as many Jews as possible" because almost all the early Zionists were selective in the type of Jew they wanted in the first generations. See ] for a hint of that large literature. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 13:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:+1. I think this phrasing both reads well & presents a proper level of nuance. ] (]) 17:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:This is a great alternative. ] (]) 18:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:It's definitely better than the current phrasing - I'd suggest to add a word "partial" before "removal", because otherwise it can be read as implying "complete removal". ] (]) 18:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*::The phrase is "removal of Palestinian Arabs," not "removal of '''the'' Palestinian Arabs." ] (]) 18:53, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::I know, but if even someone as intelligent as Eduard Said managed to misquote "a land without a people for a people without a land" and turn it into "without people", there is a considerable chance some readers will similarly misinterpret the suggested phrasing. ] (]) 19:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::: The extent of the desired transfer varied between Zionists, so it is better to not insert words that imply an extent. As DMH wrote, the absence of "the" already indicates that "all" is not implied. It doesn't refer to "''the'' Jews" either. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 00:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::Right, the best we can do is to be precise and clear. Trying, in addition, to be robust to possible misinterpretations due to misreading the sentence will guarantee we make no progress. ] (]) 17:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
*:I also like this alternative. ] (]) 17:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)


*:Agree this is a positive direction, in general it's too cramped. I'd suggest the modification: {{tpq|"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land as possible and a substantial Jewish majority. The latter was to be achieved by massive Jewish immigration, and, those in leadership generally advocated, the voluntary or forced removal of many Palestinian Arabs."}} ] (]) 00:30, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
To me "colonization" sounds more neutral than "colonial project".
*::That seems like a substantive improvement. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 01:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*::This is much more precise and a great improvement. ] (]) 22:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*::That’s a substantial improvement that I’d be happy with. I think the second sentence could be slightly more precise, eg “and many in the leadership advocated the voluntary or”. ] (]) 17:07, 1 January 2025 (UTC)


*'''No''', and I support the original phrasing, it accurately and concisely conveys what in the cited RS and what is the scholarly consensus. And frankly the continued attempts to have it altered or removed entirely following extensive and ongoing off-site canvassing ( , ) after failing to gain consensus should not be rewarded. ] (]) 01:35, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Also, am I correct that we are discussing here exactly where in the lede to introduce a term like "colonial", "colonialism", ...?
*:I see no evidence those tweets have impacted this discussion. ] ] 01:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*::I don't believe there's any evidence that ties any editors to that, to be clear. But those viral posts are but a few of the many off-site attempts over the past months that have focused on altering or removing that line from the lede. The Jerusalem Post on it, and there are have focused on it. I find it very worrying that there are off-site attempts to have accurate, concise and RS-backed consensus content removed. ] (]) 02:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::1. I don't think public criticism of Misplaced Pages content (unlike targeted contacting of editors off-wiki) qualifies as ]
*:::2. The whole debate above is exactly regarding the questions whether:
*:::* the sentence accurately conveys what the the cited RS say
*::::: the core criticism being about cherry-picking and using heavily truncated quotes that omit critical context, in some cases significantly distorting the claims actually made in the sources
*:::* the sentence reflects the broad scholarly consensus
*::::: the discussion contains multiple examples of RS that contest the narrative promoted in this sentence
*:::However, for some reason, many of the responses to this RFC uncritically assume that the answer to those two question is affirmative, without examining the evidence to the contrary, presented in this discussion - for example, in ], in the context of the "as many Jews/as few Arabs" part. <br/>
*:::&nbsp; ] (]) 20:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''No''' - I support the current phrasing, which reflects the academic consensus and the stated intention of early Zionist leaders. ] (]) 04:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''No''' - like Raskolnikov.Rev, Levivich, and others, the current phrasing is fine as-is. I'm also skeptical of the off-site canvassing explicitly targeting this sentence and this page. I'm not accusing the editors in question of malfeasance (unless evidence arises to the contrary), but it's certainly ''interesting'' that, for example, we have this (as flagged by Raskolnikov.Rev) about the lead to the article on 19 September, followed almost immediately by . It's not the only time this has happened, either - just using the tweets already mentioned, we have tweet followed by , and then a few weeks later followed up by and various soon-reverted/arbitrated edits, e.g. . While canvassing here is difficult to prove with the information available, it's concerning to me that there appears to be a concerted off-wiki effort to... inspire, let's say, people to modify this specific sentence, often immediately or soon-after followed with relevant edits and edit requests. ] (]) 10:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*:As I said ], public criticism of Misplaced Pages content, in and by itself, is not ] and unless there is a strong evidence indicating that those publications have been initiated by some of the editors, the canvassing insinuation sounds like an ad hominem argument collectively directed at the editors criticizing current phrasing.
*:So, instead of addressing the actual arguments suggesting that the current phrasing does NOT accurately reflect the scholarly consensus, the discussion is deflected to some vague insinuations about the editors, which is regrettable, in my view. ] (]) 20:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*::I think it is regrettable that external criticism appears to lead to more or less immediate changes to content that has been agreed upon by consensus and is represented in a wide array of reliable sources. ] only works if we apply it even in situations where we disagree with the content. I don't have anything new to add to the arguments around the content of the phrasing itself that I or others have not already said ad infinitum on here, let alone what has been said by countless reliable sources both primary and secondary. If there's a specific argument you'd like me to address, we can take this to the discussion section. ] (]) 19:05, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::There has been an ongoing debate about this line since the moment it was introduced , way before any of the tweets mentioned above, and trying to attribute any particular discussion or edit to some external criticism seems to ignore multiple other similar discussions/edits that happen some time before or after the external event.
*:::In any case, any external criticism should not be a factor either way - it neither should be a reason to change a well sourced content, nor should it prevent us from considering - on its own merits- internal criticism voiced by the editors.
*:::As to the previous discussions regarding this line - as far as I could see, none of them contained ], like the one I prepared as part of this discussion.
*:::I believe it's a substantially new argument that haven't been made previously, and if you, and other editors responding to this RFC, could address it, that would be very helpful. ] (]) 20:04, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Yes''' I agree with Andre that it lacks an impartial tone. I would also like to add it conflates facts of history with stated beliefs. "Zionism" was a term that encompassed a broad set of ideologies, with some forms promoting binationalism or deprioritized statehood, so it feels imprecise to make this claim (even if the forms of Zionism I mentioned never became mainstream). Yes, the sentence provides many sources, but it still seems that, the ''beliefs'' of Zionism with regard to the desire to minimize the Palestinian population in Palestine (as a matter of ideology) is still very much in debate and no scholarly consensus has emerged on this topic yet (although it might in the future).
:I still think it is critical to keep the content itself, but some simple rephrasing could make it impartial and more precise. Some suggestions:
:- "Many critics and historians contend that Zionists ..."
:- "Historians have found that Zionists organizations in Palestine campaigned to create a Jewish state ..."
:- "Several Zionists leaders expressed a desire ..." ] (]) 19:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Factual but flippant''' While the current sentence is indeed factually accurate in one of its many possible meanings, it is so cramped and imprecise, that the reader would find half-a-dozen other misleading interpretations equally plausible. This is not the encyclopedic tone we should be aiming for in this context, and we can convey the same information by a better rephasing along the lines of what {{u|Zero0000}} or I have suggested.--] (]) 18:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


===Discussion===
I just found 42 matches in this article for "coloni", starting with the last sentence of the lede: "Similarly, anti-Zionism has many aspects, which include criticism of Zionism as a colonialist, racist, or exceptionalist ideology or as a settler colonialist movement."
*'''Comment''': If this section is a properly formulated RfC that will eventually get closed, it is regrettable that , was placed in a separate section. I wonder if it would be sensible to move that discussion into this section, so it can be taken into account in closing this RfC? I would also urge !voters in the survey above who have not done so to review the evidence provided there. ] (]) 11:08, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*:{{tq| If this section is a properly formulated RfC that will eventually get closed}} Do you have some doubts about it? If so, raising it earlier on would have been wise, rather than waiting until the RFC has expired and waiting for a close.
*:As was suggested above, a new RFC is possible but one thing at a time, please. ] (]) 12:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*::Not suggesting a new RfC, but I note a few !votes above say things like "bad RfC". My assumption is that somebody needs to close this mess, which will be difficult, but I also feel that the closer needs to take into account the discussion two items down this talk page, which occurred more or less concurrently and provided more detail on the bibliographic evidence, both ways. ] (]) 13:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::I don't think closing this RFC is at all difficult and I do think we should have another RFC that addresses only the "few Arabs as possible " thing, which is what those additional sources were aimed at. Those sources (which include sources not previously considered/discussed have not been subjected to anything more than a cursory scrutiny because of that and because they were introduced well after this RFC started, which btw managed perfectly well without a discussion section until you just opened this one, after the RFC has already expired. ] (]) 13:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*::::{{tq|I don't think closing this RFC is at all difficult and I do think we should have another RFC that addresses only the "few Arabs as possible " thing, which is what those additional sources were aimed at.}}
*::::I agree that this would be the best course of action. ] (]) 18:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*::::While I agree with the first statement, I don't think a second RfC would be necessary given that the "few Arabs as possible" thing has been addressed in this one. ] (]) 18:24, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::::Well, the additional sources were not considered, only in passing because they were introduced later. And there was some delayed recognition that the RFC might have been a little ambitious in trying to do away with the entire sentence and editors were responding to that. Anyway, speaking for myself only, I have no objection to another RFC with a different idea. ] (]) 18:30, 3 January 2025 (UTC){{archive bottom}}


== "as few Arabs as possible" - sources contesting this framing + analysis of the existing sources ==
The ] was ongoing when this discussion began, and it's still continuing. I think the lede is fine as it is now. What do you think about not changing the lede and focusing on making sure that other uses of terms like "colonialism" and "colonialist" later in the article are used in a way that appears neutral, citing credible sources?
???] (]) 11:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


Following the ] discussion above, I carried out a thorough analysis of the sources allegedly supporting current phrasing, and also compiled a list of sources contesting the claim that Zionists wanted "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible".
:Material under discussion has once again been so I'm right out of AGF atm. ] (]) 11:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>::Did you similarly object when material under discussion was into the artilce, by people who share your POV? ] (]) 11:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:::The discussion above is concluded in favor of the material, that's the why of it. This article, once an FA isn't even a GA now, quite right, too. ] (]) 11:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
::::What are the obstacles to getting it back to GA? ] (]) 12:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::Stability in the article. Meanwhile it is written in a manner which encourages disputes over and frequent changes to content, GA and in particular FA, is not going to happen. Since this is primarily a kind of history article for the most part, stability with best sources should not actually be that difficult. ] (]) 12:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
::::This discussion above is not in favor of the material, there's clearly a consensus against it, and @] should revert his last revert. At least five people here are against the recent inclusion, but you are forcing it anyway. ] (]) 15:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::It's not a head count. Sources or move along. ] (]) 15:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::This is not how consensus is achieved on Misplaced Pages. This is not a good faith conversation. ] (]) 15:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It actually is how consensus is achieved on Misplaced Pages. No matter how many people shout no, the sources are what count here. ''']''' - 15:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::No it never was a good faith conversation. Look, as I recently stated in the message elsewhere I pinged you to, I don't know where you guys got the idea that a handful of new or sleeper accounts pressing the undo button and saying, essentially, "nuh-uh" on talk pages, is going to be enough to influence the content of articles, but that is a very old trick that this entire topic area is engineered to address, more so than anywhere else on Misplaced Pages. Content disputes are resolved by reliable sources, not by the number of editors, so just give it up. Misplaced Pages follows sources; if you want to change that, you have to change the sources. It doesn't matter how many accounts you have. I thought we made that point this past fall. ] (]) 15:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


Due to the length constraints, I post this as a separate topic, rather than a response in the RFC discussion:
=== Round 2 ===
Above in Round 1, we determined that nobody seems to know of any modern books about Zionism that do not describe it as colonization, although ] wrote a book review in which he said Zionism was not colonialism. The objection was raised, however, that even if this Misplaced Pages article should describe Zionism as colonization in the body, this description is not ] for the lead. So, let's look at how many modern books about Zionism mention colonization or colonialism ''in their titles''. Here are some:
# {{Cite book |last=Halper |first=Jeff |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0RvlzQEACAAJ |title=Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State |date=2021 |publisher=Pluto Press |isbn=978-0-7453-4339-6 |language=en}}
#:<s> {{Cite book |last=Nutt |first=S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5Q7zQEACAAJ |title=Self-determination, Sovereignty and History: Situating Zionism in the Settler-colonial Archive |date=2019 |publisher=University of Exeter |language=en}}</s>
# {{Cite book |last=Masalha |first=Nur |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kb7oBAAAQBAJ |title=The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-54464-7 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Masalha |first=Nur |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAUeWo8NDK4C |title=The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel |date=2007 |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=978-1-84277-761-9 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Shamir |first=Ronen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xgjxrjYiwEQC |title=The Colonies of Law: Colonialism, Zionism and Law in Early Mandate Palestine |date=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-63183-9 |language=en}}
And, more broadly, here are some books about Israel/Palestine that mention colonialism in their titles:
# {{Cite book |last=Zureik |first=Elia T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2mqyEAAAQBAJ |title=The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism |date=2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-85711-5 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Greenstein |first=Ran |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dGNxEAAAQBAJ |title=Anti-Colonial Resistance in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: Identity, Nationalism, and Race |date=2022 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-429-67075-6 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Rabinovich |first=Silvana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4j50EAAAQBAJ |title=Biblical Figures in Israel's Colonial Political Theology |date=2022 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-031-03822-8 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Todorova |first=Teodora |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_80EAAAQBAJ |title=Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within |date=2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78699-642-8 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Gowans |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JbNXvQEACAAJ |title=Israel, a Beachhead in the Middle East: From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform |date=2019 |publisher=Baraka Books |isbn=978-1-77186-183-0 |language=en}}
# {{Cite book |last=Shihade |first=Magid |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oSNG9qTIXlUC |title=Not Just a Soccer Game: Colonialism and Conflict among Palestinians in Israel |date=2011 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-8156-5111-6 |language=en}}
Seems WP:DUE to me. ] (]) 19:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


The current phrasing is "''Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible''". - the use of past tense and sentence's placement before "''Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948...''" implies that this is supposed to be a general description of mainstream Zionist core goals before 1948.
<s>:Jeff Halper is an anti-Zionist activist, a supporter of BDS and not a historian.
:Nur Masalha, who for some reason you chose to mention twice, is a Palestinian anti-Zionist.
:Ronen Shamir is a far-left anti-Zionist BDS supporter, and also not a historian.
:Pluto Press, which published Halper's book, is '''''self described''''' as "radical", and was kicked out of its relationship with the University of Michigan because it does not peer review its publications. Zed Books, who published Masalha, is also described as "radical" by multiple sources. You are literally advocating for views of radical presses and activists who are opposed to Zionism to be in the lead of this former featured article - perhaps as far from ] as one can imagine.
:Relying on these sources for the lead in ] is about as compelling as relying on Tucker Carlson's ''Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution'' in an article about the ], or Ann Coulter's ''Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America'' in ]. I think you are actually making my point that this is a radical , non-mainstream view, or else you'd be able to come up with examples from non-partisan historians. ] (]) 20:37, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::I listed Masalha twice because he wrote two modern books about Zionism that have colonialism in the title. (You realize this list was compiled by searching book titles for "Zionism" and "colonialism" and variations, right?) Because {{tqq|reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective}} (]), your whole argument about partisan historians is moot. BTW, have you considered that anti-Zionism ''is'' the mainstream view, in the same way that anti-colonialism and anti-terrorism are mainstream views? Anyway, I look forward to reviewing your (or anyone's) list of ''non-partisan'' modern books about Zionism. ] (]) 20:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
:::If Masalha had written 5000 books with that word in its title published by a radical press, would that make the argument more compelling? It's still just one person, who is an ideologue opposed to Zionism.
<s>:::Sources do not need to be neutral, but our presentation of view points does. And if '''this is the viewpoint anti-Zionists''', it may belong in the article body, in a section describing the views of opponents or critics of Zionism, but no way it belongs in the defintion of Zionism as the 2nd or 3rd lead sentence.
:::By way of analogy, or comparison - Marx wrote quite a few books with "Capitalism" in the title, but we don't use his views on Capitalism in the lead paragraph of ] - we mention his views in the body. ] (]) 21:30, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::Still looking for any alternative views, tho, seems to be a shortage of those. Until we see them, then the sourced views are NPOV. ] (]) 21:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::The alternative view is what was in the article for years, before the recent POV-push: "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition".</s>
<s>:::::Should I compile a list of books with both Zionism and Jewish in the title? ] (]) 21:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::] doesn't mean neutral between anti-Zionism and pro-Zionism, it means {{tqq|representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic}}. "Proportionately" means {{tqq|in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources}} (]). So if the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, then that's what Misplaced Pages's going to say in ]. And if the mainstream view is that Zionism's colonial character was/is a significant aspect of Zionism, then that's what Misplaced Pages's going to say in the lead.
::::::And I'm not sure why you'd compile a list of books about Zionism with Jewish in the title, since this article already says "Jewish" in the lead.
::::::To Self's point, though, as much fun as this back-and-forth is, your arguments are easily contradicted by quoting from Misplaced Pages policy pages, so unless your next reply is a ''list of modern books about Zionism'', you're wasting your time.
::::::BTW, ''of course'' our article about ] mentions Marx's views in the lead: it links to ]. (It also mentions the views of Engels, linking to ].) The reason why? Because the mainstream view is that those are significant aspects of capitalism. ] (]) 21:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::If the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, you'd be able to produce books by Zionists or "neutral" authors saying that, instead of the list of anti-Zionists ideologues you compiled.</s>
<s>:::::::Do you seriously not see the difference between linking to the Marxist theory of production (through a pipe that says y"The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production,") and saying "Capitalism is a system that alienates the masses" or "Capitalism will eventually destroy itself", per Marx, in the 2nd sentence of the lead? ] (]) 22:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::Good catch -- the lead of ] didn't mention any of the criticisms of capitalism, and so was not in line with ] (I fixed it). {{tqq|If the mainstream view is that Zionism was colonialism or colonization, you'd be able to produce books by Zionists ...}}, lol, there are lots of examples of Zionists saying Zionism is colonialism. After all, they gave their organizations names like ] and ], and their bank was called the ]. Do you want me to quote from Herzl's diary as well? Again, I look forward to reviewing your list of modern books about Zionism by "neutral" authors. ] (]) 22:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::Again, there are multiple meaning of colonization - the one meant by Zionists naming their organizations "colonial association" is similar to the meaning of "colonisation of Mars" - we are going to create new communities - colonies - in the new land.</s>
<s>:::::::::And if you wanted to do something similar to what you just did in ] here - add a paragraph at the end of the lead describing the views of anti-Zionists , and saying that '''they''' see it a a colonial movement, that would be fine. ] (]) 22:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::Do you have a source (preferably about Zionism) that talks about these supposed multiple meanings of "colonization"? (Also, seriously man, Palestine is not another planet or a "new land," it was already inhabited, unlike Mars. As far as we know.) Or, for the third time, do you have any sources of what you call "neutral" or "non-partisan" modern books about Zionism? ] (]) 22:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::Are you deliberately being obtuse? I already addressed you Mars complaint, and I understand why it irks you - because it precisely shows that the world "colonization" is commonly used to refer to a situation where no one is exploited, contrary to the POV that you desperately want to push into this article. ] (]) 22:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::::The point is that it's actually a bad analogy because there were people there. The analogy doesn't work. In any case I don't see any work referring to the colonization of palestine as the "non-negative" kind of colonization which you are referring to, if there is indeed such a concept outside the context of uninhabited areas. ] (]) 23:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::...and also unless you have a source making this distinction between Zionist/Martian colonialism and other kinds of colonialism, it's ] anyway. ] (]) 23:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Original research refers to article content, not to page discussions.
:::::::::::::Perhaps this point sailed over your head, but the Mars example is precisely one case of the multiple meanings of colonialism you asked for, made glaringly obvious by the fact that there were no other people there to exploit.
:::::::::::::But if you want other examples, you can look at the German Templer colonies in Palestine. Somehow I don't see a similar determination to call the ] movement a "colonial project". ] (]) 23:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::We are talking about article content :-) So no, we don't write article content based on WP:OR, such as an editor's opinion that Zionist/Templer/Martian colonization is different from other types of colonization. BTW, you know the Templer article talks about colonies, right? Like at ]. If you're just objecting to "colonial project" and not to other forms of the word (e.g. colony, colonization, colonial, etc.), then we're done here, because this article doesn't say "colonial project" anymore. ] (]) 00:00, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::No we are not. I am not suggesting we write anything like "there are multiple meaning of colonization" in the article, whcih would be impermissible OR. I am just explaining why we shouldn't write 'Zionism is a colonial project" in the article, and giving my reasoning, which is perfectly acceptable.
<s>:::::::::::::::And yes of course I know the Templer article talks about colonies- that is precisely the point! That's the reason I brought it up, as '''another example ''' of the use of 'colonization' (alongside the Martian one) which does not imply a 'colonial project' predicated on exploitation of inferior cultures. The Templers established colonies, but there are no POV-pushers seeking to call the Templer movement a "colonial project" (in the first paragraph of the lead of the ] article, no less!) - which is just another example of how people can talk about colonies, about establishing colonies, and even describing their inhabitants as "colonists", without coming to the conclusion that they all belonged to a "colonial project".</s>
<s>:::::::::::::::Similarly, this article can say that Zionists established colonies, it can say they called their organizations "The Colonial Trust" etc.. - but just like the Templer article doesn't call it a colonial project or a movement founded to colonize Palestine in the lead, so should this article avoid that. ] (]) 00:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::::::::I completely agree that the colonization of an empty land, such as Mars, does not involve exploitation of inferior cultures. What I am saying in response is: the colonization of Palestine is not analogous to the colonization of Mars because Palestine was not an empty land like Mars. The colonization of Palestine involved the exploitation of cultures viewed as inferior by the colonists, which is why "colonization" is a perfectly apt description of Zionism.
::::::::::::::::The reason this Misplaced Pages article should say that Zionism was a movement founded to colonize Palestine in the lead is because Zionism was a movement founded to colonize Palestine. From the quote of ] historian ], below, "Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlement in the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent national cause. An enterprise of national liberation and human emancipation that was forced to use the tools of colonial penetration ...".
::::::::::::::::Because the sources say Zionism was a colonial enterprise, literally the words "colonization" and "enterprise" are in that quote, and because what Ben-Ami is conveying is the mainstream view of Zionism, this Misplaced Pages article should say the same thing. Because, as Ben-Ami writes, Zionism "was a schizophrenic movement, which suffered from an irreconcilable incongruity between its liberating message and the offensive practices it used to advance it," equating Zionism's "homeland" ("liberating") message and it's colonialism ("offensive practices"), and because that's the mainstream view, this Misplaced Pages should ''also'' equate Zionism's "homeland" message with it's colonialist practices. In other words, if we say in the lead that Zionism was a movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, for ] reasons, we ''must'' also say that it was a ''colonial'' movement. A colonial enterprise. Or a colonial project, if you will. If you won't, there are other variations that would be fine. What's not fine is omitting the colonial part. ] (]) 01:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::::::::Did the Templer colonies involve the exploitation of cultures viewed as inferior by the colonists? ] (]) 01:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::::::::::How the hell should I know? {{lol}} ] (]) 01:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::::::::::You can read the article about them in this encyclopedia, or elsewhere. I'll wait. ] (]) 01:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::::::::::::What I see here in a meantime is undue weight for academic figures with former careers in politics, usually left-side politics, I think we should look for teritary sources from major publications that try to define Zionism in contemporary, non-politicized neutral terms. ] (]) 14:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::Feel free to suggest sources, although Misplaced Pages articles are built on secondary sources not tertiary. Tertiary might help though. Don't forget to make sure they're modern sources, nobody is going to care about a fifty year old encyclopedia article. ] (]) 14:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>::::::::::::::::::::::https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Sands-Golden-Oranges-Settlement-ebook/dp/B0791MFD6S ] (]) 18:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:::::::::::::::::::::::That's a self-published book. You are ''really'' bad at this. ] (]) 19:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::There are quite a few sources listed here - ], feel free to peruse any or all of them , if you are actually i terted in Templer history and want to educate yourself a bit, rather than in scoring technical points in this debate. ] (]) 19:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::From Shlomo Ben-Ami, who is of course a zionist: {{tq2|Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlementin the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent nationalcause. An enterprise of national liberation and human emancipation thatwas forced to use the tools of colonial penetration, it was a schizophrenicmovement, which suffered from an irreconcilable incongruity between itsliberating message and the offensive practices it used to advance it. Thecultivation of a righteous self-image and the ethos of the few against themany, the heroic David facing the brutal, bestial Arab Goliath, was oneway Zionism pretended to reconcile its contradictions.}} ] (]) 22:50, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
::Nur Masalha is Palestinian (just as Benny Morris is Israeli) and an excellent scholar.
::On the other hand, lots of the texts here are a long way short of "best sources", despite Levivich's compelling argument for using such. For instance, Nutt is a PhD thesis, and Gowan is a very fringe non-academic writer, and several are published by radical non-academic presses (such as Zed and Pluto) whose lists mix critical scholarship with activist polemic. Would be better to highlight the actual best sources, and ideally those that are about Zionism at its most general level rather than e.g. about very specific aspects of recent Israeli history. ] (]) 15:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::You're right about Nutt -- my bad, I just saw University of Exeter and missed that it's a PhD thesis not a book. I've struck that above.
:::I don't know anything about Gowan but seems like a mainstream publisher; I'm not seeing any reason to discount them (although I know nothing about them besides what's on their website)
:::As for ] and ], take that to ] if you want to make the case that they are not reliable mainstream publishers. Being progressive doesn't mean they're unreliable, and there are lots and lots of high-quality sources from mainstream scholars published by those two outlets (like ], who is, despite common protestations, a highly-respected, highly-cited scholar in this field). Remember: bias is not unreliability.
:::I agree with you, though, that this list is not a list of ] for this article -- there are better sources than the ones listed -- but it is a list of RS (modern books about Zionism) with colonial in their titles. ] (]) 17:31, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Even a casual search throws up a multiplicity of suitable sourcing. ] (]) 17:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::E.g., for {{code|zionism colonialism}}. Those won't all be relevant or reliable sources, of course, but still, the order of magnitude speaks for itself. , and that's without checking variations like "Zionist" and "colonization." ] (]) 17:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::The point is not that Masalha is a Palestinian, but that he is an anti-Zionist, just like Halper or Shamir. This is an attempt to use the view of anit-Zionists (Israeli, Palestinians or others) to define Zionism. We don't use Hayek or von Mises to ''define'' ] in the lead of that article, and we shouldn't rely on anti-Zionists to define Zionism in the lead here. ] (]) 18:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::Maybe you missed the comments about best sources, do try and bring some, sometime. ] (]) 18:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::I've brought several already, only to be met with repeated goalpost moving, by people offering up PhD theses they have clearly never read, by people they have never previously heard of, as "best sources", based on the fact that they had both the words "Zionism" and "colonialism" in the title. ] (]) 19:23, 13 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
:It does indeed seem like we are in agreement that "colonialism" is the right word to use. Should we now open up a discussion about the use of "colonial project" in the lead? ] (]) 02:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::From the conclusion of Righteous Victims:
::{{tq2|Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.}}
::From Ben-Ami (page 3 of his book): {{tq2|Zionism was also a movement of conquest, colonisation and settlement in the service of a just and righteous but also self-indulgent national cause.}}
::From Anita Shapira (the conclusion of Land and Power): {{tq2|One of its (pre­sumably singular) characteristic features stemmed from the fact that it was a national liberation movement that was destined to function as a movement pro­moting settlement in a country of colonization. This incongruity between the lib­erating and progressive message internally and the aggressive message externally acted as a central factor in the shaping of self-images and norms—and, in the end, also patterns of action—in the Zionist movement. Zionist psychology was molded by the conflicting parameters of a national liberation movement and a movement of European colonization in a Middle Eastern country.The Zionist movement was a decided latecomer on the colonial scene: Move­ments of colonization by Europeans were common up to the late nineteenth cen­tury.}}
::All three of these historians are Zionist, and Shapira herself is a traditionalist historian, no less. Of course plenty of non-zionist historians also describe Zionism in similar terms. The word choice here is "movement" rather than "project", but I don't think there is actually a difference between the two in this context. ] (]) 05:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Where did you see we are in agreement that colonialism is the right word? I'm totally against it, and from recent edits I see I'm not alone. ] (]) 14:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::It doesn't matter if you're against it, what matters are reliable sources. They all say this, as we've well proven here. You and the other accounts hitting undo doesn't mean there isn't consensus. You and the others can say you're against it all you want, but without any sources backing up your view, and in the face of so many directly contradicting it, your opinions simply aren't relevant. ] (]) 14:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::They don't "all say this". and in fact we have first-rate, academic reliable sources (e.g. Morris) who say the exact opposite.</s>
<s>:::::Your dismissive attitude here and your forum-like rants below about "seeing the last gasps of Zionism" suggest that you are probably too emotionally invested to be editing here. ] (]) 14:33, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::Morris's book review makes ''one''. I'm still waiting for a second example. ] (]) 14:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::Hell I gave you a freebie second example with Karsh. How about a third? ] (]) 14:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::Still playing this game? Try Einat Wilf. And then ask for a fourth, and a fifth, ad nauseum ] (]) 14:44, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::Give me a quote and a citation, I'm not going to go searching for it. ] (]) 14:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::"To portray Israel as the outcome of the Holocaust is to engage in Zionism Denial. It robs the Jews of their agency, their history, their historical connection to the land of Israel and their yearning to return to it. It erases all that was dreamt, written, done and achieved by the Zionists before World War II. It turns Israel into a colonial project of guilty Europeans rather than a national liberation project of an indigenous people reclaiming their homeland. In remembering the Holocaust, " ] (]) 14:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::Peer reviewed, was it? Jeez. ] (]) 15:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::::And the goal posts move yet again. ] (]) 15:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::::]. That your best shot at ]? A 2 page polemic? ] (]) 15:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::JFC she's not even an academic? ] (]) 15:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Einat Wolf is an appalling source. To quote Kentucky Rain, citing her is as compelling as relying on Tucker Carlson in an article about conservatism. She's a pundit not a scholar. ] (]) 15:47, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::This *also* doesn't say that Zionism is not colonialism. It just says that it's not *purely* a project of "guilty Europeans". In any case, there are plenty of sources that describe Zionism as both a colonial project and a nationalist movement (see Ben-Ami and Khalidi). ] (]) 15:28, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::And yes of course a fourth and a fifth and more. There are like 10+ sources on this page saying colonialism, so bring 10+ citations saying otherwise. 3 won't cut it anyway. But we're not even at 3 yet. ] (]) 14:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
<s>:::::::::From an anti-Zionist: "To this day, Zionist apologists 50 (and Kimmerling himself to start with) argue that '''Zionism was not a colonial project because it was not predicated on the exploitation of Arab labor. 51 This is essentially correct'''. That is why '''Zionism was not colonial in an abstract sense, and certainly not a case of metropolitan colonialism'''. That is also why, precisely because it was from a very early stage exclusive of native labor, the Zionist project was a typical pure settler colony, with its own distinctive trajectory." </s>
<s>:::::::::How long we play this game? ] (]) 15:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)</s>
::::::::::] is still waiting for you to catch on/up. ] (]) 15:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Seriously man, get on the level. '''Modern books about Zionism'''. I posted 10+ books that have "colonial" in their ''titles''. Believe, there are 10 more where it's not in the titles but it's in there prominently just the same. Books by scholars published by academic or mainstream publishers written in the 21st century.
::::::::::If you want to start talking about ''papers'' instead of books, I can show you ''hundreds'' of peer reviewed papers in academic journals about Zionism and colonialism. That's why we look at books instead, papers is too big of a pile.
::::::::::This is not "moving goalpoasts," we have standards here, it's WP:BESTSOURCES. Meet them or move along. ] (]) 15:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::This quote doesnt even say that Zionism is not colonialism ] (]) 15:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::This isn't hard, find and bring sources that support your position, that's it. ] (]) 14:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::Righteous Victims is Morris' respected work. His opinions in later book reviews are certainly not representative of his work as a "first rate scholar". He says exactly: {{tq|"Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement."}}. ] (]) 15:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:I dont even get how this is in dispute, its a newer thing for Zionists to disclaim any notion that it was/is a colonial enterprise. But even early Zionists were very clear on their goals and the language they used for it was colonization. ''']''' - 13:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::It's a natural response to all the recent scholarship about settler-colonialism. Because once you concede it's colonialism, you really have to concede it's settler colonialism, so the only way to fight that is to take the position that it's not colonialism (because you can't dispute the settler part). And if they concede it's settler colonialism, then they look like the bad guy. Even more so than they already do. Six months after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and they're facing a united security council, allegations of genocide being taken seriously by the West, and the very real prospect of ICC arrest warrants. The return of left-wing parties to power is just one election away, and settlement dismantlement will soon follow. We are witnessing the last gasps of Zionism, and like in other topic areas, what's happening in the real world is being mirrored on Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 14:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::'the return of left-wing parties'. That sounds like the sighting of a dodo, and if so, the Smithsonian should be alerted.] (]) 08:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::? ] (]) 12:51, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::<small>Yeah, Golan, um, golem? He's on record as saying, commendably, the unsayable but . . it's simple: good sentiments and even good ideas will never get sufficient leverage in our political systems to achieve any significant structural change. This is true in particular also of Israel where pure psephological analysis of the makeup of electoral constituencies, and their conflicting interests, together with demographic forecasts, mean a 64 majority in the Knesset for anything identifiably 'left' is unachievable. In 2022, they were scrounging desperately for 7% of votes. Sigh.] (]) 13:37, 14 June 2024 (UTC)</small>
::::::::<small>"return to power" may have been a slight overstatement, perhaps more accurately, a "return to relevancy" 😂</small> ] (]) 13:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::<small>History is jealous of its prerogatives, and dislikes, with a vengeance, being upstaged by miracles.] (]) 14:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)</small>
:::Yeah but this isn’t supposed to be about how people feel, it’s supposed to be about what the sources say. This effort to just ignore the sources here makes no sense in a Misplaced Pages supposedly governed by rules that force us to discuss the sources and not our feelings. ''']''' - 15:20, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::::Tbh I'm just too lazy to collect the diffs for another round of sock sweeping, and I'm guessing everyone else is, too. ] (]) 15:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::Golf season >>>> diff collecting. ''']''' - 15:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::It probably wouldn't happen if ] was taken as seriously as 1RR violations and salty language. ] (]) 17:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


==== However, as I show below, about half of the sources quoted DON'T support the claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core Zionist goal since its inception till 1948, and several sources were quoted in a way that omits critical context or even completely distort actual author's position. ====
*{{od}} {{re|Levivich}} - time for round 3? Decide what wording to include? ''']] (])''' 02:07, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
*:I think so. For my part, I'm fine with the wording as is, but open to alternatives. ] (]) 04:13, 16 June 2024 (UTC)


* For example, in ], p.78, the following quote is used:
=== Use of term 'colonization' in opening sentence / definition ===
{{block indent|{{Talk quote block|text="As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years."}}<br>
But immediately after that the author says: {{Talk quote block|text="However, in the post–World War II political context, the Zionist leadership <u>was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state</u> and its declared position was that it would enjoy civil equality, collective rights, and the allocation of resources as outlined by the UN Partition Plan."}}<br/>
Moreover, on p. 73 he adds: {{Talk quote block|text=“ the Zionist leadership seriously considered following the guidelines stipulated by the Partition Plan and to enable the existence of '''a large Arab minority within the Jewish state'''”}}<br/>
on p. 75: {{Talk quote block|text=“Some historians, such as Ilan Pappé (2006) and Nur Masalha (1992), claim that the Zionist movement from the very beginning sought to expel Arabs from the Jewish national homeland, and that in 1948 the Jewish military forces followed an existing plan to implement this goal. One source that Pappé (2006) uses to support this argument in his book is a widespread survey of the Arab villages undertaken by the Haganah’s intelligence services between the end of the 1930s and the eve of the 1948 war. '''This does not, in my opinion, constitute an irrefutable evidence base''', as armies are known to '''prepare contingency plans for worst-case scenarios''' without intending to implement them unless forced to do so. I would argue that the Zionist leadership had considered several possible scenarios and that an all-out war was only one of them. More important to our discussion is the fact that at the same time, the Jewish Agency prepared for the contingency of '''a large Arab minority''' and explored ways to integrate it into the future state. This is the conclusion we can draw from documents that are much less known to both the general public and historians; I will present them here briefly.”}}<br/>
and on p. 77:{{Talk quote block|text=“In my view, it would not be unrealistic to deduce that the Zionist leadership prepared itself – among other options – for a peaceful implementation of the partition resolution and for the existence of '''a significant Arab minority in the Jewish state'''. Moreover, in such a scenario, there were elements within the Jewish leadership who '''pushed toward improving Arab conditions and Arab-Jewish relations in the new state.'''"}}<br/>
That is, Cohen is <u>contesting</u> the quoted claims made by Masalha and Morris, not agreeing with them, as the truncated quotation tries to imply.}}


* The quote from ], p. 250 actually refers to the “Realignment plan” promoted by Ehud Olmert '''in 2006''', not to pre-1948 Zionism goals (the truncated quote used in the reference is in italic):
The inclusion of the word ']' in the lead is being edit warred over ]
{{block indent|{{tq2| “Ehud Olmert, now prime minister, knows that if Israel decides to stay in the Occupied Territories and its inhabitants become officially part of Israel’s population, Palestinians will outnumber Jews within fifteen years. Thus he
and needs to be discussed.
has opted for what he calls hitkansut, Hebrew for convergence’ or, better, ‘ingathering’, a policy that aims at annexing large parts of the West Bank, but at the same time leaves several populous Palestinian areas outside direct Israeli control. ''In other words, hitkansut is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.''”}}}}


* in ], p.2, the quote is taken from the part that says:
- ] (]) 19:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
{{block indent|{{tq2|"It is clear that “non-expulsion” in northern Palestine was not arbitrary, but was the result of high-level orders and policy on the part of the Israeli leadership. Saying this does not contradict ''the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state'', since the exception due to special reasons and circumstances proves the rule.”}}
===== In other words, the statement is made specifically in the context of 1947-48 war and not as a general characterization of Zionist goals. =====


The same applies to the second quote from ], p. 4:
:This has been discussed to death here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Zionism#Colonial_project?
{{tq2|"'''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"}}
:We eventually agreed on the use of "colonial", but did not reach a complete agreement on the terminology "colonial project".
as well as the third quote from p. 33:
:Consensus is definitely to use "colonization" here. ] (]) 21:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
{{tq2|To spur Palestinians to leave their cities and villages was an objective that the Jewish side implemented as part of the Zionist operation to uproot and occupy. ''The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers''. The argument between so-called extremists and moderates was not about fundamental differences, but rather a question of the timing and evaluation of the negative consequences of some terrorist activities carried out by Jewish organizations. Indeed, '''at the end of December 1947''' there were several attacks on Arab villages in the middle of the country, particularly in the vicinity of major cities where there were concentrations of Jews.}}
::If sometime in the future a peace agreement will be achieved in which the Israeli settlements in the west bank will be evacuated (like happened in Gaza in 2005) and the descendants of Palestinian refugees will come from abroad to live where the settlements were in Gaza and the West Bank, will you call this process "colonization"? ] (]) 08:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::]. ] (]) 08:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I disagree. This is a highly relevant question. We try to understand if the word colonization is the best word to use here. Comparing to analogies can help clarify the issue. ] (]) 08:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::We should be citing and relying on RS for that, not ]. ] (]) 18:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::The repeated movement and rejection of this content clearly demonstrate the opposite, that there is no consensus for the usage of colonization, especially not in the first . If you believe otherwise, you must be defining consensus in a completely different manner, which has nothing to do with how Misplaced Pages defines it. Actually, it appears that most editors oppose the use of 'colonization' in this context, and we should adhere to WP:ONUS. ] (]) 10:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::We can have an RFC on the question, since the matter is clearly supported in multiple scholarly sources, I expect that such an RFC will find in favor of including "colonization" in some form, regardless of whether some editors object on no grounds whatever, other than ]. Otoh, if the issue is the wording/ where it goes in the article, then that can be discussed. ] (]) 10:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Also, allow me to call out the elephant in the room; the three/four editors slightly above 500 edits who have consecutively removed it multiple times. I am assuming good faith so far, but this observation is certainly worth noting. ] (]) 11:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I would expect someone who assumes good faith to assume good faith. ] (]) 11:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Agreed, there is no consensus for this. Agree with the WP:ONUS. ] (]) 11:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::The consensus is in the sources which provide multiple examples, from Herzl onwards, of Zionist descriptions of what they intended doing as 'colonization'. It is not a consensus to play a numbers game to remove strongly sourced text. That is called ]. If the founding father of Zionism thought it the appropriate term, then it remains such for an historical article.] (]) 11:49, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Consensus, on Misplaced Pages, involves an "effort to address editors' legitimate concerns through a process of compromise," to that we can add WP:ONUS: "While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. " ... ] (]) 05:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:It is important to note that this discussion is not only about the suitability of the term "colonization" to Zionism in general, but mainly to the question if it's DUE in the first sentence/definition. So the fact that there are RS that use this term would not be enough to justify its inclusion in the first sentence, unless it can be shown that a majority of RS use this term within their one sentence leading definition of Zionism (that is among those sources who have such a definition). ] (]) 12:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::Come now. If the use of the word 'colonization' repeatedly occurs in the writings of the core, founding figures of Zionism, as a political project, as a theory, as a technique of restructuring Palestine, and as a economic practice, and if, as is the case, this is invariably noted in the major secondary sources, then waffle about WP:Undue is totally out of place. No policy flagwaving please. Explain why the words of Theodor Herzl, ], ], ] and ], not to speak of the way Jewish newspapers pitched this term to their broad audiences ( ] 30 June 1933) are 'undue'.] (]) 12:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::The founding figures of Zionism said many things about Zionism. We cannot put all of them into a one sentence leading definition. So we have to decide which of the many things they said about Zionism should be included into a one sentence leading definition. And the best way to do it without introducing prejudice (or maybe even OR) is to follow the standard of the majority of sources in their definition. ] (]) 13:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Listen. Editors do not take authorial precedence over specialized sources. I have provided numerous sources to back up what I wrote. It is not a serious argument to just talk around the evidence by expressing your 'impressions', 'personal views', feelings, as you have done now twice. I asked you to come up with solid textual support, and you come back opinionizing. That kind of response is meaningless for the purposes of composing an encyclopedic article based on scholarship. ] (]) 13:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I didn't say anything at all about my 'impressions', 'personal views', feelings in this discussion, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you are confusing me with someone else. Anyway, when I'll have more time in the next few days I do plan to collect many RS that contain short definitions of Zionism, and check if the majority of them include reference to colonization or not. I'll keep you posted. ] (]) 13:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Please reread your own comments. There is nothing in them other than your impressions about the topic. You were given extensive verbal evidence, and simply walked right past it, to make more remarks and claims or, in one case, a hypèothetical analogy. None of this is material to the question.] (]) 13:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::please give an example of me talking about my impressions in this discussion. ] (]) 14:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::<blockquote>The founding figures of Zionism said many things about Zionism. We cannot put all of them into a one sentence leading definition. </blockquote>
:::::::This is waffle, your opinion or impression, and unfocused. What evidence does another third party have that you are intimately familiar with the multiplicity of things said about Zionism by Zionists, to the point that you can assert with a sense of authority that this element is being unfairly singled out? What are the many other things these Zionists said about Zionism? Name them? Otherwise, it's empty argufying, leaving fellow editors with nothing to get their teeth into.] (]) 14:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::], and there are many verifiable things that could go into the first sentence. An obvious candidate would be just a basic definition of Zionism, which generally doesn't mention colonialism. Do you have an argument for why such a prominent mention of colonialism ''improves'' the article relative to that? — ] <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>\<sup>]</sup> 14:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Nishidani, Being a Zionist myself I am of course by definition "intimately familiar with the multiplicity of things said about Zionism by Zionists" :-) For example that Zionism is the movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people, that Zionism is the fulfillment of the hopes of generations of Jews to return to their ancient homeland, that Zionism is a movement for establishing a Jewish state, that Zionism is to free the Jews from the persecutions of the exile, that Zionism is a movement of decolonization of the Land of Israel from the Arabs, etc. etc..
::::::::But having said all that, please note that nowhere in this discussion did I claim "with a sense of authority that this element is being unfairly singled out". I just raised the possibility that it is being unfairly singled out, and promised to check this in the mext few days by examining short definitions/descriptions of Zionism in many RS. This would resolve the question. Just be patient. This kind of discussion is not resolved in one day. But if you can't wait you can visit ] to see the progress of my work, and even contribute sources of your own (so long as you don't mess with the format) ] (]) 16:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::If I want to know what Catholicism is, or Islam is, or Chinese communism is, I don't ask what believers in those systems think also because when I have done so, my general impression is that very few are 'intimately familiar with' the history of their belief-system. Your odd premise is that because you are a Zionist, you must know all about Zionism. All you have given me are schoolbook phrases, the most curious one of which is the last:
:::::::::<blockquote>that Zionism is a movement of decolonization of the Land of Israel from the Arabs</blockquote>
:::::::::I.e., that the settlement of whites in Australia was 'a movement of decolonization of Terra Australis from the aborigines.
:::::::::Nothing surprises me anymore, but I admire your boldness in allowing that Zionism is premised on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.
:::::::::I don't read sandboxes. If I am unfamiliar with something, I read the relevant scholarship on the topic.] (]) 17:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I responded to most of your argument here elsewhere, so I'll just comment here about your last lines - do you deny that the Arabs colonized Palestine in the 7th century? And with that I'll end this discussion, before we get accused of bludg. I'll return here after I'll finish my collection of RS. ] (]) 17:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Yep, that's what we need to see, I might take a look around myself as well. ] (]) 17:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::That reads:
::<blockquote>While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.</blockquote>
::I.e. it is neither here nor there for the present issue, since the matter of colonialism is not some rare incidental element in one or two sources, but something diffusely attested in virtually every major formative figure for early Zionism. ] (]) 16:08, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::My point is that pointing to reliable sources is not a complete argument, since it's a necessary but not sufficient condition for us to include some information. There has to be an argument for why including some information improves the article.
:::Clearly references to colonization should be mentioned somewhere, but why emphasize it in the very first sentence? Why is that better than a first sentence that sticks to a simple factual definition of Zionism?
:::One downside of mentioning colonization in the very first sentence is that there's no space to elaborate on who called it that and why, or how the connotations of the word have evolved, etc. Mentioning it further down would leave more room for a nuanced discussion. — ] <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>\<sup>]</sup> 16:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::That's an argument about due weight, not ONUS, which is clearly met. I would suggest we haul out a few modern sources and see what they say and where they put it, go from there. ] (]) 16:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Has anyone objecting here ever read the founding documents of Zionism? I have the eerie impression this is like discussing the origins of Christianity with people who haven't read the New Testament. Anyone can download and read in a few hours Herzl's ] and verify for themselves that 'colonization' is the default term there (die Kolonisation des Landes/Neue Gesellschaft für die Kolonisierung von Palästina etc.etc.). It is quite pointless gnawing at the bone of policy to decide for inclusion or not, if editors simply don't know much about the topic.] (]) 17:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Your entire argument here is irrelevant since this article is not about the "founding documents of Zionism" it is about "Zionism", i.e. about the entire phenomenon from it's birth (and even before that for background) until now. So concentrating about the "founding documents of Zionism" in the one-sentence leading definition may itself be undue, even if proved that the concept of colonization was the most important concept in those "founding documents" (which you definitely didn't so far).
::::::To use your analogy of Christianity. The first sentence in the article about it says: "'''Christianity''' (]) is an ] ] ] based on the ] and ] of ]. It is the ] and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the ]". It doesn't mention the Trinity, or the Resurrection, or the Virgin birth of Jesus, despite their importance in some of the "founding documents of Christianity". ] (]) 17:35, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Of course it doesn't mention to Trinity, the resurrection and the Virgin Birth, because they were not constitutive elements of the foundation of Christianity, but doctrinal positions assumed centuries later.
::::::<blockquote> "Christianity (/ˌkrɪst(ʃ)iˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.</blockquote>
::::::I.e. it puts into relief that Christianity is based on the teachings of an historical figure, just as out text does. Analogically
::::::Zionism is a (Jewish) ideology based on a movement founded by Theodore Herzl to establish by colonization a Jewish state in Palestine.
::::::The founding documents of Zionism are what define its aim and scope. No one is arguing that the whole article is about its foundation, so that is a strawman response. ] (]) 18:32, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Your personal opinion on what defines the "aim and scope" and "constitutive elements" of Zionism are not interesting. As I said we'll to scan the RS to see what their majority thinks should go into the definition sentence. Bye for now. ] (]) 18:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Totally undue weight on colonization in this definition, and Zionism was founded BEFORE Herzl. If anything:
:::::::Zionism is a (Jewish) ideology aiming for the re-establishment and consolidation of a Jewish homeland/state in the Land of Israel.
:::::::Which it did, and still does, through various means. ] (]) 04:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I'm not sure if ONUS has been met, but that's a separate question about a separate aspect of ]. My point is that no argument has been offered for why highlighting this information here would {{tq|improve article}}, i.e. why it's better than a simple factual definition as the first sentence. — ] <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>\<sup>]</sup> 17:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::No argument has been given why omitting what was a core motivation and aim of Zionism, i.e.
::::::<blockquote>The Zionist idea provided a base on which all humanitarian Jewish effort could unite. Jewish communities everywhere colonized their own poor in Palestine, and thus relieved themselves of these dependents. Their method was cheaper than the former planless sending of wanderers to some foreign land or other.Theodor Herzl, ''Altneuland,'' p.134</blockquote>
::::::Not appropriate to this article. Note that this aspect of Zionism, of transporting Eastern Jews out of Europe, Herzl more or less pitches this, of getting rid of them as a burden on assimilated Jews, gets very little traction in the fairytale version we meet so often.] (]) 18:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::That's funny. You do realize that you are quoting a work of fiction, and not a historical description of what was core motivation and aim of Zionism either primary source or secondary source? Anyway, you are attacking a strawman. Nobody said that this is not appropriate for the article. The discussion here is only whether it is appropriate in the opening definition. So stop wasting our time. ] (]) 19:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Please don't use the royal we ('our time') since the page is not yours, and it is offensive to suggest by its use that the those who disagree with you are wasting everybody else's time (actually they appear to be, given the fact that none of the factual evidence produced has been addressed by all those who dislike the term 'colonization' in the face of the unanimity of Zionism's foundations that this was what they intended to do).
:::::::: You are not familiar, again, with the literature on Altneuzeit. In it Herzl intended to use his fiction to persuade Jewish sceptics of the feasibility of his proposal and the epigraph states:'wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Märchen' which acknowledges that the work is a fiction which, if one really wants its vision to be realized, is no 'fairy tale'. He chose, if you read the secondary literature, the novel as a vehicle to promote Zionism.
::::::::In any case, you have openly declared that, as a Zionist, you subscribe to the idea that Palestine must be '''decolonized''' of its Arabs, an admission which, apart from its total unfamiliarity with the scholarly literature on the 7th century transformation, suggests your contributions here are ideologically impelled, rather than based on a careful assessment of evidence. There is nothing wrong with being a Zionist. A good many of our finest books on the I/P have been written by them, but no author among those historians who write competent studies, underwrites the idea that Arabs are invaders and should be expelled. For that kind of antifactual extremism automatically would make anything such a Zionist might write suspect, and the same goes for editors who look only for anything that might underwrite their beliefs.] (]) 20:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Let's stay on topic. ] (]) 20:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Nishidani, this is a lie. But as I really don't want to be accused of bludg, I put my full response to your false claim ]. If you want you can reply there. ] (]) 21:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
I posted in another section about and was told the discussion had "moved on" but it looks like it just moved to another section. imo, "colonization" is inherently unsuitable for the ledes. I'm not going to copy and paste the whole comment here but this is the most important part of it: "This article is broader in its coverage than to simply dismiss Zionism and its history as settler colonialism (a separate article)."


and also to the quote from ], p. 65:
For example, Moshe Sharett is documented by Ruth Gavison as having proposed population transfers like the ]. This isn't within the meaning of "colonization". I' m sorry if it isn't obvious but I don't think enough people were interested in moving to Israel. ] (]) 14:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
{{tq2|"...on the Israeli side there has been in recent years a dramatic revision of the interpretation of '''1948''', acknowledging that Palestinians had indeed been expelled from various parts of the country...
...what happened in Israel was a combination of forced expulsions, panicked flight, and utter chaos. ''The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony''.}}}}


* '''Several of the sources talk about "Jewish majority/Arab minority", not "as few Arabs as possible"''' (claiming that the two are equivalent would be a clear ])''':'''
:You can both have a colonial outlook and propose ethnic cleansing schemes at the same time? What's mutually exclusive there? We know that ethnic cleansing was baked into Zionism. Even Benny Morris has stated as much. That's what the Nakba was all about. Unapologetic ethnic cleansing is v. colonial. Almost classic! ] (]) 14:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
{{block indent|], p. 76:
:Let's keep this discussion about the use of "colonialism" rather than "settler colonialism". Of course it *is* settler colonialism (it is the settler variety as opposed to the franchise variety of colonialism), but the term "settler-colonialism" has become associated with what Wolfe described as the fundamental logic of elimination of the native--so people will of course have complaints about that association. ] (]) 02:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
{{tq2|"The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium — a majority Arab country — into a new state that had a substantial '''Jewish majority'''. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized during the war; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve '''a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception'''. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land.";}}<br/>
:You mentioned cultural zionism in your other comment. As benny morris described it was "ultimately marginal" ] (]) 03:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
], pp.&nbsp;47–48:
::Benny Morris, primarily an expert on the 1948 Independence War, is not necessarily an authority on the history and development of Zionism. ] (]) 04:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
{{tq2|"As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). ''Ipso facto'', this meant Zionism's success would produce an '''Arab minority''' in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions."}}}}
:::There are plenty of other sources. Also recall that it had 100-200 supporters. Flapan: {{tq|Brit Shalom had no popular base nor a political organisation and had neither the intent nor ambition to create them}}. Gorny describes Brit Shalom as outside the zionist consensus. ] (]) 05:17, 4 July 2024 (UTC)


* Similarly, ] talks about "desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine" and explicitly says that until the late 1930s, that is '''for most of the pre-1948 period''', most Zionists just wanted "Jewish majority", not “as few Arabs as possible”, and the change only came following a suggestion coming from the Peel Commission:
People here need to stop with the ] and cite reliable sources. This is not something for Misplaced Pages editors to debate or to determine. ] (]) 19:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
{{block indent|p. 96:
{{tq2|"From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common '''desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine'''}}
p. 138:
{{tq2|"The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, '''until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim;''' the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ '''in 1948''': non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal. Israel’s leaders were thus not sad at all to see so many Arabs leave its borders during the fighting in 1947–48 ... the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.")
}}}}


* Finally, while ], p. 588, does say in the conclusion section:
:While we waitin on Vegan's sources, I will kick off with this one, . ] (]) 19:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
{{block indent|{{tq2|"But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was '''inherent in Zionist ideology''' and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the '''underlying thrust of the ideology''', which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority." }}
::This has zero relevance to the issue, you are totally confusing ], the fringe theory that compares Zionism to ], with ], a term used in former times to refer to the establishment and development of settlements, in the Zionist case, agricultural moshavot. ] (]) 04:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Fringe? Since when? Show me a source saying it is fringe. ] (]) 16:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I don't know if fringe is the right term, but based on what I'm collecting now it does seem to be a minority view. ] (]) 16:48, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::But a significant one, righty? Pretty sure I can source that, in fact I think I did already somewhere, just can't recall where. ] (]) 16:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::That depends how you define significant... Anyway you'll see soon what I mean. ] (]) 17:20, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::In any case it's still colonialism, can't really dispute the settler part of it, they still doin that. ] (]) 16:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:Believe me, I have read numerous books on the matter. Yes, the Zionist movements promoted the construction of ], which can be termed colonies (hence colonization). However, people here are conflating it with other terms and overlooking the fact that Zionism encouraged many things beyond building moshavot: mass aliyah, the use of Hebrew, the establishment of political institutions, lobbying international powers to support a Jewish state, and more. I completely oppose the use of the term colonization in the first paragraph. ] (]) 04:48, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:: However, all these other things you list are aspects of colonization! They are exactly why "colonization" is more correct than just "settlement". ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 05:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::I disagree. Historically, colonization referred to settling, constructing settlements, and developing them. Today, the term often implies people sent by a foreign entity to take over another land, which doesn't align with Zionism according to neutral and mainstream scholarship. Jews originally come from Israel, specifically Judea, and the diaspora has always been in relation to Palestine and Jerusalem, ... doesn't sound too foreign to me.
:::To sum up, in its former usage, colonization describes only some aspects of Zionism, and in its contemporary usage, it usually refers to imperial colonialism, which is a fringe theory in the case of Zionism, totally irrelevant to the first presentation of the article, and already appears down below in the fourth paragraph. ] (]) 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
::::<s>Theodor Herzl: {{tq|"Colonization can therefore continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population."}} ... {{tq|"Without colonization, Zionism is nothing but a castle in the air."}} ] (]) 16:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)</s>
:::::Please strike this comment or provide RS to support these quotes. I believe the first quote is in fact ] not Herzl. Not sure about the second one, but not appropriate to cite information based on a non-reliable source. ] (]) 16:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::True. It does appear that I let the internet prank me. That'll teach me to leave Google scholar and take a shortcut. The first does appear to be Jabotinsky. Can't match the second up. Mea culpa. ] (]) 16:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
There is a distinction between an aim and the means of attaining that aim, which is partly lost in this conversation. The ''aim'' of Zionism was a Jewish polity in Palestine. The ''means'' was the colonization of Palestine, which included not just establishing settlements but also establishing the trappings of statehood. Both things need to be described. The means can be described without using the word "colonization", but it isn't possible to describe it without using words having the same meaning as colonization. Since practically every Zionist source was perfectly happy to call it colonization I don't see why we shouldn't. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 05:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)<br/>


a more careful reading of the book shows that his position is much more nuanced and that, in his view, this "underlying thrust of the ideology" '''only turned into an actual goal/"want" in the 1930s, that is in the second half of the pre-state period''' , and it only happened in response to external factors or initiatives:
=== Round 3 ===


p. 44:
Colleagues, please do not POV push. Please come to an agreement here before adding statements that are only mentioned by select scientists and please do attribute them. With regards, ] (]) 13:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
{{tq2|“Hence, if during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional, '''by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea <u>began to emerge</u> among the movement’s leaders'''. Each major bout of Arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution.”}}
p. 59:
{{tq2|“The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually '''came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives''': In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;”}}


This, along with the fact that even when discussing "transfer", Morris still speaks in terms of "majority/minority" and never talks about "as few Arabs as possible/minimum Arabs" or any equivalent, shows that framing his position as support for the claim that Zionist core goal was "as few Arabs as possible" would be SYNTH.}}
:Excuse me, why have you deleted archive links and changed ref names in your most recent revert? ] (]) 14:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::Hello. It was returned to the prior state before the unegreed change. The archive links can be added using bot in one click. Let me do it. With regards, ] (]) 14:08, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Since a minority of editors are attempting to enforce their POV against a majority and based on the discussion above I have tagged the article accordingly. ] (]) 14:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I agree with the tag. In the same time please note that POV is usually considered not based on amount of editors but is based on the facts that such editors provide and RS. The majority is not always right. When there is a consensus there should be an agreement to make the change to have a new consensus. And not is 10 people come and force the change it becomes the new consensus. Until there is a decision we should keep the original state of the article. With regards, ] (]) 14:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I've restored it to its previous state, which reflects the best scholarly sources and early zionist self-description/self-definition.] (]) 14:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


:I disagree with your change. Please self revert until there is an agreement. The opinion of colonization is clearly a minority. With regards, ] (]) 14:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::That is currently what a majority of editors agree with, tho. If you do not agree, an RFC is an option for determining consensus. ] (]) 14:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::I have not done RFC before. Majority based on count of registered accounts that promote one point which they like and not based on analysis of sources that describe that point? With regards, ] (]) 14:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::::In an RFC, one asks a neutrally phrased question such as "Should (some content) be in the article" and then editors will give arguments and sources in support or opposition. ] (]) 14:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


Now, before I move to additional sources that not currently mentioned in the article and that refute the "as few Arabs as possible" claim, I just want to point out that two of the quoted sources - ], p. 6, and ], p. 7 - are actually citations from ] and a Hebrew article published by Pappé in 2008, respectively, hence they are, in fact, tertiary sources, and given the complex and controversial nature of this issue, shouldn't have been used in this context, as per ].
*{{re|Dan Murphy}} - your added sources and content have to be in the body too. ''']] (])''' 14:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
*:You may do it on his behalf. He did only about 30 edits since 2021 so might not have time to do so. With regards, ] (]) 14:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
* 1. Has anyone read those articles: , , , , , ? Do you still believe that Israel is a colony and why? <br/>
:2. Do you believe that the opinion in such articles can't be present in the article? If so, why? With regards, ] (]) 16:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::They are either opinion articles or non-independent sources, both of which don't belong to the article. ] (]) 16:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::In order:
::# by
::# by
::# by a
::# by ]
::#
::# by ]
::I honestly can't believe an admin on another wiki would even ''suggest'' that these are ]. ] (]) 16:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:: Makeandtoss: Don't you think that adding it to led without any explanation is improper? As, for example, ] that "Economic theories of colonialism and sociological theories of migration movements are also inadequate when applied to the Zionist experience". Next, there is an interesting work of Yoav Peled which can be read . You can also check the work of ] . With regards, ] (]) 17:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::OK, those are actual ]! Let's look at them.
:::]'s chapter in :
:::*The foreward to the book, written by ], begins with this line: {{tqq|It cannot escape the notice of the reader of this volume that there is an imbalance in the presentations in favour of Israeli scholars. As the editor notes, Palestinian scholars on the whole did not feel inclined to participate.}}
:::* Other chapters in the book talk about Zionism as colonialism. For example:
:::** p. 139, in Chapter 8 by ]: {{tqq|Zionism’s colonial-settler nature and unhidden intention to establish a Jewish state over Palestine depicted the Zionist enterprise as a formidable threat to the Arab-Muslim nature of Palestine.}}
:::** p. 159, in Chapter 9 by ]: {{tqq|] used this theory as a tool to ignoring the claims of ], and pretended to know better than the Jerusalemite leader what were the needs of his community and his country. In this he followed the path of Western colonialism in general.}}
:::*** p. 161, H. Cohen quotes a Zionist banker, {{tqq|... when I visit one of our colonies ...}}. Later on the same page, H. Cohen quotes ]'s '']'': {{tqq|... the realisation of Zionism in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him ...}}
:::*** p. 168, in his conclusion, H. Cohen writes {{tqq|As with colonial projects elsewhere, this argument had its factual value also in the unique Zionist case.}}
:::** p. 190, Chapter 11 by ], mentions the 1891 ] and the 1899 ] (not mentioned: the 1924 ])
:::*Yoav Gelber's Chapter 13 does, indeed, argue that Zionism is ''not'' colonialism. But in making this argument, Gelber is arguing ''against'' the mainstream view. He acknowledges this. These are the people who, acccording to Yoav Gelber in this chapter, believe that Zionism ''is'' colonialism:
:::** Palestinian Arabs (p. 220)
:::** {{tqq|Israel-baiters}} (p. 222)
:::** Public discourse in the West and Israel since the 1960s (p. 222)
:::** French, Jewish, and Arab intellectuals, including ] and ] who contributed to a "massive volume" published in June 1967 in '']'' (p. 222)
:::** Palestinian radicals (p. 222)
:::** {{tqq|some Israeli academics}} (p. 222)
:::** The first ] in 1919 (p. 223)
:::** ] (p. 223)
:::** ] (p. 223)
:::** {{Tqq|Arabs of Palestine (they were not yet ‘Palestinians’)}} in the 1930s and 40s, {{tqq|However, colonialism was at that time legitimate and their arguments did not attract attention or inspire sympathy.}} (p. 223)
:::** {{tqq|Since the late 1970s, however, anti-colonialist arguments fell on receptive ears, particularly in Western Europe that was haunted by post-colonial guilt feelings.}} (p. 223)
:::** ] (p. 223)
:::** {{tqq|Israeli ]s of all creeds}} (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** Jewish communists (p. 224)
:::** Palestinian communists (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 224)
:::** former Israelis, American, and French Jewish activists of the New Left in the late 1970s (p. 224)
:::** {{tqq|several ] and critical sociologists}} since the late 1980s (p. 224)
:::** ] (p. 225)
:::** ] (p. 225)
:::** ] (p. 225)
:::** (p. 226)
:::** ] (p. 228)
:::** ] (p. 229)
:::By arguing ''against'' the mainstream view, Gelber's chapter ''supports'' the assertion that it is the mainstream view.
:::As for , he is arguing that Zionism ''is'' colonialism. The chapter ends with these two sentences: {{Tqq|As I have shown in this chapter, the attempts to use the historical specificity of Zionism in order to argue that it does not fit the colonial-settler model do not stand up to historical scrutiny. Not only that, the insistence on denying the colonial-settler nature of Zionism obscures for the opponents of the colonial thesis major areas of the reality in contemporary Israel as well.}}
:::]'s , putting aside that Gold was an Israeli government official and the paper is self-published by his think tank, he still admits that "Zionism is colonialism" is the mainstream view, and like Gelber, he argues against it. Page 84: {{tqq|The argument that Israel is a colonialist entity is often marshaled to undermine the Jewish state’s very legitimacy ... The theme has certainly permeated Western academia, almost uncritically. For decades, it has been employed against Israel in one international forum after another.}} Page 87: {{tqq|Nevertheless, in recent years, the effort to portray Israel as a colonialist entity has expanded.}}
:::So, we can count Benny Morris, Yoav Gelber, and Dore Gold, as ''three'' scholars who argue that Zionism is not colonialism. On the other side are ''dozens'' of scholars; that's what makes it the mainstream view. ] (]) 18:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Ok, thanks for taking time a look. I also must admit that I was quite surprised how the paradigm has shifted. The last time I have read about this topic was over a few decades ago and then such representation was much less common. When I checked the sources today I can see that minority and majority here have drastically shifted for some reason. So, I do admit this part. And it was a surprise to me, to be honest. In the same time my original point remains the same. I do not think that we should just add an entirely new concept to the first sentence in the lead without providing an explanation as at least the sources which I have found show that it's meaning is not similar to how average people define the term colonization. We should check how scholars who thinks it's that colonialism define this therm and if they share the same definition. So far I din't get such understanding. With regards, ] (]) 18:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Thank you for admitting that. Yes, it has absolutely shifted in the last couple decades (in the 21st century), part of the reason in this topic area I am always saying that we should use 21st-century sources and not 20th-century sources (hence, ]). In the words of ] policy, there is a "significant minority viewpoint" that Zionism is ''not'' colonialism, and this viewpoint can be seen in the works of ''modern'' (21st-century) scholars such as Morris, Gelber, and Gold. And I certainly think this viewpoint should be given in the ] article. An example is ], where we say it's ethnic cleansing, we say that's the majority viewpoint, but we also say that there is a significant minority viewpoint that it is ''not'' ethnic cleansing, and we give as examples of this viewpoint Morris and Gelber (among others). This ] article should do the same. And yes, there is a difference between, for example, "]" and "]," not all kinds of colonialism are the same, and I agree this is a distinction that the article should also clarify. ] (]) 18:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::You all kind of miss that the topic here is about the use of term 'colonization' '''in the opening sentence / definition,''' which is different from the question you are discussing (though of course related to it). I'll expand on this tomorrow with sources. ] (]) 20:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Please do. We will appreciate it. With regards, ] (]) 21:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Admitting was easy. Seeing and realizing the difference was not. :) Another issue is that various sources call that Israel had Settler Colonialism and ] claims ( ) that "Settler Colonialism is not Colonialism". Which adds to the confusion and reinforces my point that the therm must be properly defined. I also got today a book of and two more to see their view on the subject. With regards, ] (]) 21:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Specifically talks about economic theories so not really relevant here. The rest seems fringe, although I haven't read what is in them yet. ] (]) 10:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
A very fine example here of why I (and many others) do very little editing here anymore. An account throws an out of context source on the talk page and, in effect, says "I win." Then a more diligent editor does the reading and responds at length and in detail, something that takes many multiples of the time and effort expended by the original poster. Then poster number one responds "The last time I have read about this topic was over a few decades ago" and says they were expressing their expectations of what the scholarship has found. And round and round it goes. To my mind, this behavior - either out of ignorance or deliberate bad faith - is the real incivility problem.] (]) 19:27, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
*There are multiple reliable sources in which Zionists are shown as describing what they intended on doing as being 'colonization'. We should follow the very best sources. ] is not a policy argument. '']''<sup>]</sup> 04:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


=== Now, here are several additional sources that refute the "as few Arabs as possible" framing: ===
=== Round 4: Should the term colonization/colonialism be used in the opening-sentence/lead-section? A Survey of 21st century Encyclopedias ===
The discussion here is not about whether we have to include in the article the debate on whether Zionism is "colonialist"/"colonizing". I don't think there is really any objection against describing this debate in the article. '''The discussion here is whether Zionism should be described as "colonialist"/ "colonizing" in the first defining sentence or in the lead section at all, in wikivoice'''. This is mainly a question of DUE and NPOV. I present here a policy-based argument against including this description in the lead.


* {{cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Walter |authorlink=Walter Laqueur|url=https://books.google.co.il/books/about/A_History_of_Zionism.html?id=hEt5PWCTMJMC&redir_esc=y |title=A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel |year=2009}}
Here is a relevant policy statement from '''] "'''Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate ], especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others. Within any given tertiary source, some entries may be more reliable than others." Tertiary sources are defined there as "publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize, and often quote, primary and secondary sources."
{{block indent|p. 232 (context: pre-WWI proposals of “limited population transfer”):
{{tq2|“...the idea of a population transfer '''was never official Zionist policy'''. Ben Gurion emphatically rejected it, saying that even if the Jews were given the right to evict the Arabs they would not make use of it. '''Most thought at that time that there would be sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs''' following the industrialisation of the country and the introduction of intensive methods of agriculture…”}}}}


* {{cite book |last=Ther |first=Philipp|author-link=Philipp Ther |url=https://books.google.co.il/books?id=jHEXAwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s |title=The Dark Side of Nation-States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe |year=2014}}
So I decided to look at encyclopedias articles whose title is Zionism. Following the policy point that "some tertiary sources are more reliable than others" I used only encyclopedias published by reputable punishers, and also almost all (if not all) of the editors and writers are scholars in relevant fields. Also, following Levivich opinion that only 21st century sources should be used in this discussion, I used only encyclopedia editions that were first published in the 21st century. I collected about 30 such encyclopedias.
{{block indent|p. 191:
{{tq2| “The extent to which the Zionists advanced the idea of population transfers during World War II is much disputed in the secondary literature. Palestinian authors such as Nur Masalha and advocates of “new history” in Israel have supported the argument that the Zionists had a master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from the start. '''There is little evidence to support this claim'''.”}}}}


* {{cite journal |last=Heller |first=J. |author-link=Joseph Heller (historian) |year=2006 |title=Alternative narratives and collective memories: Israel’s New Historians and the use of historical context |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4284476 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=571–586}}
The results are pretty clear. The vast majority of encyclopedias do not describe Zionism as "colonialist"/"colonizing" in the first defining sentence or in their lead section at all. It seems clear that most of the scholars that edited and wrote those encyclopedia articles think that the description of Zionism as "colonialist"/"colonizing" is either wrong, or disputable, or simply just not important enough to make the head-lines. I think Misplaced Pages should follow this majority.
{{block indent|p. 573:
{{tq2|“In spite of its realistic base we see a two-fold weakness in Morris’s thesis. First, it goes back to Herzl, the founding father of political Zionism, as the supposed creator of the idea of transfer. In reality, like everybody else in European politics in his day, Herzl was ignorant of the existence of Arab nationalism. '''At one point he noted briefly that transfer of the poor native population was possible for economic reasons, only to reject it a little later'''… <br/>
Until the Royal Commission, better known as the Peel Commission of 1937, proposed the partition solution, with its corollary of population transfer, the Zionist decision-making agenda was preoccupied with one theme: the consolidation of power in terms of demography, economics and culture, leaving the military responsibility to the British authorities. '''Since the British government adopted the transfer idea only for a short period of time, the Zionists, too, shelved it''', adopting the other British option – partition."}}
P. 574-575:
{{tq2|
“...one must conclude that it was the partition plan that was at the top on the Zionist agenda, and not transfer, even though both plans were inspired by the Peel Commission…
… ‘The '''fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas''' in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions’. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of ‘operative ideology’ '''not of ‘fundamental ideology’'''. Arab ethnic cleansing was therefore not more than '''an option of last resort in the event of war'''."}}
P. 584
{{tq2|“Morris’s '''concept of transfer of the Arabs as the focus of Zionist decision making has no basis in political reality'''. “ }}}}


* {{cite book |last=Galnoor |first=Itzhak |url=https://books.google.co.il/books?id=MAbY8v1UkDEC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s |title=The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement |year=1995}}
{{block indent|pp. 179-180
{{tq2|“The commission investigated the possibility of voluntary populations and land exchanges and the prospects of finding solutions for those who would be moved and reached the conclusion that it is "impossible to assume that the minority problem will be solved by a voluntary transfer of population." Incidentally, the commission also concluded that '''the Jews opposed forced transfer'''.
Transfer as a concrete political possibility never exceeded the bounds of the 1937 royal commission report - it was born and buried there. It was not even mentioned in the United Nations partition plan of 1947. '''Had transfer not been included in the Peel commission report, it would not have been placed on the political agenda of the Zionist movement, even though the idea itself had been mentioned occasionally in the past'''.”}}}}

* {{cite news |last=Karsh |first=Efraim|author-link=Efraim Karsh |date=2019 |title=Book Review: 'A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion' |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-a-state-at-any-cost-the-life-of-david-ben-gurion-11570221998 |work=The Wall Street Journal}} (review of Tom Segev's book)
{{block indent|{{tq2|“The truth is that, far from seeking to dispossess the Palestinian Arabs as claimed by Mr. Segev, the Zionist movement had always been amenable to the existence of a '''substantial Arab minority''' in the prospective Jewish state. No less than Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the faction that was the forebear of today’s Likud Party, voiced his readiness (in a famous 1923 essay) “to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone.” And if this was the position of the more “militant” faction of the Jewish national movement, small wonder that mainstream Zionism took for granted the full equality of the Arab minority in the prospective Jewish state…

Ignoring these facts altogether, Mr. Segev accuses Ben-Gurion of using the partition resolution as a springboard for implementing the age-old “Zionist dream” of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs,” though '''he brings no evidence for this supposed behavior beyond a small number of statements that are either taken out of context or simply distorted or misrepresented'''.” }}}}

* {{cite book |last=Karsh |first=Efraim|author-link=Efraim Karsh |title=Palestine Betrayed |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2010}}
{{block indent|{{tq2|“...the recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British mandate and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record, and one that is completely at odds with the anti-Israel caricature that is so often the order of the day. They reveal … '''that the claim of premeditated dispossession is not only baseless but the inverse of the truth'''; and that far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the UN partition resolution. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place, for the simple reason that '''the Zionist movement was amenable both to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state''' on an equal footing, and to the two-state solution, raised for the first time in 1937 by a British commission of inquiry and
reiterated by the partition resolution.”}}}}

* {{cite book |last=Shapira |first=Anita|author-link=Anita Shapira |url=https://books.google.co.il/books?id=jaghEQAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s |title=Israel: A History |publisher=Brandeis University Press |year=2014}}
{{block indent|p. 161
{{tq2|“Pro-Palestinian researchers present Plan D as the draft of a preplanned, total population transfer of the Arabs of Palestine. But as the plan text shows, while it did order commanders to destroy
villages and expel the inhabitants if they resisted, it also instructed commanders to leave them where they were if they did not resist, while ensuring Jewish control of the village. '''There is a great difference between an order for total expulsion and a selective order, which assumes that Arab villages will be able to live in peace in the Jewish state'''."}}}}To summarize, only about half of the currently used sources claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core goal of Zionism movement throughout the pre-1948 period and several of them actually refute this claim. In addition, there are multiple RS - some of which I listed above - that contest this claim.

This makes the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the current phrasing '''non-NPOV-compliant''', and careful examination of the sources shows that a much more accurate reflection of the academic consensus would be to say '''"a state with a significant Jewish majority"'''. ] (]) 16:35, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

:Okay. There are 12 sources for the statement: Manna, Khalidi, Slater, Cohen, Lustick & Berkman, Stanislawski, Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury, Engel, Masalha, Lentin, Pappé, Morris. You are attempting to illustrate that about half of these sources don't actually support "as few Arabs as possible". I'll go through each.
:'''Cohen:'''
:You use {{tq|was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state}} as evidence that they didn't want as few Arabs as possible. I don't quite buy this, because I interpret "as few Arabs as possible" as meaning as few Arabs as possible . That they reluctantly accepted some doesn't contradict that for me.
:The p. 73 quote is about something they {{tq|seriously considered}}, implying that this wasn't their main line of thought, not what they really wanted. This is actually validated by the p. 75 quote you share: {{tq|the Jewish Agency prepared for the contingency of a large Arab minority}}. Contingency? It seems like they didn't want it. Same point for the p. 77 quote.
:So, I think the Cohen quote of {{tq|As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years}} is accurate. I don't see how he is "contesting" Masalha and Morris. I think Cohen supports "as few Arabs as possible".
:'''Pappé:'''
:I think you're right. "as few Arabs as possible" is about before the establishment of the state of Israel, this quote is imprecise and could be about modern Zionism. I don't think this should be used.
:'''Manna:'''
:I'm not seeing how p. 2 says {{tq|the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible}} is only about 1947-48. In p. 4 {{tq|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}} doesn't imply to me that it wasn't the main opinion pre-1948, just that it became unanimous in 1948. And even if Manna was saying that the idea only came about in 1948, I don't think it couldn't be used to justify "as few Arabs as possible", which is about the period up to the establishment of the state of Israel. The primary expulsions took place in 1948, and Israel was founded in 1948.
:I don't see your argument with p. 33: {{tq|The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers... Indeed, at the end of December 1947}}. Okay, this just means they had the objective in 1947. So? I think Manna supports "as few Arabs as possible".
:''' Stanislawski:'''
:Again, you're just saying that Zionists wanted as few Arabs as possible in 1948, therefore they couldn't have wanted that before 1948? It doesn't say that. I think Stanislawski supports "as few Arabs as possible".
:'''Khalidi:'''
:Agreed, I don't think this should be used. "Majority" is not strong enough IMO.
:'''Lustick & Berkman:'''
:Agreed, I don't think this should be used. "Minority" is not strong enough IMO.
:'''Engel:'''
:This one is mixed. I think it can probably be used to support "as many Jews as possible", but it doesn't support "as few Arabs as possible". The p. 138 quote again brings up the issue of when expulsion became the consensus idea. It concedes that eventually it did. This is interesting, but really doesn't refute that Zionists wanted "as few Arabs as possible". I guess there could be a rewording to include this nuance, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.
:'''Morris:'''
:Again, the timing issue. See above. I do think {{tq|displacement of Arabs from Palestine}} cannot be used support "as few Arabs as possible", but {{tq|overwhelming Jewish majority}} is enough to support "as many Jews as possible" IMO.
:'''Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury and Lentin:'''
:I don't think these are tertiary just because they cite Pappé. I'm not sure if Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury is a BESTSOURCE though.
:---
:I will need a little bit more time to go though the new sources you brought. But to address your thesis:
:{{tq2|a much more accurate reflection of the academic consensus would be to say "a state with a significant Jewish majority"}}
:I don't see that. Your proposed new statement is weaker than Morris' {{tq|overwhelming Jewish majority}}, and Morris clearly leans a certain way on this. And it replaces the part about Arabs with nothing, even though there are not yet addressed BESTSOURCES clearly saying it (Slater, Segev, Shlaim), in addition to Cohen, Manna, and Stanislawski, which I don't think you have nullified. I really do appreciate the effort though. This is a great thing for Misplaced Pages to have. ] ] 18:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::Thanks for the feedback - looking forward for your comments regarding the newly added sources.
::Regarding the chronology - I think the question of if and when the idea of transfer became more or less consensual within Zionist leadership is key in context of a correct phrasing in the lead, because the lead should reflect the '''core Zionist goals''' - what Heller refers to as "'''‘fundamental ideology'''" - throughout the whole of the pre-state period. If this idea was adopted only towards the end of the period, and if - as Heller describes it - it was only "operational", rather than "fundamental" - then this might be too specific to be mentioned in the lead, let alone in the opening paragraph, and should rather be deferred to the body. ] (]) 18:59, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::This is a very detailed analysis. Based on this, I think "significant Jewish majority" would be a better framing. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 19:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Agreed. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 21:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::@]: I'm curious as to your and others' views of temporal sourcing of statements in Wikivoice: If some sources say this was the case from the beginning until the present (Morris, Shlaim, Lentin, Slater), some say from the beginning without specifying an end date (Engel, Khalidi, Segev, Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury), two say from the start until the creation of Israel (Masalha, Lustick & Berkman), one says "for years" without being more specific (Cohen), one says in 1948 (Stanislawski), one says in the first decade after the creation of Israel (Manna), and one says it's the "core of Zionism" until the present day (Pappe)... don't these, taken together, support the idea of "always"? Especially when not a single source says anything like "...until time period X, when it changed"? ] (]) 20:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I don't think it matters for the lead. But you should clarify whether those temporalities are for "as many Jews as possible" or are for "as few Arabs as possible". I think @]'s arguments about this just relate to "as few Arabs as possible". ] ] 21:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:Thanks for the work you've put into this. This is conflating the notion of political consensus with the notion of desirability. To be clear, within the Zionist movement, the arguments made against transfer were made primarily on a practical basis, not because transfer was not desirable. The only quote put forward which denies the desirability of "as few Arabs" is Karsh 2019, a book review.
:{{tq2|a more careful reading of the book shows that his position is much more nuanced and that, in his view, this "underlying thrust of the ideology" only turned into an actual goal/"want" in the 1930s, that is in the second half of the pre-state period , and it only happened in response to external factors or initiatives}}
:This is synth, since morris does not say anything about the "want" developing in the 30s, only that the political consensus became strong during this period. The "external factors" are in this case fundamental to the situation which comes with, as Morris says, the zionist goal of "politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs." That's why transfer was {{tq|"transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure"}} ] (]) 00:48, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I think we're painting all Zionists with too broad of a brush. We know that many Zionists including Herzl had dismissive views toward the Arabs and were OK with a transfer - though they often thought the transfer would happen through economic means, for example. Others didn't consider the Arab inhabitants or thought there weren't many, and still others did know about them but thought they would welcome them. Consider Bregman 2002<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bregman |first=Ahron |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Israel_s_Wars/YlA2UM1r2gIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA3&printsec=frontcover&dq=some%20of%20the%20Zionist%20leaders|title=Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947 |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-28715-9 |language=en|page=3}}</ref>. While not one of the absolute best sources, it's a decent enough source and I happened across this passage while perusing it on p.3. (and p.1 {{tq|Palestine was in fact a barren, rocky, neglected and inhospitable land with malaria-infested swamps.}}) The passage on p.3: {{tq|scrutinizing the speeches and writings of Zionist leaders of the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that some of the Zionist leaders did truly believe that Palestine was derelict and empty – ‘A land without a people waiting for a people without a land’. This, it is worth noting, was not an unusual thought, for some early Zionists suffered from the common Eurocentric illusion that ‘territories outside Europe were in a state of political vacuum’. But there were also Zionists who did realize that an Arab community existed in Palestine – working the land, bringing up children, living and dying – however, they took it for granted that the native Arabs would welcome the new arrivals, whose zeal and skill and, of course, money would help develop the barren land for the benefit of all of its inhabitants.}} ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 01:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Again, this doesn't say anything about the desirability of "as few Arabs as possible" ] (]) 02:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq2|This is conflating the notion of political consensus with the notion of desirability.}}
::This is a fair point, but it, in turn, leads to several additional questions:
::# Is the lead the right place to make this distinction?
::# If it is, shouldn't we also make a distinction between what Heller refers to as operative vs fundamental ideologies:
::{{block indent|1={{tq|'The fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions'. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of 'operative ideology' not of 'fundamental ideology'.}} <br/>and let the lead describe fundamental ideology, while deferring the discussion of the operative ideology to the relevant section(s) in the body? }}<br/>
::{{tq2|The only quote put forward which denies the desirability of "as few Arabs" is Karsh 2019, a book review}}
::I've just added one more source that makes this point, and I also have a few more that talk about opposition to the idea on moral grounds - will hopefully have the time to add them tomorrow.<br/><br/>
::{{tq2|The "external factors" are in this case fundamental to the situation which comes with, as Morris says, the zionist goal of "politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs."}}
::This is, indeed, how Morris describes this, but other sources - e.g. Gorny (2006) that I added today - offer a different perspective, and several other RS discussed above consider "as few Arabs as possible"/"transfer" ideas to be secondary in Zionist thinking. At the very least raises the question of whether discussing it in the opening paragraph is justified, as per ]. ] (]) 21:09, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:Here's an additional source that provides an important perspective on Zionist ideology, in particular, in its fundamental approach towards Jewish-Arab relationships and Zionist demographic goals, and also clearly contradicts the "as few Arabs as possible" framing:
:{{cite book |last=Gorny |first=Yosef |title=From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought, 1920-1990, and the Jewish People |publisher=BRILL |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.co.il/books?id=rIZSEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s}}
:'''<big>Two key points:</big>'''
:* Zionism's goals included <u>both</u> Jewish majority and cooperation with Arabs
:{{block indent|1=P. 6-7:{{tq2|“Therefore, national values such as return to the soil, Jewish labor, the renaissance of Hebrew culture, and the '''aspiration to a Jewish majority''' became '''political fundamentals in Zionism'''...<br/> Zionist policy from Herzl’s time to the establishment of the State of Israel had three dimensions… <br/>The second dimension, the intercommunal, included Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine in all their senses. In an attempt to work out joint arrangements, if only partial and provisional, that would allow them to coexist with the Arab population of the country, '''the Zionists aspired to cooperation''' in municipal government, an arrangement for relations between Jewish and Arab labor organizations, general agrarian reform, and other matters.<br/> The third dimension was reflected in the Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of '''fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs''', who were embroiled in struggle for the same piece of land. By the very fact of having such plans, the movement signaled its intention to replace side-by-side existence with coexistence. It is in this sense that Zionist policy was informed by '''a Utopian element''' tempered by political realism, a policy that recognized its limits as a national force and, usually, knew how to exploit political opportunities that the era created.<br/>At first glance, our remarks here point to a material clash between the Utopian inclination and the pragmatic consideration in Zionist policy. It is not so. The entire intent of this study is to note that the '''Utopian element in Zionist policy was neither a marginal and unimportant appendage nor an artificial embellishment with which politicians could adorn themselves. In fact, it was a structural and intrinsic feature of the policy.''' It was embedded in the policymakers’ personalities; it played a role in long-term plans for the regularization of Jewish-Arab relations; it influenced the aspiration to align the political solutions with Jews’ and Arabs’ national ideals and rights; and it served as a moral yardstick for use in distinguishing between permissible and forbidden ways and means of prosecuting the armed conflict. It was this characteristic that gave the movement and its leaders the strength to cling to a political vision that clashed with the existing conditions.<br/>Viewed from this perspective, '''the Zionist reality was charged with Utopian meaning'''. It is for this reason that I define the relationship between reality and vision as “Utopian realism.” This seeming oxymoron, in my opinion, is '''one of the keys to understanding Zionism as a national idea and as a social and political doctrine that fulfilled itself'''.}}<br/>p. 11: {{tq2|“I use the term “Zionist consensus” to denote the ideological common denominator among all Zionist Movement intellectual currents and political entities, which disagreed severely on all other topics. The consensus was made up of four basic principles: an unbreakable bond between the Jewish nation and the Eretz Israel; '''a Jewish majority in Eretz Israel'''; changing the socioeconomic structure of the Jewish people as part of a comprehensive national effort; and the revival of the Hebrew language and culture.“}} }}
:<br/>
:* Zionists viewed Jewish emigration as the primary vehicle for obtaining Jewish majority<br/>
:{{block indent|1=p. 33: {{tq2|“From the Jewish standpoint, the onset of the Fourth Aliya heralded the emergence of the Zionist Movement from the crisis that had engulfed it at the end of the Third Aliya. '''The Jewish masses that began to reach Palestine instilled hope, for the first time after the Balfour Declaration, of the possibility of attaining a Jewish majority in Palestine'''.”}} <br/> p. 65: {{tq2|“For Ben-Gurion, in contrast, the '''Fifth Aliya—which infused Zionism with new hope and made the Jewish majority a realistic goal''' — was a basis for a broad-based federal settlement between Jews and Arabs at both the local and the regional levels.”}} <br/> Also, the words 'transfer/transferring,' in the sense of 'population transfer,' are mentioned only four times, and only in passing, and one of the four instances actually refers to Jewish immigration. On the other hand, actual long-term plans assumed continued growth of Arab population - for example, see description of Jabotinsky’s 1940 constitution proposal that talks about Arab minority of two million (twice its size in 1940).<br/> p. 102: {{tq2|“In his background remarks to the proposal, Jabotinsky based himself solely on examples of federative regimes that had passed the test of political durability and met human and social moral standards. He disputed the argument that the Arabs of Palestine would become a nationally oppressed group after they became '''a minority of two million amid five million Jews, as his proposal envisaged'''.”}} }}<br/> &nbsp; ] (]) 20:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I don't have a copy of that book of Gorny's, but here is a relevant quote from his 87 book in the context of discussing the Zionist conception of the Arab question:
::{{tq2| It was generally accepted among Zionists that the eventual solution, whether a Jewish state in all of Palestine, partition, or an international protectorate, would have to be imposed on the Arabs by force, because of their obduracy, which precluded negotiations and compromise for the foreseeable future.}}
::Also, I'm familiar with Gorny's other writing on Zionist utopia, and his definition of "utopia" is certainly not "utopia, an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions.":
::{{tq2|I am aware that utopias are not ideal regimes even when their intentions are the best, and that they are not free of totalitarian tendencies, which can lead at times to excessive and even abhorrent oppression of individuals. Zionist utopias have not escaped this flaw.}}
::Lastly, these quotes are also not claiming that "as few Arabs" was not desired by the movement. ] (]) 05:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tq2|I don't have a copy of that book of Gorny's, but here is a relevant quote from his 87 book in the context of discussing the Zionist conception of the Arab question:<br/> "It was generally accepted among Zionists that the eventual solution, whether a Jewish state in all of Palestine, partition, or an international protectorate, would have to be imposed on the Arabs by force, because of their obduracy, which precluded negotiations and compromise for the foreseeable future.<br/>When the war ended, and the full truth became evident, the Zionists clung to what remained of their political expectations: a Jewish state in a , divided Palestine."}}
:::The sentence preceding this quote is {{tq|"When the war ended, and the full truth became evident, the Zionists clung to what remained of their political expectations: a Jewish state in a , divided Palestine."}}, that is the quote describes the Zionist attitude at specific point int time, after WWII.<br/>&nbsp;
:::{{tq2|Lastly, these quotes are also not claiming that "as few Arabs" was not desired by the movement.}}
:::The first quote talks about coexistence and cooperation and the last one talks about doubling of Arab population - the exact opposite "as few Arabs as possible".<br/>&nbsp; ] (]) 10:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::{{tq2|The first quote talks about coexistence and cooperation and the last one talks about doubling of Arab population - the exact opposite "as few Arabs as possible".}}
::::That's definitely not the same as wanting the opposite of "as few Arabs as possible". Did the Zionists accept an Arab minority, of course, did they want it? Also no. They specifically wanted as few as possible, as shown by the long list of quotes cited by the claim in the article. ] (]) 02:52, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Only 2 of the sources - Slater and Shlaim - talk about "wanting" as few Arabs as possible.
:::::To that we can add Stanislawski that uses the word "desire" and Segev, who talks about "dream". ] (]) 12:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
{{od}}
Thanks. I'm not sure any of the sources give different temporalities for the two; they say the temporality, they say the actor/subject, and then they say one, two, or three out of "more land/many Jews/few Arabs". Here's a table:
{| class="wikitable sortable" {| class="wikitable sortable"
! Source !! time !! who !! "as much land" !! "as many Jews" !! "as few Arabs"
|+
!Encyclopedia name and details
!Editor name
!Article author name
!Zionism described as colonial/colonization movement in first paragraph? If yes, how?
!Zionism described as colonial/colonization movement in rest of lead section<ref>If the article is divided to section by sub-headers then the lead is the first section. Otherwise the lead is the first 4 paragraphs (which is the recommended maximum length of leads in Misplaced Pages, and the actual length of the current Zionism article lead in Misplaced Pages).</ref>? If yes, how?
|- |-
| Manna 2022 || doesn't specify || "The Zionists", "Zionists of all inclinations", "the Zionist leadership" || "more land in the hands of the settlers" || || "as few Arabs as possible", "the smallest possible number of Palestinians", "fewer Arabs in the country"
|{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpa0000unse/page/454/mode/2up |title=Encyclopedia of the Palestinians |date=2000 |publisher=] |isbn= |editor-last= |editor-first= |editor-link= |page=454 |chapter= |chapter-url=}}
|]
|
|no
|no
|- |-
| Khalidi 2020 || "from its inception" || "political Zionism" || "seizures of land", "theft of Palestinian land and property" || "a substantial Jewish majority" || "systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas"
|{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/continuumpolitic0000unse/page/928/mode/2up |title=The continuum political encyclopedia of the Middle East |date=2002 |publisher=] |isbn= |edition=2nd}} p. 928
|]
|]
|no
|no
|- |-
| Slater 2020 || "From the outset of the Zionist movement ... During every round of the national conflict over Palestine" || "the Zionists", "Zionism", "The Zionist movement in general", "all the major leaders" || "as much of Palestine as was feasible", "a Jewish state in all of 'Palestine'", "appropriate additional territory" || "a large Jewish majority" || "as few Arabs as possible"
|.<ref name=":0">Find it among the sources in Encyclopedia.com link</ref> (2nd ed.). ]. 2004. Vol. 4. p. 2431
|]
|];
|no
|no
|- |-
| Segev 2019 || "from the start" || "the Zionist dream" || "maximum territory" || || "minimum Arabs"
|.<ref name=":0" /> (2nd ed.). ]. 2004.
|]
|]
|no
|no
|- |-
| Cohen 2017 || "for years" || "many ", "Zionist leaders and activists" || || || "without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible"
|Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. ]. 2004. Vol 2. p. 483
|-
|]
| Lustick & Berkman 2017 || doesn't specify || "Zionism", "Ben-Gurion" || "on both sides of the Jordan River" || "not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" || "an Arab minority in Palestine"
|]
|-
|no<ref>Text of first paragraph:
| Stanislawski 2017 || 1948 || "the Israeli desire" || || || "as few Arabs as possible"
|-
| Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014 || "an inherent component ... since the founding of the Zionist movement" || "the Zionist movement", "the Zionist project", "the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion" || || || "getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... demographic elimination"
|-
| Engel 2013 || "From the outset" || "most Zionists", "Zionist imaginations", "Zionism", "the ZO", "Israel", "the state", "their leaders", "the state’s leaders", "the bulk of the Zionist leadership", "Israel’s leaders", "Haganah" || "expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive", "in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights", "more expansive borders" || "increase the Jewish population of Palestine", "‘Jewish’ ... by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants", "as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible" || "the smallest possible minorities", "non-Jews ... numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal"
|-
| Masalha 2012 || "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period" || "the Zionist Yishuv" || "maximum land" || || "minimum Arabs"
|-
| Lentin 2010 || "always" || "the Zionist leadership" || "increase the Jewish space" || || "dispossess the Palestinians"
|-
| Shlaim 2009 || "from the earliest days to the present" || "most Zionist leaders" || "the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine" || || "with as few Arabs inside it as possible"
|-
| Pappe 2006 || "the core of Zionism" || "Zionism" || "as much of Palestine as possible" || || "with as few Palestinians as possible"
|-
| Morris 2004 || "inherent ... from the start of the enterprise" (Morris 2002: "as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century") || "Zionist ideology", "Zionist praxis" || Morris 2001: "Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement" || "an overwhelming Jewish majority", "massive Jewish immigration" || "massive displacement of Arabs", "instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe"
|}
I agree this could be expanded with more nuance in the body; it already is, but could of course be further expanded. ] (]) 22:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:I agree with some of your points here. I am confused about some of these readings though.
:'''First sources''':
:Are you sure that you have not reversed the intended "exception" and "rule" in the Manna p. 2 quote? I think more context is needed there about the "non-expulsion" in northern Palestine. I don't see how the other Manna quotes contradict the current wording in the article.
:—
:I also don't understand why Stanislawski 2017 p. 65 is supposed to help your argument. It's hard to see how that characterization of Israeli desires for the future state can be read to apply only to the "heat of the moment" of 1948.
:—
:For the sources supporting that "as few Arabs as possible" arose late in the pre-1948 period, what change in the wording of the article do these warrant? After all, if you're conceding that this was policy after sometime around then, that would mean it was policy from the beginning of the existence of the State of Israel.
:'''New sources''':
:I had thought that the sentence in the lede was saying Zionists wanted as small an Arab minority as possible in whatever territory the state was to encompass. So Heller 2006, talking about "partitioning" the former mandate into a Jewish part and an Arab part, doesn't contradict that. ] &#124; ] 20:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq2|For the sources supporting that "as few Arabs as possible" arose late in the pre-1948 period, what change in the wording of the article do these warrant? After all, if you're conceding that this was policy after sometime around then, that would mean it was policy from the beginning of the existence of the State of Israel.}}
::The lead section, and the opening paragraph, in particular, should provide a general description of the Zionism ideology as a whole, and not just its realization during a particular period. And since the sentence in question is formulated in past tense and appears immediately before "''Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948''...", it is implied that this is supposed to be a general description of the core goals of Zionism since its inception and till 1948.
::However, if those ideas became mainstream only towards the end of the pre-1948 period, this means that framing is as a general characteristic of the Zionism throughout that period would be inaccurate and misleading.
::I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make.
::{{tq2|I had thought that the sentence in the lede was saying Zionists wanted as small an Arab minority as possible in whatever territory the state was to encompass. So Heller 2006, talking about "partitioning" the former mandate into a Jewish part and an Arab part, doesn't contradict that.}}
::Heller makes several important points:
::1) First, he makes a critical distinction between ‘operative ideology’ and ‘fundamental ideology’, and argues that that both transfer and partition were expressions of the former. And the lead should be focused on the fundamental ideology, described by Heller as {{tq|"the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas"}}, and the discussion of operative ideology, that is the specific ways in which those "final goals and grand vistas" were realized in practice, should be deferred to the body.
::2) Second, he -as well as several other sources I quoted above - disputes the framing of "transfer" (which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim) as the focus of Zionist decision making. Which means that even as "operative ideology" the transfer thinking wasn't as prominent in his view, as Morris and several other authors currently quoted in the article, claim it to be. So, again, while this is something that could be discussed in the body, the opening paragraphs is not the right place for this discussion. ] (]) 21:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
{{od}} {{u|Levivich}}, since the discussed sentence is a synthesis of numerous statements dispersed across the cited sources, putting partial quotes in the table is misleading, because this obscures the different contexts to which those quotes belong - for example, several quoted temporal statements refer to the "as much land" part, but not to the "as few Arabs" part etc.


In order to get a clear understanding of what the sources are REALLY saying, one needs to look at the full quotes - I've prepared a table that does exactly that, while focusing on the two more controversial claims - "as many Jews" and "as few Arabs".
An international movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, formally founded in1987 although initiated in the 1880s. The word which was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum. is derived from "Zion," one of hills of ancient Jerusalem, in the Bible sometimes applied to Jerusalem itself. </ref>

|no
In the second part of the table I also put several additional sources that offer a significantly different perspective on those claims:
{{anchor|SourcesTable}}
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" width="10%" | Source
! scope="col" width="45%" | full quote
! scope="col" width="15%" | time
! scope="col" width="15%" | "as many Jews"
! scope="col" width="15%" | "as few Arabs"
|- |-
| Manna 2022 || P.2; ” It is clear that “non-expulsion” in northern Palestine was not arbitrary, but was the result of high-level orders and policy on the part of the Israeli leadership. Saying this does not contradict ''the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state'', since the exception due to special reasons and circumstances proves the rule.”
|Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. ]. 2004. p. 459
|]
|]
|no<ref>Text of the first paragraph:


P.4 “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''.”
Zionism, in its modern form, developed from a late nineteenth-century belief in the need to establish an autonomous Jewish homeland in Palestine. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian journalist who lived in Vienna, was eventually persuaded by the events of the Dreyfus case in France and the "pogroms" (i.e. the organized massacre of Jews in Russia) to conclude in his book Der Judenstaat that the only way the Jewish people could practice their religion and culture in safety was by having their own nation-state. In 1897, at the First World Zionist Congress in Basel, Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) insisted that this had to be re-created in Palestine, even though there had been no significant Jewish settlement there after the conquest of Jerusalem in CE 70.</ref>

|no
p. 33 "To spur Palestinians to leave their cities and villages was an objective that the Jewish side implemented as part of the Zionist operation to uproot and occupy. ''The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers''"
|| 1947-1948 || not mentioned
|| {{center|{{tick}} }}
|- |-
| Khalidi 2020 || p. 75:
|Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture. Routledge. 2005. Vol 2. p. 983
"The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium—a majority Arab country—into a new state that had '''a substantial Jewish majority'''. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized '''during the war'''; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve '''a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception'''. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land."
|
|
|
* "from its inception" refers to the goal of achieving Jewish majority
|no<ref>Text of first paragraph:
* "ethnic cleansing" refers to 1948
|{{center|{{cross}} }}


the goal is formulated as "(substantial) Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"
The warm affection and concern that Jews diaspora feel for the State of Israel is commonly called Zionism. Similarly, for the Jews living Israel, the term connotes the bond that links to Jewry abroad. The great majority of Jews today experience Zionism in this sense, as an essential ingredient of being Jewish. For the majority in Israel and the diaspora who are not orthodox, Jewish identity is in large part formed by the belief that the state of Israel is the Jewish state, in the sense of belonging to the Jewish people.</ref>
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|no
no mention of "as few Arabs" (deducing it from "ethnic cleansing" is SYNTH)
|- |-
| Slater 2020 || p. 49
| (2nd ed.)<ref name=":0" />. Gale. 2005. Vol 15.
"There were three arguments for the moral acceptability of some form of transfer. The main one—certainly for the Zionists but not only for them—was the alleged necessity of establishing a secure and stable Jewish state in as much of Palestine as was feasible, which was understood to require '''a large Jewish majority'''."),
|Lindsay Jones
p. 81 ("From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state")
|]
| From the outset of the Zionist movement
|no
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|no
the goal is formulated as "large Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"
|{{center|{{tick}} }}
|- |-
| Segev 2019 || p. 418, "the Zionist dream from the start—maximum territory, minimum Arabs"; || "from the start" ||not mentioned
|.<ref name=":0" /> Vol. 5. Gale. 2006. p. 2518
|{{center|{{tick}} }}
|]; ]
|]
|no
|no
|- |-
| Cohen 2017 || P. 75: “Some historians, such as Ilan Pappé (2006) and Nur Masalha (1992), claim that the Zionist movement from the very beginning sought to expel Arabs from the Jewish national homeland, and that in 1948 the Jewish military forces followed an existing plan to implement this goal. One source that Pappé (2006) uses to support this argument in his book is a widespread survey of the Arab villages undertaken by the Haganah’s intelligence services between the end of the 1930s and the eve of the 1948 war. '''This does not, in my opinion, constitute an irrefutable evidence base,''' as armies are known to prepare contingency plans for worst-case scenarios without intending to implement them unless forced to do so. I would argue that the Zionist leadership had '''considered several possible scenarios''' and that an all-out war was only one of them."
|{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/europesince1914e0005unse/page/2816/mode/2up |title=Europe since 1914 : encyclopedia of the age of war and reconstruction |date=2006 |publisher=] |isbn= |volume=5 |page=2816}}
P. 77: “In my view, it would not be unrealistic to deduce that the Zionist leadership prepared itself – among other options – for a peaceful implementation of the partition resolution and for the '''existence of a significant Arab minority in the Jewish state'''. Moreover, in such a scenario, there were elements within the Jewish leadership who pushed toward '''improving Arab conditions and Arab– Jewish relations in the new state'''. Such an analysis would become even more plausible if we consider a parallel committee that was established by the Yishuv leadership to deal with the Jewish settlements situated in areas designated to be incorporated into the Arab state. This view should not come as a surprise, as it goes hand in hand with what remained official Zionist policy for years. In 1943, i.e., after the Jewish Agency had adopted the idea of a Jewish state as an urgent political demand, Ben-Gurion said that the Zionist aspiration was to reach '''a Jewish majority''' in the Land of Israel in the shortest period possible."
|]; ]

|]
p. 78 "One should bear in mind, though, that the democratic, equality-oriented, inclusive position was not the only one considered by Zionist activists. As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years. However, in the post–World War II political context, the '''Zionist leadership was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state''' and its declared position was that it would enjoy civil equality, collective rights, and the allocation of resources as outlined by the UN Partition Plan"
|no
|"from the very beginning" and "for years" are not Cohen's own claims, but are attributed to Pappe/Masalha/Morris, and most of the article is dedicated to critically assessing their claims
|no
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
the goal is formulated as "Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"
|{{center|{{hmmm}} }}
Cohen disputes Pappe/Masalha claims about existing plan to expel. He does recognize the fact the having a large Arab minority was not "ideal', as far as Zionist leadership was concerned, but at the same time points out preparations for existence of such large minority.
|- |-
| Lustick & Berkman 2017 || pp. 47–48, "As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). ''Ipso facto'', this meant Zionism's success would produce an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions."; || early 1930s || {{center|{{cross}} }}
| (2nd ed.)<ref name=":0" /> Vol 21. Gale. 2006. p. 539
the goal is formulated as majority "numbering millions", not "as many Jews as possible"
|]
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|Numerous scholars
"Arab minority", not "as few Arabs as possible"
|no
|no
|- |-
| Stanislawski 2017 || p. 65, "The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony." || 1948 || not mentioned
|{{Cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopedia-of-race-and-racism-volume-1/Encyclopedia%20of%20Race%20And%20Racism%20-%20Volume%203/page/239/mode/2up |title=Encyclopedia of Race And Racism |date=2008 |publisher=] |edition=1st |volume=3 |page=240 |chapter= |chapter-url=}}
|{{center|{{tick}} }}
|]
|]
|no
|no
|- |-
| Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014 || p. 6, ""It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement—certainly to the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion, that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible,³³”... ''(33. Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.)'' ...
|''.'' (2nd ed.)<ref name=":0" /><ref>Don't confuse with the 1st edition of ] (also in Encyclopedia.com) that was published in 1968, and therefore not included here.</ref> Gale. 2008.
Following Wolfe, we argue that the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement.";
|]
| not specified
|]
("inherent component" doesn't provide a clear indication regarding temporality)
|no<ref>The word appears, but doesn't seem to refer to Zionism, but rather to its environment: "Since its inception in the nineteenth century, Zionism has been an ideologically multifaceted and internally contentious movement, and its fortunes have changed in complex relation with European anti-Semitism and with colonialism beyond Europe’s borders."</ref>
| not mentioned
|no
|{{center|{{tick}} }}{{center|{{hmmm}} }}
the authors quote Pappe, hence in context of this claim should be viewed as tertiary source
|- |-
| Engel 2013 || p. 96 "From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common desire to '''increase the Jewish population of Palestine''' ..."),
|. ]. 2009.
p. 138 "To be sure, '''until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim'''; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But '''in 1937''' the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ '''in 1948''': non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal…")
|]
| Explicitly considers two distinct periods - before and after the Peel Commission (1937)
|
| {{center|{{cross}} }} Before the Peel Commission the goal was "any majority, no matter how slim".
|no
<br/>
|?
{{center|{{tick}} }}By 1948 - "virtually all of its inhabitants"
not freely available
| {{center|{{cross}} }}Before the Peel Commission the goal was just minority
<br/>
{{center|{{tick}} }} The Peel Commission proposed "smallest possible minorities"
<br/>
{{center|{{tick}} }} 1948 - " small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal"
|- |-
| Masalha 2012 || p. 38, "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period the demographic and land policies of the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine continued to evolve. But its demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs' || "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period" || not mentioned
|Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. ] 2010. Vol 3. p. 1660.
|"minimum Arabs"{{center|{{tick}} }}
|]
|
|no<ref>Text of first paragraph:

From its emergence as a coherent political project at the very end of the 19th century, Zionism sought to unify and mobilize Jews around a nationalistic program whose chief goal was the creation in Palestine of an independent Jewish state in which most of the world's Jews would eventually settle. Like other nationalist movements, however, Zionism has never been monolithic but has encompassed a range of distinct political and ideological currents and factions that have often disagreed, sometimes bitterly, over how to pursue Zionism's aims; the social, economic, and cultural character of the projected Jewish state; relations with Palestine's indigenous Arab population; and much else.</ref>
|yes, but attributed: "Palestinians have regarded Zionism as essentially a colonial-settler enterprise"
|- |-
| Lentin 2010 || p. 7, "'the Zionist leadership was always determined to increase the Jewish space ... Both land purchases in and around the villages, and military preparations, were all designed to dispossess the Palestinians from the area of the future Jewish state' (Pappe 2008: 94)."; || "always" || not mentioned
|'','' 6th ed. Columbia University Press. 2010
|{{center|{{tick}} }}{{center|{{hmmm}} }}
|
the author is not a historian, but a sociologist and the claims are direct quotes from Pappe, hence in context of this claim should be viewed as tertiary source
|
|no
|no
|- |-
| Shlaim 2009 || p. 56, "That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question."; || || not mentioned
|]. ]. 2011. p. 2765
|{{center|{{tick}} }}
|]
|]
|no
|no
|- |-
| Pappe 2006 || p. 250: “Ehud Olmert, now prime minister, knows that if Israel decides to stay in the Occupied Territories and its inhabitants become officially part of Israel’s population, Palestinians will outnumber Jews within fifteen years. Thus he has opted for what he calls hitkansut, Hebrew for ‘convergence’ or, better, ‘ingathering’, a policy that aims at annexing large parts of the West Bank, but at the same time leaves several populous Palestinian areas outside direct Israeli control. In other words, hitkansut is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.” || colspan="3" | {{center|{{cross}} }}
|. SAGE. 2011. Vol 5. p. 1799
talks about “Realignment plan” promoted by Ehud Olmert in 2006 - '''not relevant to the discussion of the pre-1948 period'''
|]
|
|no
|no
|- |-
| Morris 2004 || p. 588, "But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority"
|{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wJB2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1835 |title=Encyclopedia of Global Studies |last2= |first2= |date=2012 |publisher=] |isbn= |volume=4 |pages=1835 |language=en}}
p. 44: “Hence, if during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional, '''by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea began to emerge among the movement’s leaders'''. Each major bout of Arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution.”
|]; ]

|
p. 59: “The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives: '''In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence''' and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;”
|no

|no
| "inherent" or "underlying thrust"≠ explicit "want", therefore temporality of "want" is not defined in the currently used quote

On the other hand, two additional quotes from p. 44 and p. 59 point to '''early 1930s''' as the time when such explicit near-consensual "want" began to form
| {{center|{{cross}} }}
the goal is formulated as "overwhelming Jewish majority", not "as many Jews as possible"
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
- "piecemeal eviction" or "displacement" ≠ "as few Arabs as possible" - claiming they are equivalent would be SYNTH.
|- |-
| colspan="5" |'''<big>Additional sources</big>'''
|{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Sionisme |url=https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/sionisme/92074 |access-date= |website=Larousse |language=fr|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220005922/https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/sionisme/92074|archive-date=2013-12-20|date=2012}}
|
|
|no
|no
|- |-
|
|{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofra0003unse_l3a0/page/232/mode/2up |title=Encyclopedia of race and racism |date=2013 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-02-866195-7 |edition=2nd |volume=3 |page=233}}
|p. 351 " '''the idea of transfer was never adopted as part of the Zionist movement's platform''', nor as part of the programme or platform of any of the main Zionist parties, not in the nineteenth century and not in the twentieth century. And, in general, the Zionist leaders looked to '''massive Jewish immigration,''' primarily from Russia and Europe, '''as the means of establishing and then assuring a Jewish majority''' in Palestine or whatever part of it was to be earmarked for Jewish statehood.
|]
|until 1929
|
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|no
the goal is formulated as "a Jewish majority"
|no
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
Jewish majority was expected to be established through massive Jewish immigration, not "transfer"
|- |-
|
|''.'' Wiley. 2013.
|p. 232: “...the idea of a population transfer '''was never official Zionist policy'''. Ben Gurion emphatically rejected it, saying that even if the Jews were given the right to evict the Arabs they would not make use of it. '''Most thought at that time that there would be sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs''' following the industrialisation of the country and the introduction of intensive methods of agriculture…”
|]
|pre-WWI period
|
|no |
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|?
mainstream rejection of transfer proposals
not freely available

"sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs"
|- |-
|
|. SAGE. 2013. p. 869
|p. 191: “The extent to which the Zionists advanced the idea of population transfers during World War II is much disputed in the secondary literature. Palestinian authors such as Nur Masalha and advocates of “new history” in Israel have supported the argument that the Zionists had a master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from the start. '''There is little evidence to support this claim'''.”
|]
|WWII
|]
|no |
|{{center|{{hmmm}} }}
|no
This source casts doubt on the claims about "master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine", which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim

|- |-
|
|{{Citation |last= |first= |title=Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion |date=2014 |work= |editor-last= |editor-first= |url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_764 |access-date= |place= |publisher=] |language=en |doi= 10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_764|isbn=|page=1960|chapter=|chapter-url=|volume=}}
|p. 573: “In spite of its realistic base we see a two-fold weakness in Morris’s thesis. First, it goes back to Herzl, the founding father of political Zionism, as the supposed creator of the idea of transfer. In reality, like everybody else in European politics in his day, Herzl was ignorant of the existence of Arab nationalism. '''At one point he noted briefly that transfer of the poor native population was possible for economic reasons, only to reject it a little later'''…"
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P. 574-575: “...one must conclude that it was the partition plan that was at the top on the Zionist agenda, and not transfer, even though both plans were inspired by the Peel Commission…
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‘The '''fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas''' in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions’. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of ‘operative ideology’ '''not of ‘fundamental ideology’'''. Arab ethnic cleansing was therefore not more than '''an option of last resort in the event of war'''."
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not in first 2 paragraphs, and these are the only ones freely available online.
P. 584 “Morris’s '''concept of transfer of the Arabs as the focus of Zionist decision making has no basis in political reality'''. “
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Heller disputes the framing of "transfer" (which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim) as one of Zionist core goals

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|. Wiley. 2014
|pp. 179-180 “The commission investigated the possibility of voluntary populations and land exchanges and the prospects of finding solutions for those who would be moved and reached the conclusion that it is "impossible to assume that the minority problem will be solved by a voluntary transfer of population." Incidentally, the commission also concluded that '''the Jews opposed forced transfer'''. Transfer as a concrete political possibility never exceeded the bounds of the 1937 royal commission report - it was born and buried there. It was not even mentioned in the United Nations partition plan of 1947. '''Had transfer not been included in the Peel commission report, it would not have been placed on the political agenda of the Zionist movement, even though the idea itself had been mentioned occasionally in the past'''.”
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According to Galnor, transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership either before Peel Commission's proposal or after it, and it wasn't an inherent part of mainstream Zionist thinking.
not freely available

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|. Wiley. 2015.
|p. 5: “...the recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British mandate and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record, and one that is completely at odds with the anti-Israel caricature that is so often the order of the day. They reveal … that '''the claim of premeditated dispossession is not only baseless but the inverse of the truth'''; and that far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the UN partition resolution. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place, for the simple reason that '''the Zionist movement was amenable both to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state''' on an equal footing, and to the two-state solution, raised for the first time in 1937 by a British commission of inquiry and reiterated by the partition resolution.”
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|yes |
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"the Zionist movement promoted the colonization of Palestine"
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
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"the Zionist movement was amenable ...to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state "
not freely available

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|. Routledgde. 2016.
|p. 6: “Therefore, national values such as return to the soil, Jewish labor, the renaissance of Hebrew culture, and the '''aspiration to a Jewish majority''' became '''political fundamentals in Zionism'''...
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Zionist policy from Herzl’s time to the establishment of the State of Israel had three dimensions…
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The second dimension, the intercommunal, included Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine in all their senses. In an attempt to work out joint arrangements, if only partial and provisional, that would allow them to coexist with the Arab population of the country, '''the Zionists aspired to cooperation''' in municipal government, an arrangement for relations between Jewish and Arab labor organizations, general agrarian reform, and other matters.
|no

|?
The third dimension was reflected in the Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of '''fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs''', who were embroiled in struggle for the same piece of land. By the very fact of having such plans, the movement signaled its intention to replace side-by-side existence with '''coexistence'''."
not freely available
p. 102: “In his background remarks to the proposal, Jabotinsky based himself solely on examples of federative regimes that had passed the test of political durability and met human and social moral standards. He disputed the argument that the Arabs of Palestine would become a nationally oppressed group after they became '''a minority of two million amid five million Jews, as his proposal envisaged'''.” (description of Jabotinsky’s 1940 constitution proposal)
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|{{center|{{cross}} }}
"aspiration to a Jewish majority"
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"the Zionists aspired to '''cooperation'''"
"Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of '''fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs"'''

constitution proposal envisioning two million Arabs in future state - '''double their number in 1940,''' when the proposal was written

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|. ]. 2018
|p. 497: "Jabotinsky’s commitment to minority rights in Europe also shaped his outlook on the future of Palestine. From 1917 until the outbreak of the Second World War, Jabotinsky envisioned '''a majority Jewish state in Palestine with elaborate guarantees for the protection of the Arab minority'''. This vision was premised on a major moral leap that characterized many Zionist leaders – conceiving of Palestine’s Arab majority as a '''future minority subject to minority protections'''"
|]
p. 506 "...Jabotinsky also rejected the plan on moral grounds, '''fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine'''. Jabotinsky underscored this point in several letters and speeches from 1937..."
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p. 508 "Zionist leaders had mocked Zangwill’s proposal for the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine during the First World War"
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|Jabotinsky's position until the outbreak of WWII
|-
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|{{Cite book |url= |title=Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection |date=2019 |publisher=] |isbn= |volume=4 |page=1376}}
"a majority Jewish state"
|]
|{{center|{{cross}} }}
|Amy Blackwell
"elaborate guarantees for the protection of the Arab minority"
|no<ref>Text of first paragraph:

"fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine'''"'''

"mocked Zangwill’s proposal for the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine"


Zionism holds that Jews constitute a people and a nation. As a political movement, it supports the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. Zionism began in the late 19th century, arising out of the general movement of nationalism and increased anti-Semitism. It soon became a well-organized and well-funded settlement movement focused on Palestine, which many Jews believe was the ancient homeland granted them by God. Zionism eventually contributed directly to the formation of the State of Israel and continued to influence the politics of Israeli Jews for the rest of the 20th century.</ref>
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|{{cite web |title=Zionism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240628162331/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism |archive-date=June 28, 2024 |access-date= |website=Britannica}} Last Updated: Jun 30, 2024
|p. 67 "There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism. Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to '''clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project'''—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation. Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, '''open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?'''..."
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|no
points out that the narrative of "as few Arabs as possible" is just one side of the scholarly debate about Zionism and is far from being a consensus
|no

|} |}
Comments:
# The encyclopedias are ordered by publication date of the edition that is used. This is of course not an exhaustive list of all possibly relevant encyclopedias in the 21st century. There were encyclopedias that were not accessible to me at all, and its very likely there are others that I missed entirely in my searches. However I believe this presents a significant portion, maybe even the majority of relevant encyclopedias that have an article about Zionism. So I think it's unlikely that the results would change significantly when more encyclopedias are found (and anyone is of course free to look for more).
# I provided links to most of the sources. There were a few that I found offline in my library. For these I supplied the text of the first paragraph in the footnotes. Images can be sent on demand.
#With regard to opening defining sentence (see ]) specifically it might be useful to also look at reputable dictionaries, which are the experts in defining subjects in one sentence. Looking at 6 of the leading online dictionaries (] ) we find that none of them mentions colonization/colonialism in its definition of Zionism.] (]) 17:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


As can be seen from the table, several of the existing sources '''don't support''' the "as many Jews, as few Arabs as possible" framing, and some of them support it only as '''description of a particular period''', rather than a core Zionist goal throughout the pre-state period.
* Maybe sign your work? I will certainly have a look at this but you should understand the ] has independent notability so at a minimum, it is a significant view and therefore lead worthy, although precisely where in the lead could be a subject for discussion.] (]) 17:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*:The fact that we have an article of the form "X as Y" doesn't necessarily mean that the article on X should mention Y in the lead section. For example the idea that Allah was a lunar deity in pre-Muslim times is deemed sufficiently notable to have an article ], yet it is not mentioned in the lead section of the article on ]. ] (]) 18:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*::That's for the editors there to sort out, I am interested in this article right here. ] (]) 18:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*:::Is there any policy that says that if we have an article of the form "X as Y" then the article on X must mention Y in the lead section? ] (]) 18:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*::::There is a policy that says "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies" in the ]. ] requires article coverage of "significant viewpoints" and ] determines how much of what goes where. ] (]) 18:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*:::::And this is my suggestion (based on policy recommendation) how to try asses what are deemed as important points for the lead. ] (]) 19:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*::Erm, because that's a hoax! ] (]) 18:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


And the additional sources either dispute the "as few Arabs" part entirely, or at least acknowledge that there is no scholarly consensus about it.
:Thanks for putting this together. I think it's a worthwhile approach but it needs some refinement. For one thing, 10+ years is old. For another, I don't think this collection is really representative of the encyclopedias we want to be looking at. For example: Encyclopedia of the First World War? That's not really on topic. And forget Britannica altogether (and dictionaries). For another thing, I'm not sure these are entirely accurate. Wiley's ''Encyclopedia of Political Thought'' entry does indeed mention colonialism (see ] link: ). Where are the Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, etc., encyclopedias? The ''Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy'' encyclopedia entry, to take one example, mentions colonialism in the first paragraph: . Cambridge's ''History of Socialism'', Volume II, has an entry called "". Cambridge's ''History of Judaism'' encyclopedia has an entry on "" that talks about colonialism. I just quickly searched the Cambridge TWL collection to find these. I'm ''sure'' Oxford and Harvard and so on all have encyclopedias that cover Zionism. Finally, I don't think the first paragraph of encyclopedia articles is in any way analogous to the first paragraph of a Misplaced Pages article. What Misplaced Pages calls its "lead" is essentially the length of an ''entire'' encyclopedia entry in a print encyclopedia. We should see if it's mentioned anywhere in these encyclopedia entries, and yes look at how prominently and what's attributed vs. said in the publication's voice, but not cut it off at "first paragraph." And we should really be focusing on last 5-10 years, there's plenty to look at within that time frame. Tertiary sources are always going to lag behind secondary sources, but they can still provide useful information about ]/]. ] (]) 17:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
] (]) 10:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:: I share Levivich's concerns, especially about dictionaries and more generally, well, for lack of a better term, selection effects. I have very slow internet at the moment (our dsl craps out during heatwaves) so don't have the time to go through all of these that are online. But I managed to click through on the first offering, ''Encyclopedia of the Palestinians.'' While it's true that the first 95 word paragraph does not mention colonialism, the second graph (without using the word "colonialism") describes very clearly a colonial project.] (]) 18:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
:::But it doesn't use the word "colonialism" so you argument here is WP:SYNTH ] (]) 18:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
::::It's not synth since other more recent sources do in fact use this term. ] (]) 18:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::First thanks for pointing me to ] I didn't know we had a free access to Wiley online and other resources. That's great. I'll explore those in the next few days. I disagree with most of the arguments you raised, but I don't have time to write at length. I'll just comment on your claim that "What Misplaced Pages calls its lead is essentially the length of an ''entire'' encyclopedia entry in a print encyclopedia". That's absolutely untrue for many (if not most) of the Encyclopedias in this list. Also I used 2 cut offs, at 1 paragraphs and at 4 paragraphs (which is the size of the lead here). ] (]) 18:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
::@] Now I have some time to expand a little about the points I disagree with. First, the date cutoff you wish to set now seems a bit like you are moving the goal posts, after you had in previous discussions agreed to any 21st century book. Second, you say that "Encyclopedia of the First World War" is not relevant to Zionism, although this was the war that moved Palestine from the hands of a largely anti-Zionist empire to the the hands of a largely pro-Zionist empire, and thus enabled the Balfour declaration etc. And then you bring yourself Cambridge's ''History of Socialism'' as if this is more relevant to Zionism than WW1. Third, as I already noted, I think that comparing the lead-section/4-first-paragraphs of these encyclopedias to the lead section in Misplaced Pages is very valid.
::I do agree that there is a value in looking for "colonialism" etc. in the rest of the articles beyond the lead section. Though it won't be directly related to the specific question we discuss here (i.e. what to include in the lead), it can be helpful in assessing the wider question of how common is this view. So I'll add another column to the table. I'll also add a count of the words in each lead and article (or estimation where there is no electronic text) since it seems you have completely wrong ideas on this.
::I will also continue on adding sources from the TWL which you revealed to me, and maybe I'll find more elsewhere. I will work on it on my sandbox and not here, because editing an existing table in source mode is a typing nightmare for me. I'll import that table back here when finished. Maybe to a Round 5 section. However since I have some commitments in real life I'll take a wikipedia break until the weekend, which means the updated table will be ready only sometime next week. ] (]) 13:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::You want to talk about arbitrary cut-offs, you're advocating for looking at the first four paragraphs of encyclopedia articles on the basis that Misplaced Pages leads are four paragraphs long. :-D I mean that's just stupid. Let's drop the "four paragraphs" criteria.
:::Yes, I argue for 21st-century, in response to people bringing 20th-century. But really, I generally argue for last-5-years in this topic area.
:::Here are some (not all) of the books published in the 2020s (last 4.5 years) with the word "Zionism" in their titles:
:::# {{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Netta |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5PnvEAAAQBAJ |title=New Under the Sun: Early Zionist Encounters with the Climate in Palestine |date=2024 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-39723-1 |language=en}}
:::# {{cite book |last=Fleisch |first=Eric |title=Checkbook Zionism: Philanthropy and Power in the Israel-Diaspora Relationship |date=2024 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.36019/9781978819986/html |publisher=Rutgers University Press |language=en |doi=10.36019/9781978819986 |isbn=978-1-9788-1998-6}}
:::# {{Cite book |last1=Inbari |first1=Motti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=21nbEAAAQBAJ |title=Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Opinion on Israel |last2=Bumin |first2=Kirill |date=2024 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-764930-5 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Etkes |first=Immanuel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E2_REAAAQBAJ |title=The Invention of a Tradition: The Messianic Zionism of the Gaon of Vilna |date=2023 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-1-5036-3709-2 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Forriol |first=Mari Carmen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-1LEEAAAQBAJ |title=Development of the Roadmap of Political Zionism in the State of Israel |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-5275-1260-3 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Hever |first=Hannan |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv30dxxs8 |title=Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism |date=2023 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctv30dxxs8 |isbn=978-1-5128-2508-4}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Penslar |first=Derek J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KJu-EAAAQBAJ |title=Zionism: An Emotional State |date=2023 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-7611-4 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Stanislawski |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TU3hEAAAQBAJ |title=Zionism and the Fin de Siecle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky |date=2023 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-93575-4 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Blackmer |first=Corinne E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXd7EAAAQBAJ |title=Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism |date=2022 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-5000-3 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Knorr |first=Brooke |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/b22935 |title=American Biblical Archaeology and Zionism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/b22935 |isbn=978-1-003-29629-4}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Peretz |first=Dekel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ToVaEAAAQBAJ |title=Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine |date=2022 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-11-072643-5 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Baji |first=Tomohito |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mw8jEAAAQBAJ |title=The International Thought of Alfred Zimmern: Classicism, Zionism and the Shadow of Commonwealth |date=2021 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-66214-1 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last1=Farmer |first1=Esther |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h3EnEAAAQBAJ |title=A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism |last2=Petchesky |first2=Rosalind Pollack |last3=Sills |first3=Sarah |date=2021 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-931-9 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last1=Halper |first1=Jeff |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1dm8d20 |title=Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State |last2=Naser-Najjab |first2=Nadia |date=2021 |publisher=Pluto Press |isbn=978-0-7453-4339-6 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1dm8d20|jstor=j.ctv1dm8d20 }}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Halperin |first=Liora R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kVw0EAAAQBAJ |title=The Oldest Guard: Forging the Zionist Settler Past |date=2021 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-1-5036-2871-7 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=Donald M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhcaEAAAQBAJ |title=A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century |date=2021 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |isbn=978-0-8308-4698-6 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Reynold |first=Nick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pm5OEAAAQBAJ |title=The 1945–1952 British Government's Opposition to Zionism and the Emergent State of Israel |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-7936-2926-5 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Rich |first=Cynthia Holder |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HCILEQAAQBAJ |title=Christian Zionism in Africa |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-9787-1174-7 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Sizer |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yQ5DEAAAQBAJ |title=Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? |date=2021 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-6667-3150-7 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Tarquini |first=Alessandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LbI2EAAAQBAJ |title=The European Left and the Jewish Question, 1848-1992: Between Zionism and Antisemitism |date=2021 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-56662-3 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Zipperstein |first=Steven E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=djlJEAAAQBAJ |title=Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939-1948 |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-48438-0 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Goldwater |first=Raymond |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QG3lDwAAQBAJ |title=Pioneers of Religious Zionism: Rabbis Alkalai, Kalischer, Mohliver, Reines, Kook and Maimon |date=2020 |publisher=Urim Publications |isbn=978-965-524-343-7 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Landes |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eDbDwAAQBAJ |title=Salem on the Thames: Moral Panic, Anti-Zionism, and the Triumph of Hate Speech at Connecticut College |date=2020 |publisher=Academic Studies PRess |isbn=978-1-64469-370-4 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Levit |first=Daphna |url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Wrestling-with-Zionism/Daphna-Levit/9781623719494 |title=Wrestling with Zionism: Jewish Voices of Dissent |date=2020 |publisher=Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated |isbn=978-1-62371-949-4 |language=en}}
:::# {{Cite book |last=Shoham |first=Hizky |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2175qt0 |title=Carnival in Tel Aviv: Purim and the Celebration of Urban Zionism |date=2020 |publisher=Academic Studies Press |isbn=978-1-64469-328-5 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2175qt0|jstor=j.ctv2175qt0 }}
:::These are not all the books, or even all the ''academic'' books, about Zionism published in the last 4.5 years. The point is: it's a lot of books, just in the last 5 years. So if you read an encyclopedia from 10, 15, 20 years ago, that encyclopedia is going to miss 50-100 or more of the most recent academic ''books'' about Zionism (and hundreds more ''journal articles''). In other words: out of date. That's not true for all topic areas, but in ''this'' topic area -- the I/P conflict, one of the most-studied, most-written-about topics of all topics -- ], like it ''really'' matters, because there is so much being published on this topic, all the time. 10-, 15-, 20-year-old encyclopedia articles are going to be out of date in this topic area. ] (]) 15:37, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::1. No. The cutoff of 4 paragraphs (or other clearly marked lead section if there is such marking, e.g. section titles in the article) is not stupid or arbitrary at all. It is exactly right, because we are after all dealing with the question what should be in the lead section of an encyclopedia article that has 4 paragraphs in the lead! Anyway what is your suggestion? That we have no cutoff at all and give a sentence that appears in the last paragraph of a 100 paragraphs article the same weight as a sentence that appears in the first paragraph? Or should we record for each such appearance the number of the paragraph (or word) it is in and then calculate some sort of average?
::::2. I am fully aware of the deluge of books and journal articles about Zionism and related issues. That's exactly why I suggested using encyclopedias. In order to make assessment of this deluge at least barely manageable. I believe that's also part of the idea behind the Misplaced Pages policy I quoted above. That's why we go to tertiary sources.
::::3. However I would argue that this deluge of books doesn't necessarily adds much new significant historical knowledge. I believe that most of it is repetition of things already discovered in the past, or dealing with minutia, or just political hype. I mean can you point me to some major paradigm-changing discovery that was made regarding the history of Zionism in the last 15 or even 25 years? I mean something that can really change a person view of the question whether Zionism is or isn’t colonialism? ] (]) 17:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Think you are on a sticky wicket here, first off this about the 4 paras is just baloney, you can't compare random tertiaries with WP. Age does matter, that's the whole point of research, new insights and whether those insights make any headway among the scholarly community. Penslar is top drawer, how can one argue against him? Whatever way you cut it, it's a significant view and perhaps controversy as well, means it's in the lead, the only question is where. ] (]) 17:37, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Your sentence "Penslar is top drawer, how can one argue against him?" is quite telling. It seems you are trying to make here an ]. But the truth is Penslar is just one historian out of many, and there are other historians who argue against him. ] (]) 18:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::And none that agree with him? Don't think so. ] (]) 18:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Did I say that? ] (]) 18:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::"One historian out of many"? I guess so, except he's the one who was the inaugural Stanley Lewis Chair of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford, so he's more like "one historian out of very few" who have reached that level. ] (]) 18:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::And yet there are other historians who argue with him. In the humanities we shouldn't believe in papal infallibility. ] (]) 18:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::So far, we've identified ''three'' historians who'd argue with him about whether Zionism was some variety of colonialism. ] (]) 18:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I was about to go off when I saw a notification about this new response of yours. So I would say just that your search methods are apparently not so good... I have now in a few minutes found several more names ], , ]. I let you fill the details as I really have to go. ] (]) 19:52, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::We're now up to six scholars who dispute that Zionism is colonialism--seems like a significant minority viewpoint! Of course, these dissenters also recognize that the view of Zionism as colonialism is so common as to be almost taken for granted, especially in academia. But don't take it from me, take it from Dov Waxman: {{tq2|The most persistent, and perhaps most common, criticism of Zionism is that it is another instance of European colonialism ... Indeed in left-wing circles in Western societies, and especially on university campuses and in academia, it has become not only fashionable, but almost taken for granted, to view Zionism as synonymous with colonialism.|source={{cite book |first=Dov |last=Waxman |authorlink=Dov Waxman |date=2019 |chapter=Was Zionism a form of colonialism? |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OiiPDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT80 |title=The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know |publisher=]}}}} ] (]) 21:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::You forgot the qualifier "in left wing circles"... ] (]) 05:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::While you may wish to shift the goalposts because the scholarship does not support the counter-assertion, no one is obliged to go along with you. Age matters. Source quality matters. Recent, high-quality academic sources beat crusty old general encyclopedias. As for whether there has been a paradigm shift? Ours is not too reason why. Though maybe it's not a what, but a who – say one politician who has made it his mission of the past two decades to ignore the UN, flout international law and expand illegal settlements. Maybe it's just the sheer unsubtly of Israel's colonial ambitions on the West Bank these days that made the scales fall from at least the eyes of subject specialists. ] (]) 17:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::I didn't shift any goal-posts. The discussion where I started this was about whether this issue should be mentioned at the top of the article or not. ] (]) 18:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Please check the publication date of Wolfe's "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native". Yes there have indeed been dramatic changes in how we understand these historical movements, even in the past 20 years. ] (]) 18:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::<small>Jinx! ] (]) 18:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)</small>
:::::{{tqq|I mean can you point me to some major paradigm-changing discovery that was made regarding the history of Zionism in the last 15 or even 25 years?}} Um, two come to mind: (1) '']'' (2006), and (2) same year, ]'s about ], often credited with launching the entire field of settler colonial studies (though Wolfe himself disagreed with that accolade), in which he describes ]. In round 3--yesterday--we discussed how the paradigm has shifted over the last 20 years. These two things are examples of that. ] (]) 18:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::I asked for '''discoveries.''' Not for book names. Can you say what '''significant historical facts''' these 2 books revealed that were not known before 2006? Also even taking your claim at face value that would be an argument for putting the cutoff at 2010 not at 2020. Anyway I really have to take a break until the weekend. So last observation before I sign off. I made a search in TWL for "zionism" & "colonialism" in the last 5 years and got ~2000 results. It is impossible (within a reasonable time) to scan all these articles to assess how many of them support this claim, how many object to it, and how many say that this is not an important question. That's why we need to refer to encyclopedias, whose number is much smaller, to make the problem at least barely manageable.
::::::And now I sign off. Over and out. ] (]) 19:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:::BTW, one of those 25 titles jumped out at me: ]'s book about Zionism published just last year. Sure enough, is called "Zionism as Colonialism." "There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism," Penslar writes. Then he traces the history: "Palestnian characterizations of Zionism as a form of European colonialism date to the 1920s ... During the 1960s, associations between Zionism and colonialism gained global currency." He then explores ] in some depth. His to the chapter begins with: "Our comparative examination of colonial indigenization places Zionism within a settler-colonial matrix while allowing for its particularities, like a celestial body within an eccentric orbit around its sun." ] (]) 15:55, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
::To join in the commentary from {{ping|User:Levivich}}
::'''Encyclopedias included in original table'''
::# ''Encyclopedia of the Palestinians'' -- refers to Jews moving to the area as settlers in the entry.
::# ''Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'' -- refers to Jewish colonies in Palestine in the first 4 paragraphs.
::# ''Encyclopedia of Race And Racism'' -- entry refers to Jewish settlers throughout the establishment of Israel.
::# ''International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences'', -- Vegan claims that while colonialism occurs in the first paragraph it "doesn't appear to refer to Zionism", but I would argue it places Zionism within the global complex of colonialism. The entry the later mentions how while many Zionists understood themselves as anticolonialists, Zionism is often viewed as at odds with decolonial liberation.
::# ''International Encyclopedia of Political Science'' -- calls Zionism a settler movement, in reference to Palestinians in the first paragraph, and then has 3 paragraphs dedicated to Zionism as a colonial process in their own subsection of the entry.
::# ''The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements'' -- talks of Jewish settlers in the entry.
::# ''Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion'' -- talks of Jewish settlers in the entry.
::# ''The Encyclopedia of Political Thought'' -- the entry discusses the view of Zionism as colonialism.
::# ''Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection'' -- refers to Jewish settlers in the first 4 paragraphs. Continues to discuss settlers through the entry.
::'''Other encyclopedias'''
::# ''Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia. ]. 2003. Vol. 2. p. 644'' -- refers to Zionism as colonial in it's first 4 paragraphs.
::# '']. ]. 2015. p. 16685'' -- the entry "Zionism, History of" refers to Zionism as a project of colonization.
::# ''The Palgrave Encyclopedia Of Imperialism And Anti-Imperialism. ]. 2021. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. p. 2917'' -- the entry deals with Zionism as an expression of imperialism, but provides the synonyms colonialism and settler colonialism
::# ''Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. Macmillan Reference. 2007.'' -- Does not have an entry on Zionism, but has resistance to Zionism in the entry on Anticolonialism.
::-- ] (]) 17:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::# Settlers/settlement is not necessarily colonialism.
:::# With regard to mentions beyond first 4 paras I have already started to expand the table in my sandbox to include that. Hopefully will be finished this week.
:::# I'll add the new encyclopedias you found to the list, as well as some others I may found.
:::] (]) 11:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
*Red herring. Encyclopedias are not necessarily written by experts and can often be out of date. They aren't necessarily the sources that are best for showing due weight. I definitely think colonialism should be mentioned in the article lead. (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 18:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*:That's exactly why I supplied the names and links of the editors and writers of these articles. You can check for yourself that almost all of them are scholars in relevant fields. ] (]) 18:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
::*There are any number of methods one can use to obtain a negative result or the result one desires. The one above has terms of definition so stringently restrictive thathe method will tend to produce the desired result. Namely, (a)the source must be an encyclopedia (b) the subject must be Zionism (c) the only relevant evidence is from the first paragraph in the lead (d) the word to find in that para must be 'colonization' (e) if not in para one, then it must be in para 2 or thereabouts.


{{u|Levivich}}, i really like thinking about your table, am renaming columns and adding lots more. I am also deleting the "more Jews" and "fewer Arabs" columns tho and don't agree with the table's intent.
::*Frankly this looks bizarrely idiosyncratic as a heuristic methodology, designed to elicit a negative result. I happen to have been commissioned to write the entry for a topic related to nationalism for a French encyclopedia. I've just checked it, and the first and second paragraphs nowhere mention what becomes the kernal of what the title alludes to. The first deals with the amplitude of the literature, the second with the historic background, and only then does on start to get to the topic's core itself.
::*The justification for this unique procedure, which I've never seen anywhere else, is that using tertiary sources '''can help''' provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight'. But the thrust of the RS policy is that '''Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources,''' and '''to a lesser extent''', on tertiary sources and primary sources.
::*The secondary sources of recent times state and document overwhelmingly that colonization is intrinsic to Zionism. They do so because the Zionist founders used the language of colonialism throughout for the first half century, from Herzl to Ben-Gurion. They did so because, as rational men, they knew that in 1896, when they proposed to create a Jewish majority state in Palestine, the population was 95% Muslim-Christian, and that Zionism could only achieve its ends by massive colonization (Herzl recruited from the outset ] because as a co-founder of the ''Kolonialwirtschaftliches Komitee '' (German Committee for Colonial Economy his expertise was thought crucial for introducing colonialist models of technocracy into Zionism).
::*This open acceptance that Zionist mass colonization required, to work, comparative study of the English and German varieties, wasn't problematic until after 1945, when the wave of decolonializations began. It was then that Israel switched to a non-colonial idiom, one of 'national liberation', esp. in the 50s, to woo backing from those African states in international fora on the basis of an asserted kinship as one of their kind, a people occupied by an imperial colonial power (Great britain) whose shackles the Jews had thrown off. For the details see Yotam Gidron's , ]. 2020 {{isbn|978-1-786-99505-6}}). While paradigms change over time, the last two decades have witnessed the recursion of scholars to the language of Zionism's formative period, which is colonial. What type of colonialism best fits it is controversial. Colonialism is a category, with subsets like (a) ''settler-colonialism'' (b) ''exploitation colonialism,'' (c) ''surrogate colonialism'', and (d) ''internal colonialism'' (the last again forms a class with a subset, namely ''sponsored colonization'', e.g. Sri Lanka’s replacement of Tamils by Sinhalese people in part directed influenced by the Israeli model of sponsoring settlements in the West Bank).
::*In short, the method is defective, tertiary sources like encyclopedias are '''ancillary''' to the secondary literature, and, as Levivich notes, the most recent decades show the colonial paradigm ascendent, something difficult to deny given the neo-colonization thrust of Israel's post-67 occupation of the West Bank where colonial and colonizing designs are ongoing.] (]) 21:07, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


The result of the ideology and praxis, the movement, was not only moving Jewish people in but also moving Palestinian people out. "fewer Arabs" needs said somehow and prominently in the lead. I don't think there is any real question here except how to say it. ](]) 13:46, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:While it's not dispositive, I do think this is a useful signal. We are not obligated to follow other encyclopedias, but deviating from a large majority of them should give us pause and cause us to reconsider arguments about due weight.
:That said, my main concern is about using "colonization" in an oversimplified statement in wikivoice; I would be less concerned about a more nuanced discussion farther down in the lede. — ] <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>\<sup>]</sup> 22:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*'''Yes''', there's been numerous sourcing provided above by Levivich and others which demonstrates that that the settler colonialism is entirely notable as used to describe Zionism and can be thought of as a defining characteristic of Zionism. Per ] it should be in the lead at the very least and given how much of a identifying feature it is of Zionism it should preferably be in the first sentence per ]. '''Question''': Why does this discussion keep getting split into new sections? '']''<sup>]</sup> 22:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
*:There are lots of ways to describe Zionism though; what makes this one better than the alternatives? And if this is indeed the ''best'' (most succinct, informative, neutral, etc) way to describe it, why aren't other encyclopedias using this description? — ] <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>\<sup>]</sup> 00:33, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
*:I think I've mostly been the one slicing this discussion off into separate sections. Makes it easier to read on mobile (and I think on desktop too but that's prob a matter of personal preference). Anyone should feel free to refactor if they think it should be arranged differently. ] (]) 01:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


:well, actually, if you consider the totality of different RS - like ] - it becomes clear that there is no consensus on this question.
*Encyclopaedias are tertiary and are not ideal sources anyway. As presented by other editors, there dozens of RS describing Zionism as at least colonialism if not outright settler colonialism and this of course is due for mention in the lede and particularly in the opening paragraph. The opening paragraph currently describes "what", the establishment of a Jewish state; "where", in Palestine; and "how" is evidently missing. ] (]) 08:38, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:There is a very wide spectrum of opinions, ranging from the claim that Zionists wanted to expel Arabs from the very start, through the views that this was considered only during particular periods in response to Arab violence and were never one of the Zionist core goals, and to the claims that from the early days of Zionism and till establishment of Israel Zionist were looking for ways to peacefully coexist with Arabs in Palestine.
:The current phrasing only represents one extreme end of this spectrum, hence clearly violating the NPOV principle, so the question is what is the appropriate weight that the "fewer Arabs" thesis should receive in this article - in particular, whether it should be addressed in the lead at all, and if it should - what phrasing would reflect the spectrum of opinions in a most balanced way. ] (]) 19:53, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::I think DancingOwl has shown a reasonable enough doubt that we need to reflect minority and alternate POVs and address the lack of an impartial tone. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 20:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq2|claims that from the early days of Zionism and till establishment of Israel Zionist were looking for ways to peacefully coexist with Arabs in Palestine.}}
::This is not the opposite end of {{tq|the claim that Zionists wanted to expel Arabs from the very start}}. ] (]) 02:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I didn't say that this claim is the opposite of the "always wanted to expel" claim, but that there is a spectrum of opinions and this claim is on the other end of the spectrum.
:::Or did you mean to say that you'd define the other end of the spectrum differently? ] (]) 04:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::My point is that the movement planning for existing alongside an Arab minority does not mean that they did not want as small a minority as possible. The two are not mutually exclusive in any sense. ] (]) 04:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::They are not mutually exclusive, if you interpret the "as few Arabs as possible" claim as a neutral statement about preferences, rather than a core goal determining the policy.
:::::However, if you consider it in context and look at the sentence in its entirety, it's a clear expression of the "separatism/expropriation" end of the spectrum that Penslar talks about in the last quote in the table, and the other end of the spectrum is not represented at all. ] (]) 05:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Certainly Zionism was not open to arab self-determination in Palestine at the expense of Jewish self-determination. No one argues that. And neither does Penslar actually argue that the mainstream Zionism perspective was that Arabs and Jews could have self-determination in Palestine. In Zionism, Palestine is for the Jews, and the Arabs can be at most inhabitants without national rights. ] (]) 05:27, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::What you are describing is not "the mainstream Zionist perspective", but mainly Jabotinsky's views, and even his views evolved with time - for example, in the early 1920s he proposed a Jewish-Arab federative state. As a sidenote, for most of his life Jabotinsky's also vehemently opposed the idea of population transfer (i.e., "as few Arabs as possible") and only changed his position after the WWII broke out.
:::::::As to the rest of the Zionist movement, several models of bi-national or federalist state have been considered throughout the pre-1948 period (including several variants proposed by Ben Gurion) - Gorny describes them at length in his 2006 book and also gives an short overview .
:::::::Also, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "actually argue that the mainstream Zionism perspective was that Arabs and Jews could have self-determination in Palestine", given the fact that most of Zionist leaders accepted the partition principle proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, as well as the UN Partition Plan in 1947. ] (]) 06:28, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Are you sure? Finkelstein:
::::::::{{tq2|The cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am was (in Gorny’s words) ‘firm in his insistence that both peoples in Palestine be treated justly’, but he ‘saw the historical rights of the Jews outweighing the Arabs’ residential rights in Palestine’ (pp. 103–4). Max Nordau declared that Palestine was the ‘legal and historical inheritance’ of the Jewish nation, ‘of which they were robbed 1900 years ago by the Roman aggressors’; the Palestinian Arabs had only ‘possession rights’ (p. 157). Jabotinsky asserted that since the Arab nation incorporated ‘large stretches of land’, it would be an ‘act of justice’ to requisition Palestine ‘in order to make a home for a wandering people’; the Palestinian Arabs would still have a place to call their own, indeed, any of fully nine countries to the east and west of the Suez (pp. 166, 168–9). In Ben-Gurion’s view, Palestine had a ‘national’ significance for Jews and thus ‘belonged’ to them; in contrast, Palestinian Arabs, as constituents of the great Arab nation, regarded not Palestine, but Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula as their ‘historical’ homeland – Palestine was of only ‘individual’ importance to them, the locale where they happened to dwell presently. The Jewish people were therefore entitled to concentrate in Palestine whereas the Palestinian Arab community should enjoy merely those rights redounding on residents (pp. 210–12, 217–18).16}}
::::::::As for Jabotinsky, he was well within the mainstream Zionist movement (and Gorny treats him and his revisionists that way):
::::::::{{tq2|As a member of the Zionist Executive in 1921-3, he soon discovered that what divided him from his col­leagues in the Zionist leadership was not political differences, but mainly his style of political action}}
::::::::It's well established that partition was accepted to enable the eventual control of all of Palestine. Morris on the Peel commission partition principle:
::::::::{{tq2| But leaders like Ben-Gurion, while saying yes, continued to entertain in their hearts the vision of “the Whole Land of Israel” (“Greater Israel,” as it was later to be called). Ben-Gurion repeatedly declared (though not in front of the British) that the ministate London was offering would serve merely as the springboard for future Jewish conquest of the whole land: Palestine was to be taken over in stages.}} ] (]) 17:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Yes, this all supports the existing wording too. ] (]) 19:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Yes, I'm sure. (sorry for the delayed response - turned out that the text below, which I thought I published already, remained in drafts).
:::::::::For example take the passage about Ahad Ha’am that Finkelstein is quoting from Gorny - the next sentence in Gorny's books is:
:::::::::{{tq2|But his further claim that continued Jewish national existence depended on the creation of a Jewish majority in Palestine '''did not conflict with the Arab demand for justice'''. Moreover, in insisting on ‘historical rights’, Ahad Ha'Am was implying the superiority of '''spiritual aspirations''' over material existence.}}
:::::::::and just before that, on pages 101-102, Gorny says:
:::::::::{{tq2|We have seen that Ahad Ha'Am’s general outlook was based on the following principles: special political status for the Jews in Palestine '''as a small minority within the Arab population'''; recognition of the need to find ways of achieving peaceful co-operation with the Arabs;...<br/> ... He pointed to the fact that the phrase ‘building a national home in Palestine’ was not a mere question of semantics. The Government did not in fact intend to hand over all of Palestine to the Jews. It had guaranteed to respect the rights of the local population and hence its insistence that the granting of rights to the Jews did not annul the rights of other residents. We noted above Ahad Ha'Am’s emphatic demand that Weizmann stress the historical right of the Jews to Palestine. Here he attempts to explain the significance of this concept under prevailing conditions. '''‘The historical right of a people to a country settled by others’, he explains, ‘means only one thing: the right to return to settle in the land of their fathers, to cultivate it and to develop its potential uninterruptedly.’''' This right is not only theoretical but also practical, because it helps the returning people to withstand the opposition of the local population...<br/> ‘But’, Ahad Ha'Am cautions, ‘'''this historical right does not abolish the right of the other residents of the country''', who have enjoyed the real right to reside and labour in the country for generations past. This country is their national home as well and they too have the right to develop their national powers to the best of their ability.’ The conclusion is unequivocal. ‘This situation renders Palestine '''the joint home of various peoples, each endeavouring to build its national home there'''.’
:::::::::}}
:::::::::In other words, the sentence quoted by Finkestein doesn't mean that Ahad Ha’am thought 'historical rights' of the Jews negate Arabs' rights for self-determination, but only that they grants the Jews the right to build their national home in Palestine, side by side with Arabs, '''despite Arab opposition'''.
:::::::::Similarly, the full quote about Nordau says:
:::::::::{{tq2|The Jewish people, Nordau believed, had received international recognition as a nation, and this implied ‘'''the right to Jewish possession''' of their legal and historical inheritance, the land of their fathers, of which they were robbed 1900 years ago by the Roman aggressors’. His conclusion was that the term ‘national home’ could have only one meaning: ‘an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine, and nothing else’. As a positivist, he was aware, however, that if the ‘historical right’ was to become ‘historical reality’, some forceful ‘historic deed’ was required, i.e. mass Jewish immigration, accompanied by vast capital investment. '''As long as the Jews constituted the minority, their moral and historical proprietorship was in question'''. As for the Arabs of Palestine, they had ‘possession rights’ to Palestine, and '''their existence attested to the fact that they were a separate national and anthropological entity.'''}}
:::::::::So the meaning of the full passage is '''exactly opposite''' to how Finkelstein tries to frame it using out-of-context truncated quotes - Gorny saya here that, for Nordau, the rights of Arabs of Palestine were '''self-evident''', stemming from their very existence in this land as "a separate national and anthropological entity", whereas the right of the Jews, on the other hand, "was in question", as long as they remained a minority in Palestine.
:::::::::In other words, for Nordau, "historical rights" were not superior to "possession rights", but on the contrary - the former were nothing more than a potentiality, while the latter was the real thing, and Arabs already had it as given, while Jews still had to "earn" it.
:::::::::With Jabotinsky, again, Finkelstein misrepresents what Gorny is actually saying.
:::::::::Here is the full quote from p. 167:
:::::::::{{tq2| Requisition of an area of land from a nation with large stretches of territory in order to make a home for a wandering people is an act of justice, and if the land-owning nation does not wish to cede it (and this is completely natural) it must be compelled. A sacred truth, for whose realization the use of force is essential, does not cease thereby to be a sacred truth. '''This is the basis of our stand on Arab opposition; and we shall talk of a settlement only when they are ready to discuss it.'''}}
:::::::::Now, notice what Gorny says just before that, on page 166:
:::::::::{{tq2|To control Palestine through military might did not inevitably imply a perpetual struggle between the two peoples. According to Jabotinsky’s dialectical approach, the reverse was true. He was not suggesting that it was impossible to arrive at a settlement: ‘ What is impossible is voluntary agreement’, because ‘as long as there lingers in the heart of the Arabs even '''the faintest hope that they may succeed in ridding themselves of us''', there are no blandishments or promises in the world which have the power to persuade them to renounce their hope — precisely because they are not a mob, but '''a living nation'''.’ Only when the wave of adamant opposition was shattered against the ‘iron wall’ would moderate response and more practical and measured elements come to the fore. When these forces took up the reins of power, '''the road would be open to negotiations based on mutual concessions, respect for the rights of the local population, and protection of this population from discrimination and dispossession.'''}}
:::::::::and also what he says on p. 168:
:::::::::{{tq2|In the political context, however, such indifference could not be maintained, because he was well aware that they were a permanent element in Palestine, and '''regarded their expulsion from the country as ‘totally unthinkable’'''. Thus, any solution of the Arab problem must be based on '''recognition of their national rights''', and not only of their civil rights.}}
:::::::::If you read this in its entirety, it becomes clear that Jabotinsky doesn't talk about dispossession of Palestinian Arabs or denial of their national rights, but about standing firm against Arab denial of Jewish national rights.
:::::::::Finkelstein's presentation of Ben-Gurion's views is similarly full of omissions and distortions. For example, Finkelstein's implication that Palestine "belonged" to Jews and not to Arabs is directly contradicted by what Gorny says on p. 210, in the beginning of the passage on which Finkelstein allegedly bases his claims:
:::::::::{{tq2|This plan was based on several underlying assumptions: (a) ‘'''Palestine belongs to the Jewish people and to the Arabs who reside therein'''’.}}
:::::::::Moreover Gorny continues:
:::::::::{{tq2|Ben-Gurion sought to establish a constitutional regime in Palestine in which '''Jews and Arabs as individuals and as communities would enjoy equal rights'''. It would be based on the principle that neither people had the right to dominate the other. ‘It is essential to establish just relations between Jews and Arabs, irrespective of majority-minority relations. It must at all times guarantee to both peoples the possibility of undisturbed development and '''full national independence''', in such fashion that at no time will Arabs rule Jews or Jews Arabs.}}
:::::::::The passage about "Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula", which Finkelstein misattributes to Ben-Gurion, in fact belongs to Moshe Beilinson, who said (p. 214):
:::::::::{{tq2|"...The Arab community is not the sole proprietor of this country. It '''also''' belongs to the Jewish people, as their homeland...<br/> ...the Jewish people should not be deprived of their right to existence because of the need to guarantee the right to self-determination of the Arab inhabitants of the country ... There is a fundamental and decisive difference between the situation of the Arabs as a nation and that of the Jews as a nation. Palestine is not needed by the Arabs from the national point of view. They are bound to other centres. There, in Syria, in Iraq, in the ; Arabian Peninsula lies the homeland of the Arab people.}}
:::::::::In other words, the context here is, once again, assertion of Jewish right to build a national home in Palestine, not a denial of Palestinian Arabs' rights.
:::::::::Finally, here's the full passage about Jewish people's right "to concentrate in Palestine" (p. 218):
:::::::::{{tq2|Palestine was important to the Jews as a nation and to the Arabs as individuals, and hence the right of the Jewish people to concentrate in Palestine, a right which was not due to the Arabs. This idea of inequality of status was partially amended in his constitutional plan through the self-administration he proposed, aimed at '''ensuring political equality for the Arab majority (which would some day become a minority)'''.}}
:::::::::Here again, Gorny talks about political equality for Arabs, contrary to what Finkelstein tries to imply using a truncated quote. ] (]) 14:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::None of that contradicts that the Zionist perspective was that {{tq|the Jews could not permit themselves to compromise or to make significant concessions, and thus the motives of the Arabs (whether base or noble) were of no moral or historical significance.}} (Gorny's words) ] (]) 17:42, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Once again, you omit critical context:
:::::::::::1. Gorny is not making a general statement about Zionism, but talks specifically about Beilinson
:::::::::::2. The passage refers specifically to partition discussions following the Peel Commission proposal
:::::::::::3. The next paragraph reads:
:::::::::::{{tq2|Despite his gloomy, even tragic perception of the situation, Beilinson called for public avowal that the future Jewish state would grant the Arabs full equal political status through a constitutional regime based on parity.}} ] (]) 20:34, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::No he's not talking specifically about Beilinson, that's why the paragraph I quoted from starts with {{tq|This was perhaps the ultimate expression of the theory of the necessity of force, accepted by most trends of Zionism.}} ] (]) 00:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::So this discussion applies to Zionism as a whole, not just Beilinson. ] (]) 00:10, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Let's look at the full quote:
:::::::::::::{{tq2| '''Two months after violence erupted''' (and shortly before his death), Beilinson asked:<br/><small>Till when? Till when is the Zionist movement condemned to fight and to struggle '''for its existence'''? Until the might of the Jewish people in their own land will, a priori, spell defeat for any adversary who attacks us; until the most ardent and most daring within the enemy camp, wherever they may I be, realize that there is no means of breaking the spirit of the Jewish people in their own land, for theirs is a living need and a living truth and there is no alternative but to accept them. This is the meaning of the struggle.</small><br/>This was perhaps the ultimate expression of the theory of the necessity of force, accepted by most trends of Zionism. It was accompanied by the assumption that the struggle of the Jewish people, for Palestine was a question of '''basic survival''', ’while for the Arab people, whatever their motives, the fight is not a question of life or I death’. Consequently, the Jews could not permit themselves to compromise or to make significant concessions, and thus the motives of the Arabs (whether base or noble) were of no moral or historical significance. These remarks were based on belief in moral relativity in historical development, but their dangerous implications were tempered by Beilinson’s social democratic value system.<br/>Despite his gloomy, even tragic perception of the situation, Beilinson called for public avowal that the future Jewish state would grant the Arabs '''full equal political status''' through a constitutional regime based on parity.}}
:::::::::::::So while the sentence about "the necessity of force" does refer to Zionist views '''after the Arab Revolt''' in general, the part about "moral or historical significance" that you quoted initially is a Gorny's paraphrase of Beilinson's words he quoted earlier.
:::::::::::::More importantly, as the last quoted sentence shows, this view didn't entail a negation of Arabs' political rights, but only an insistence on assertion of Jewish right to self-determination, despite violent Arab resistance.
:::::::::::::This distinction is critical and, as I showed earlier, it also applies to all the passages that Finkelstein selectively quotes from Gorny - when you look at the full passages, it becomes clear that the discussion was never about negating Arab's right to self-determination, but about Jews '''also''' having the same right. ] (]) 11:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Beilinson's quote does not even mention the arabs, so how could it be a paraphrase? ] (]) 17:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::He wrote this two month after the Arab revolt broke out - whom do you think he refers to by {{tq|"adversary who attacks us"}}? ] (]) 18:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Also note that the comment about "full equal political status" is based on the assumption that the Arabs would be a small minority. ] (]) 17:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::What in Gorny's text suggests that Beilinson was making this assumption as a pre-requisite for equal political status? ] (]) 18:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::On parity:
::::::::::::::::{{tq|The intention was to guarantee the '''civil status''' of the Arabs in the light of the future expansion of the Jewish population and to consolidate the '''national rights''' of the Jews in the face of the existing Arab majority.}} ] (]) 19:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::And along those same lines, {{tq|Ben-Gurion advocated a bi-national regime in which the Jewish people would have '''ownership rights''' over Palestine and the Arab community would have the '''right to reside '''therein}} ] (]) 19:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::We were talking about Beilinson's ideas regarding parity - but the first quote is about Weizmann, the second - about Ben-Gurion, so it doesn't address my question. ] (]) 16:32, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::No, I'm talking about Zionism as a whole. The leadership of the movement and its mainstream ideology. ] (]) 16:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::::I know you do, but in order to analyze their positions in a meaningful way, we need to look at each of them in context, taking into account the evolution of their views.
::::::::::::::::::::Mixing quotes referring to different leaders at different time periods obscures important controversies within the Zionist movement, as well as the evolution of both the personal views of the leaders and of the general consensus. ] (]) 16:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::We can make a section in the article about all the arguments Zionists had with each other (and when they had them). ] (]) 16:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


{{collapse top|title=Discussion of editors rather than content}}
:I was recently surprised to discover that Shapira uses the term "colonization" to describe Zionist activity in Palestine throughout "Land and Power". Here is a quote where she almost describes it as a colonial project: {{tq|In the 1920s, nobody was certain that this interesting project—Jewish colonization in Palestine—would, indeed, survive.}}
The DancingOwl account only got started on Nov. 4, 2024.
:It's really only Karsh who argues that it is not colonialism; here is his argument (which is really very weak and relies on a fringe narrative): https://www.google.com/books/edition/Israel_Israel_s_transition_from_communit/z9pGwAEACAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=colonialism%20is%20by%20definition ] (]) 17:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Top 10 editors to this talk page, measured in bytes:
::Karsh also writes that the literature has by and large subscribed to the image of Zionism as colonialist. Yet another dissenter explicitly stating what the mainstream view is. ] (]) 17:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Of course we must remember that what is contested is the use of 'colonization' in the lead, and not 'colonialism'. Colonialism is the category, as I said, and it would be highly arguable that just branding Zionism as one more instance of, synonymous with, that broad category, served any useful purpose. All varieties of colonialism (its subsets) share what ] described in writing that 'Colonization is associated with the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists. (], ]. (1997) 2005 {{isbn| 978-0-203-99258-6}} p.1) That Zionism 'colonized' Palestinine is beyond dispute. How it did that, in its own distinctive fashion, is a matter of contention (The parallel is with ]). That began as a term for specifically what South Africa's white government enacted. Analogies often skewed interpretations of Israel, despite a certain cogency in the comparison. Therafter 'apartheid' became the generic category, of which South Africa, Israel, Burma, etc., formed distinctive variants, as subsets, so that one could, theoretically, no longer assume pure identity, even ], between the subspecies). though in the literature the paradigm of ] (I haven't read that wiki article however) is the closest fit. ] (]) 19:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I don't understand the distinction you're making between the use of "colonization" and "colonialism" in this context. How could a movement use colonization, but not be considered colonialist (or a form of colonialism)? ] (]) 00:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Colonialism historically involved the exploitation of resources and labor from the colonized territory for the benefit of the colonizing power, alongside the imposition of the colonizer's culture, values, and norms on the indigenous population. Zionism does not follow this pattern. ] (]) 00:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::: It doesn't? Really!? Show your work, account "Mawer10."] (]) 01:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::We go with what the very best sources say, not ]. '']''<sup>]</sup> 03:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
::For good measure, from Land and Power (Shapira): {{tq|Zionist psychology was molded by the conflicting parameters of a national liberation movement and a movement of European colonization in a Middle Eastern country.}} Karsh's perspective on the nature of Zionism is more fringe than I originally thought. ] (]) 23:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:And from the paperback edition of Shafir's Land, Labor and the Origins: {{tq2|Anita Shapira, in a special 1995 issue of History and Memory devoted to Israeli historiography, acknowledges that the use of the colonial model in studying Israel "is both legitimate and desirable," since "defining a movement as settlement-colonialism may well help to clarify the relations between the settling nation and the native one." As she points out, such an admission would not have been forthcoming in the past.}} ] (]) 17:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


Levivich, 14.9%. AndreJustAndre, 14.5%. Nishidani, 14%. Selfstudier, 11.5%. BrandonYusufToropov, 11.2%.
Just commenting, but I just note from the lead itself there's also other mentions of Zionism as "colonisation" in the last paragraph.--] (]) 02:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Jayjg, 8.6%. '''DancingOwl, 7.2%'''. DMH223344, 7.1%. 1.122.113.194, 6%. Vegan416, 5%.
:::::@]. If you did not grasp the distinction I made, it's my fault. I'll bullet it in précis. What is contested is the lead that states:
:::::<blockquote>Zionism is an ethnic or ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the ] of a land outside of Europe</blockquote>
:::::] was quoted to define 'colonization'. 'the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists.' ] ] (1997) 2005 ] p. 1.
:::::*Colonialism is a generic category having several subsets or elements (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) etc., which all illustrate the principle of taking over a foreign land/territory and populating it with imported labour. The more familiar forms are
:::::*(a) '']'' (b) ''exploitation colonialism,'' (c) '']'', (d) '']'' and (e) '']''.
:::::*Colonialism therefore is the class, whose subsets are (a) (b) (c) (d) and (e) constitute the elements of that class. The edit-warriors here contest the word 'colonization' which they assume is synonymous with the class (Colonialism), '''rather than being its primary definition.''' (a)(b)(c) (d) and (e) can be linked and differentiated to each other by ]s, showing properties that are common and those that are different. None of them alone tell one what Colonialism essentially is. Anymore than a single ] can define the] to which it belongs, to change metaphors.
:::::Let me illustrate by the latest example of this confusion.
:::::<blockquote>Colonialism historically involved the exploitation of resources and labor from the colonized territory for the benefit of the colonizing power, alongside the imposition of the colonizer's culture, values, and norms on the indigenous population. Zionism does not follow this pattern. ]</blockquote>
:::::Here Mawer defines the class Colonialism in terms of just one of its operative modes, by citing features that apply to one or two of the several types and stating this is what Colonialism is. It fails at first sight because one variety at least, the form Colonialism took in Australia, did not exploit the labour of the indigenous population, nor impose on them 'colonizer's culture, values, and norms'. Rather, ] from the ] to establish its extractive labour force. And neither the convicts nor the aboriginals were inculcated with british culture, norms and values'
:::::There are many varieties of colonialism, as said, and one cannot muddle the concept by defining it variously in terms of the definition for one of its several constituent elements. One cannot define a genus by one of its species. That is why we write 'colonization' rather than 'Colonialism'. ] (]) 09:04, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


I'm not even mad. This is frankly amazing. (On the substance, the DancingOwl account is wrong. Very, very wrong.)] (]) 20:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Here is a statement from Chaim Weizmann of what he meant by colonization and how it compared to other examples:
:{{tq|"our colonization in Palestine compares not unfavourably with similar work done by other nations of infinitely greater experience and in more encouraging circumstances. To the quality of our settlers and of their work we have ample and authoritative testimony. And over and above agricultural settlement, we have created in Palestine all the essentials of nationhood. The organism is not yet fully grown, but the embryo is complete. We have our language, our land, our peasants and work-people, our intellectuals; from the smallest cottage or farm right up to the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, everything is our own achievement. By what that achievement is and by what it is to be, we shall be judged in the eyes of the world."}}
Chaim Weizmann, address to the Jewish Agency, 7 Dec 1931. The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Series B, Volume II, p5.) ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 14:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)</blockquote>


:1. I started a year ago
:Proud of their colonization! And they have their peasants! Jolly good. ] (]) 14:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
:2. Not sure what conclusions need to be drawn, in your view, from the fact that I made two large edits with thorough analysis of the referenced sources
::Careful about the tone there, dear Iskander.However one prefers to read the history (my views are known), pride in what Zionism was achieving - an unimaginable and improbable exercise in building a state from the ground up where Jews could be Jews freed of the shackles and uncertainties of a history of subordination- was a most natural human response. One should never underestimate the affective power of such an intense perception, relief at, in purely internal terms, having ''apparently'' crawled out of the nightmare of the past. A number of prescient historians and thinkers understood quite early what would be the obverse corollary of this miracle, a death-certificate for the people Zionism would displace ineluctably, effectively transferring onto Palestinians as their future fate the whilom destiny that befell Jews - diaspora, immiseration, contempt as an ethnically opprobrious outgroup incapable of anything but terrorism (as 'Jews' had been ostracized and stigmatized as incapable of anything but shady money dealing). But that was so thoroughly removed from the general awareness of '''most''' Zionists that we can hardly blame them for this formative euphoria. The identitarian trauma we are witnessing, not so much in Israel as abroad, has destroyed that pride. But, as editors who must try to borrow a lesson from the historian's craft, we should abstain from feelings of ] or mockery. ] (]) 16:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
:3. Will be happy to hear which part of what I wrote is "very, very wrong" ] (]) 20:37, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::And yet the Lord-of-the-Manor-esque pomp and satisfaction at having the {{tq|"peasants and work-people"}} ensconsed is very deridable and condescending classism. This is long past the era of Marx. Chaim, like his political fellows, should have chosen his words more carefully. ] (]) 17:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I don't think the analogy is correct, though your point ''does'' have a certain cogency. Weizman there is like an urbane very highly placed member of a metropolitan elite, asked by kin in Europe to help do something about a nomadic tribe of their desperate co-religionists. Lords of the Manor would evict their tenants, and deny they had any claim upon the land they worked, other than paying rent to its proper owner. The creation of a 'peasantry' ('mechanical people' in the Italian idiom) had, for Zionists, nothing of the negative connotations it had for the Christian upper classes. It meant providing masses of Jews denied for a millennium access to land and agriculture, the possibility to rehabilitate their lives as petty tradesmen, middle men, schnoorers etc., by the discipline of physical labour infused with a sense of historical redemption. Lords of the Manor would never have undertaken any such mission for their poor. Like Herzl's diaries, Weizman's letters make for unsettling reading. But it is not what he did for immigrant Jews (the source of pride) that shows the man he was: it is what he did when members of the al-Banna, with some 24 sq.kilometres of prime citrus land under cultivation around Ashkelon, turned to him (he had been a neighbour and good friend of Khalil al-Banna) to intercede in 1947-48 and keep them out of the war (as people traditionally on very good terms with Jews). Weizman ignored them, and they lost everything. A core wealth-producing and labour-intense Arab economy was smashed, and the looted territory turned over to immigrants. Weizman and co., were 'proud' they had looked after 'their own' impoverished class. It's less lord-of-the manorly than those Catholics-turned-Protestants under Henry VIII, who became Lords of their Bad Manors by dispossessing their Catholics friends and neighbours to harvest the riches that accrued to them by extending, under royal patronage, their lands. Those men then dispossessed the peasantry over the following centuries, with no sense of obligation to anyone but themselves. Class is still a valid category for me, but for decades we have seen it trumped by ethnocratic values, and the populist leaders who promote the latter do so in the name of securing a future for '''their''' poor, even if this is at the cost of obliterating and immiserating those unfortunates who do not pertain to their favoured ethnic group. It is a provincial pride, that sustains itself by erasing all awareness of collateral damage to the chosen outgroup. (one consequence of Weizman's turning his back on his Arab neighbours was ], but he couldn't have foreseen anything so drastic as that. Those generations were temperamentally/culturally different from the criminal hucksters and opportunistic religious caterpillars who proliferate prominently these days. Sorry for the niggle.] (]) 19:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


:: The DancingOwl account's first edit to this talk page was not a year ago. It was on November 4 2024.. You appear to believe a blizzard of edits and swamping the talk page is the way to victory. But there are no gold stars for the prolix. You should give it a rest.
@], I don't expect anyone to search diligently for sources that contradict their opinion. While this is the ideal of science and scholarship, we are all human beings and people who never succumb to confirmation bias are very rare indeed. But saying that you have "identified" only X scholars that oppose your view when you have seen more than that, is a different matter. Here is an interesting observation in this regard:
{{collapse bottom}}
::Any suggestion that it was not an existential issue for Zionists/Zionism to drastically limit the Arab/Palestinian population in Israel is nonsense, as the scholarly literature shows.] (]) 20:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::There's a difference between the obvious cross-interests and animosity versus "as few as possible." This wording really suggests that Zionists were out to make that number 0, and we know that's not true. If they did want it to be 0 it would be by now presumably. Yet the Arab population of Israel is about 20% or over 2 million people. In 1948, that was like 150,000, so if Israel wants that number to be as low as possible, they're very bad at this aim. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 20:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Not to get too FORUMy, but this kind of argument should also consider the pre-Zionism demography. If the Zionist movement reduced the Arab population in what would become Israel from (say) 95% to 20%, the 20% means something different. ] ] 21:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Not FORUMy, a good point. Bickerton Klausner has diagrams of the land ownership changes. We know that the total population was changing and the relative populations of Arabs and Jews were changing. AFAIK, there were always many more Arabs, and the Jewish population small but increasing enough that it causes unrest. Actually, I was just reading Bregman and it talks about this somewhere in the first 4 or 5 pages. The number was changing because both groups were moving around prior to any of the formal displacement writ large, which was a discontinuous break. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 21:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I like DancingOwl's comments. ] ] 20:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Thanks ] (]) 21:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The table I published earlier shows that the scholarly literature contains a very wide range of perspectives in this question.
:::You are welcome to address my argument on its merits, instead of taking the ad hominem route. ] (]) 21:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Agreed, the Dan Murphy account's contribution is snarky and unhelpful. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 22:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
:: An interesting read: {{tq|“Karsh has a point,” Morris wrote to The Times Literary Supplement. “My treatment of transfer thinking before 1948 was, indeed, superficial.” He also acknowledged my refutation of his misinterpretation of an important speech made by David Ben-Gurion on December 3, 1947: " is probably right in rejecting the ‘transfer interpretation’ I suggested in The Birth to a sentence in that speech.”13 He also admitted elsewhere that “Karsh appears to be correct in charging that I ‘stretched’ the evidence to make my point.”14}} ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 05:24, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:Having spent some time reading all of the evidence presented here, I am very convinced that we cannot say in our voice that "Zionists wanted ...as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" especially in the very start of the lead. It is a gross over-generalisation that is at odds with the complex reality. We simply can't say "Xs wanted Y" if a significant non-fringe part of the literature says that's not true and if most of the sources say something like "Some Xs wanted Y" or "In some periods most Xs wanted Y". It is also clear to me that enough editors have the same view such that there is no longer a consensus for including this in the lead, so it should be removed.
:Personally, I think the proposed alternative "with a Jewish majority" works well and is supported by the literature, so I hope we can get consensus for adding that. ] (]) 13:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq2|We simply can't say "Xs wanted Y" if a significant non-fringe part of the literature says that's not true}}
::Which BESTSOURCES say that it's not true?
::{{tq2|I think the proposed alternative "with a Jewish majority" works well}}
::Why would the compromise be weaker than Morris' {{tq|overwhelming Jewish majority}}? ] ] 14:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tq2|Which BESTSOURCES say that it's not true?}}
:::Did you have a chance to look at ] I published a few days ago?
:::{{tq2|Why would the compromise be weaker than Morris' overwhelming Jewish majority?}}
:::Morris uses this phrase as description of what he calls "underlying thrust of the ideology", which is substantially different from '''explicit goal/want'''. And if you look at all the BESTSOURCES listed in the table, you can see that most of them use similar descriptions of the goals/wants only with regard to the later part of the pre-1948 period (mostly forties and late thirties). ] (]) 15:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I saw the table. The basic problem is that there is a difference between a source making a weaker claim ("Jewish majority") and a source saying "as many" is not true. For the latter I only see Karsh, and Laqueur, who qualifies it as a pre-WWI position. The Laqueur book was also originally written in 1972. ] ] 15:32, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{tq2|The basic problem is that there is a difference between a source making a weaker claim ("Jewish majority") and a source saying "as many" is not true}}
:::::You are absolutely right about the difference, but explicit refutal is not required in order to show that the current phrasing is not the best reflection of the scholarly consensus.
:::::If the statement in the lead makes a certain - very strong - claim, it needs to be supported by a clear consensus among ALL the BESTSOURCES, not just some of them. And if we have an alternative phrasing that is supported by a larger number of explicit quotes from BESTSOURCES, then the second phrasing is clearly preferable, as far as NPOV is concerned. ] (]) 15:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The tables above very clearly show that there are BESTSOURCES saying it's not true. There simply isn't a scholarly consensus for "as few Arabs as possible"; there IS a scholarly consensus for "a Jewish majority". I could live with "overwhelming Jewish majority" as closer to the scholarly consensus but it still exceeds it. ] (]) 15:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Penslars Herzl and the Palestinian Arabs: Myth and Counter-Myth, Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, 24:1, 65-77, DOI: 10.1080/13531040500040263 is interesting:
::::"Intriguingly, very few scholars writing from a Zionist perspective have engaged Herzl’s diary entry of 12 June 1895, in which he writes:
::::We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. The property owners may believe that they are cheating us, selling to us at more than worth. But nothing will be sold back to them.
::::This text, we shall see, is central to anti-Zionist propaganda and even to respectable recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective. But it is not addressed in any of the standard biographies of Herzl5 and in most literature by Israeli scholars on early Zionism’s approach to the Arabs." ] (]) 19:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::ibid, p. 70:
:::::{{tq2|...The association between Herzl and transfer is not limited to polemics but has recently crept into the work of serious historians such as Lockman, who claims that Herzl’s diary entry specifically envisioned “dispossessing and displacing Palestine’s Arab peasantry,”''' although in fact at that time Herzl had not determined the location of the Jewish state'''...<br/><br/>Stewart admits that at the time of the writing of these passages Herzl was unsure where the Jewish state would be established and believes '''he was leaning towards Latin America'''...}}
:::::p. 71-72:
:::::{{tq2|Consider Herzl’s rationale for opposing in May 1903 the proposal, made by the Zionist opposition that favored immediate settlement activity, to purchase lands in the Jezreel Valley made available for sale by the Sursuk family. He displayed not only principled opposition to “infiltration” but also conviction that, according to his first biographer, Adolf Friedmann, '''“Poor Arab farmers must not be driven off their land.”''' Two months previously, after visiting the pyramids near Cairo, Herzl jotted in his diary that “the misery of the fellahin by the road is indescribable. I resolve to think of the fellahin too, once I have the power.” This statement could be easily dismissed as yet another puerile fantasy of power and control, but if one is going to approach the diaries in a fundamentally skeptical fashion, consistency should be maintained regardless of the orientation of the entry in question.}}
:::::p. 74:
:::::{{tq2|By 1901 Herzl had come to believe that in the interests of state building '''some''' native landowners might need to be coaxed to cede their property and move elsewhere. But this charter, drawn up after years of negotiation and politicking both within the Zionist movement and among the crowned heads of Europe, is '''a far cry from the program for total expropriation jotted down in the late spring of 1895, before Herzl had even effectively formulated a Zionist program.'''}} ] (]) 20:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::: goes into it as well, linking it to transfer. ] (]) 12:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::And goes to great lengths criticizing the fact that Morris also omitted critical context:
:::::::{{tq2|Morris’s only ‘evidence’ for this claim is '''a truncated paragraph''' from Herzl’s 12 June 1895 diary entry, which had been a feature of Palestinian propaganda for decades prior to its ‘discovery’ by Morris. But this entry is not enough to support such a claim, given contradictory evidence. There was no trace of such a belief in either Herzl’s famous political treatise ''The Jewish State'' (1896) or his 1902 Zionist novel ''Altneuland'' (Old-New Land). Nor for that matter is there any allusion to ‘transfer’ in Herzl’s public writings, private correspondence, or his speeches and political and diplomatic discussions. '''Morris simply discards the canon of Herzl’s life’s work in favour of a single, isolated quote'''. <br/>But what did Herzl actually write in his diary? Here is the complete text, with the passages omitted by Morris in italics:<br/><br/> <small>''When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us.'' We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly ... <br/>''It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honour, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example ... Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas , we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us''.</small>.<br/><br/>By omitting the opening sentence, Morris hides the fact that Herzl viewed Jewish settlement as beneficial to the indigenous population and that he did not conceive of the new Jewish entity as comprising this country in its entirety. This is further underscored by Herzl’s confinement of the envisaged expropriation of private property to ‘the estates assigned to us’ – another fact omitted by Morris. Any discussion of relocation was clearly limited to the specific lands assigned to the Jews, rather to the entire territory. Had Herzl envisaged the mass expulsion of the population, as claimed by Morris, there would have been no need to discuss its position in the Jewish entity. <br/>'''Most importantly, Herzl’s diary entry makes no mention of either Arabs or Palestine, and for good reason. A careful reading of Herzl’s diary entries for June 1895 reveals that he considered Argentina, rather than Palestine, to be the future site of Jewish resettlement'''...<br/> ‘I am assuming that we shall go to Argentina’, Herzl recorded in his diary on 13 June. ... Indeed, as vividly illustrated by Herzl’s diary entries during the same month, all political and diplomatic activities for the creation of the future Jewish state, including the question of the land and its settlement, were conceived in the Latin American context...<br/> In short, Morris based his arguments on a red herring. He not only misrepresents a quote to distort its original meaning, but he ignores the context, which '''had nothing to do with Palestine or Arabs'''.}} ] (]) 15:41, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Uh huh, I'm sticking with best sources tho, I can pull up any number of sources if we open it up to Karsh type sourcing (ie polemical). ] (]) 15:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::1. Karsh is a professional historian and "Israel Affairs" is a peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis - so his article definitely qualifies for inclusion in BESTSOURCES.
:::::::::2. Penslar says very similar things in the paper that you yourself quoted. ] (]) 16:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::No objections to using Penslar, he was on the bestsources list we drew up a while back and I am not saying that Karsh cannot be used, Idk how reliable but I would at least start there if I was going to look into the matter. ] (]) 16:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::I find this characterization of Karsh rather ironic, in context of the ongoing RFC about the lead: :)
:::::::::::{{tq2|"...focusing on sources which support his argument, whilst failing to engage with the full range of evidence...}} ] (]) 16:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::More importantly, Penslar - whom you quoted as allegedly supporting the interpretation that Herzl wanted "as few Arabs as possible" - is actually disputing this interpretation, if you look at his article in full. ] (]) 16:34, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Then why mention Karsh at all? ] (]) 16:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::because you mentioned Morris using the same quote ] (]) 16:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::So your idea is that Karsh refutes Morris? ] (]) 16:48, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::He definitely disputes Morris' interpretation, and I don't think it's our job as editors to try determine whose interpretation is "better" - we just need to take into account the fact the such a controversy among the experts exists. ] (]) 17:00, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::It depends, on what it is you want to cite Karsh for, I might not be disposed to accept what he says as due, whereas I would have much less difficulty in accepting what Morris says as being due. ] (]) 17:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::could you elaborate why you consider that Morris' thesis is due and Karsh's is not? ] (]) 18:35, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::That's not what I said either, I said it depends on what you want to cite Karsh for. ] (]) 18:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::{{tq|whom you quoted as allegedly supporting the interpretation that Herzl wanted "as few Arabs as possible"}} That's not what I did, look again. ] (]) 16:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::ok, perhaps I misunderstood - what was the point you wanted to make with this Penslar's quote? ] (]) 16:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::I will repeat a part of what I quoted already {{tq|This text, we shall see, is central to anti-Zionist propaganda and even to respectable recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective. But it is not addressed in any of the standard biographies of Herzl and in most literature by Israeli scholars on early Zionism’s approach to the Arabs."}}
::::::::::::::My interest lies more in this type of statement rather than (some historian) thinks (whatever they think), which is just the view of one historian. ] (]) 16:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::ok, got it - I agree that such meta-statements are important, but first of all, after making this statement, Penslar himself undertakes the task of critically addressing this quote, hence - at least partially - filling the gap he pointed to.
:::::::::::::::And second, here is another meta-statement from his 2023 book, that is highly relevant to this whole discussion:
:::::::::::::::{{tq2|"There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism. Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to '''clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project'''—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation. Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, '''open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?'''..."}}
:::::::::::::::And, as I said earlier, this is the core point of my criticism of the current phrasing about 'as few Arabs as possible.' It's not that this perspective is not a valid POV held by several important scholars — it certainly is. However, it reflects just one side of the spectrum, rather than a broad scholarly consensus on the essence of the Zionist project. ] (]) 18:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::And you have determined this broad scholarly consensus how, exactly? ] (]) 18:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::1. Using Penslar's definition of the two side of the spectrum
:::::::::::::::::2. By examining what multiple RS belonging to '''different''' parts of the spectrum have to say about core Zionist goals regarding Jewish-Arab relationships and demographic balance (see table above). ] (]) 18:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::Those sources you brought earlier are only to do with the few Arabs as possible thing not the "essence of the Zionist project". Penslar (again, one historian) says of the essence, return or colonialism, perhaps it is both and how much of each is open to debate, Idk. Then two key questions...inclusive or separatist? And ME integration (the continuation that you omitted). We are not going to get very far with this if all we do is pick out bits of quotes that we like. ] (]) 19:03, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::It's a good point, here Penslar is talking about "essence" specifically, not about whether it is and has been "inclusive or separatist." ] (]) 19:20, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::::He talks about scholarly debates regarding this "essence", and then elaborates:
::::::::::::::::::::{{tq2|Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land? And second, has Israel been willing to integrate into the Arab Middle East, or is it determined to dwell in isolation, buttressed by alliances and cultural ties with Western powers?"}}
::::::::::::::::::::The first of those question - {{tq|...is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, '''open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?'''}} - is directly related to the discussion we are having about the "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part of the lead. ] (]) 19:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::And the answer is? ] (]) 19:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::::::Those are the questions being discussed as part of the debate Penslar describes, and naturally each side of the debate gives a different answer to those questions. ] (]) 19:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::The sentence being discussed in RFC describes core Zionist goal as "create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible".
:::::::::::::::::::My claim is that at least the "as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part is not a reflection of scholarly consensus, which why the table above focuses only on those two aspects, with particular emphasis on the "as few Arabs" part.
:::::::::::::::::::For the purposes of this discussion, the key observation Penslar makes is a meta-statement about existence of major controversies regarding the "essence of the Zionist project". In particular, he points out two key questions/dimensions, one of which is directly related to the "as few Arabs" claim - {{tq|"... is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land"}} - which is why I quoted this part and not the second one, which is irrelevant to this discussion.
:::::::::::::::::::So it's not a matter of "bits of quotes that we like", but of relevance to the topic being discussed. ] (]) 19:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::::I have said what I wanted to say. ] (]) 19:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::I already cited that in an earlier debate about colonialism (see the archives). ] (]) 18:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::This doesn't really tell us much. Plenty of colonial projects said that they would bring benefits to the natives. And the fact that Palestine had not been decided on at this point also does not mean much. The project required demographic homogeneity (Shafir: {{tq|The goal of Zionism was to colonize Palestine and establish homogeneous Jewish settlements while suppressing Palestinian national aspirations.}}) which depended on the removal of the native population, regardless of its location. ] (]) 16:35, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I agree that the "benefits" is the weaker part of Karsh's critique, and, in any case, as I said above, Penslar makes a much more thorough argument against interpreting this diary entry as evidence of Herzl's support for "as few Arab as possible" narrative. ] (]) 16:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I think Masalha's treatment of this entry captures the main point well (as an early reference to the idea):
::::::::::{{tq2|The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat . An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem”—the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land” and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.}} ] (]) 17:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::yes, this is pretty much how Penslar describes this thesis, as promoted in "anti-Zionist propaganda and ... recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective".
:::::::::::but then the bulk of this article is dedicated to the question of whether this interpretation of a single diary entry is indeed justified, and he provides several examples contesting such interpretation and pointing to evolution of Herzl's views, concluding with (emphasis mine):
:::::::::::{{tq2|By 1901 Herzl had come to believe that in the interests of state building '''some''' native landowners might need to be coaxed to cede their property and move elsewhere. But this charter, drawn up after years of negotiation and politicking both within the Zionist movement and among the crowned heads of Europe, is '''a far cry from the program for total expropriation jotted down in the late spring of 1895, before Herzl had even effectively formulated a Zionist program'''.}} ] (]) 18:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::That can be read as saying that his thought (albeit less forceful) continued through 1901? ] (]) 18:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I think that would be inaccurate, because the difference between "some" and "all" (or even "most") is a categorical one, it's not just a difference of degree. ] (]) 18:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Putting it all together, Penslar acknowledges that most scholarly references to the diary entry are part of a discussion of the origins of "transfer" in Zionist thought. My understanding is that he doesn't think much weight should be given to that entry. So it's his assessment against most scholarly references. ] (]) 19:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::On this particular question - it is, indeed, his (and Karsh's) assessment against proponents of the "as few Arabs as possible" narrative.
:::::::::::::But if we look at the discussion about this narrative as a whole, and not only the question of importance (or lack of) of this particular diary entry - there is a multitude of scholarly voices contesting this narrative (again, see the table above) ] (]) 19:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::A private diary from the 1890s definitely isn't the place where mainstream Zionist positions were publicly articulated for the 1900s to 1940s period. Again, it's clear there is no scholarly consensus for "as few Arabs as possible" being the broad Zionist position, particularly in this period, so we just need to agree a form of wording to replace it, e.g. "with a Jewish majority". ] (]) 14:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I don't agree (lots of sources reference it) and it will need a new RFC for that once the current one is dealt with. ] (]) 15:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Lots of sources reference it doesn’t mean it’s taken as a good gauge of mainstream Zionist opinion for all subsequent decades. ] (]) 04:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I agree with Bob, but good look finding a consensus for an alternative text, or even a consensus to make any change. Despite I think a good argument being made above, we appear to still not be winning over the hearts and minds on this. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 04:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Imo, we need to move away from the list (of those historians who agree with me) mentality and look for more meta type discussions, after all this is primarily a history article so those should exist. I realise the historiography is fraught and polarized so then we should reflect that but we should do it properly, at least to the extent possible. ] (]) 11:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I agree that meta-level discussions would be extremely valuable, but apart from and , mentioned above, I haven't encountered any other attempts to provide a balanced bird-eye view of the topic. ] (]) 15:27, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::The question is bound up with the idea of transfer. If we take The British Mandate in Palestine A Centenary Volume, 1920–2020 Ed by Michael J Cohen then
::::::::::There is a contribution by Hillel Cohen, 9. Zionism as a blessing to the Arabs: History of an argument presented as "in contrast to the Zionist approach that focused on the Jewish people only, and believed that it was better to evacuate (“transfer”) the Arabs of Palestine in order to establish a homogenous Jewish state. Whereas the idea of transferring the Arabs has been discussed at length in the literature by supporters and opponents, 1", where the "1" is footnoted to these four:
::::::::::Israel Shahak, A history of the concept of ‘transfer’ in Zionism, Journal of Palestine Studies, 18/3, 1989, pp. 22–37;
::::::::::Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians:The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948, Washington DC: Institute for Palestinian Studies, 1992;
::::::::::Chaim Simons, A Historical Survey of Proposals to Transfer Arabs from Palestine 1895–1947, Gengis Khan Publishers, Internet edition 2004;
::::::::::Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 39–64
::::::::::Well we have Masalha and Morris in our Transfer section of the article (along with Gorny, Finkelstein, Ben Ami and Flapan) but I don't see the other two, nor in Dancing Owl list either, perhaps there is a reason for that. So there is part confirmation for our sourcing and a path to perhaps seek out more.
::::::::::We should try to see if there are more such reference which pick out suitable sourcing on the issue of transfer in order to confirm that our sourcing constitutes a representative sampling. ] (]) 17:33, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::So far I think only a single source (Karsh) denies the desirability of a "as few Arabs as possible" and we have a whole list saying that mainstream Zionism did indeed want "as few Arabs as possible." And Penslar says that there is a debate about the '''essence''' of Zionism: is it "inclusive or separatist?" While some authors cited do describe "as few Arabs as possible" as a fundamental, or essential aspect of the Zionist "ethos" (Ben-Ami's word), our statement is about the goals of Zionism, not necessarily about it's '''essence'''. ] (]) 18:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::For some reason, you keep ignoring what Penslar says immediately after "inclusive or separatist":<br/>{{tq2|"open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?}}."determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land" is exactly the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the spectrum, and it's the only one that is being reflected in the lead currently, whereas the "open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine" view is being completely ignored. ] (]) 07:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I agree, and it's splitting hairs to claim the ''essence'' of Zionism is completely a different animal from the ''ethos'' of Zionism. Penslar clearly regards this as an issue and not a settled question. I also don't think Penslar and Karsh are standing alone. Well, Penslar's more in the middle, and Karsh on the conservative side. I'll offer some more quotes from in late 1930s: {{tq|Evidently there was no way to divide Palestine without leaving a substantial Arab minority within Jewish borders...}} p.207, and late 40s {{tq|summer of 1947, the Zionists had been explicit and emphatic in their assurances that the Arab minority of a projected Jewish state would enjoy full civil, national, and cultural rights}} p. 382, and from about Jabotinsky (p.530) {{tq|Revisionism recognised that there would be a substantial Arab minority in Palestine even after Jews became the majority.}} Or , (p.138) {{tq|Demographic issues worried Zionist leaders greatly after the UN partition plan left the Jewish state with an Arab minority of 400,000 – nearly 40 per cent of its population. The 1948 war mitigated those worries only somewhat. Three-quarters of the Arabs in question fled or were chased from areas designated for the Jewish state; several hundred thousand Arab residents of the additional regions Israel added in the course of repelling the invading armies became refugees as well. Nevertheless, 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel following the armistice, and international pressure for repatriating the refugees was considerable. The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested that partition be accompanied by a negotiated ‘exchange of populations’....Still, the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.}}... , p.66: {{tq|challenge to Zionism in the new state was resolved by a formal recognition of the equal rights of the Arab minority in Israel in the Declaration of Independence, combined with the imposition of military rule over Arabs in Israel}}... p.462, speaking of recent times {{tq|The demographic growth of the Arab minority in Israel, which in the year 2000 numbered about 900,000, heightens its self-confidence. Paradoxically this growing self-confidence is evidence that Israeli Arabs are internalizing the Israeli democratic ethos, which enables them to use their numbers to achieve rights and equality. ... In addition government allocations to the Arab sector for education, development, and industrial projects are far lower than those for the Jewish sector. Discrimination is slowly but surely diminishing, and among Jews there is growing recognition of the need to prevent discrimination in the future. But the prospect of civil equality peace, war, and indecision in the future does not satisfy the Arab public, and a prominent sector of its elites demands a basic change in the identity of the state as a condition for them to accept it. The definition opposite to a "Jewish and democratic state" is, as suggested earlier, ‘‘a state of all its citizens’’—that is, a state that is neutral with respect to nationality and ethnicity, whose citizenship will be solely secular-Israeli. Within the framework of such a citizenship, the entire population would be subject to a single standard in the immigration laws. In fact this would be "a state of all its nationalities," since the Arabs demand recognition as a national group, partnership in decisions pertaining to them, regional autonomy, and equal status for the Arabic language. As an interim stage, the Arabs of Israel seek recognition as a minority with intrinsic minority rights, such as recognition of their organization as a national organization, their leaders’ right to represent them on the national stage, and cultural and educational autonomy. ...The Israeli Arabs see themselves as citizens of the state, and as such eligible for all the rights that status gives. But they do not recognize the Jewish state per se as their state, as representing them too. ...the Israeli Arabs bitterly oppose suggestions regarding repartition of the country, including transfer of Arab-populated areas on the Israeli side of the Green Line to the PA in return for the West Bank settlements; they accuse the Israelis of racism. The political, economic, and social instability of Palestinian society compared with Israeli democracy (despite all its shortcomings)...}} Also checkout the chapter "Zionist Thinkers and the “Arab Question" of about Zionism not being a monolith: {{tq|The alternative approach to the Arab question was what Gorny calls the “altruistic-integrationist” one. Here, the realization of Zionism is predicated upon the Jewish capacity to integrate into the Orient. Yitzhak Epstein (1863–1943) is regarded as a major proponent of this position. In 1907, he published an essay entitled “The Hidden Question,” in which he addressed what he saw as the crucial problem of Zionism, namely whether it was able or willing to integrate into the region. He criticized the prevalent Zionist approach of blocking out the Arab question and advocated instead for its active integration into Zionism. Epstein believed this to be the right course for the Zionist objective, from the moral as well as the realpolitik point of view. A favorable reception of the Jews by the Palestinians would benefit both. It would mean progress for the latter while the Jews would be given a homeland. He saw the shared Semitic origins of both peoples as a basis for such cooperation and actually considered it counterpro- ductive to Zionist goals that the new immigrants to Palestine take a colonialist or repressive stance. Furthermore, Epstein didn’t think that the Arab nationalism of the early twentieth century was necessarily an adversary of Jewish nationalism. Rather, he endorsed a policy geared towards balance and compromise with the objective of advancing the national development of the Arabs, which would be in the interests of Zionism as well}}. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 08:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Im not distinguishing between ethos and essence. I'm saying that for example Ben-Ami characterizes the desire for minimum arabs to be part of the essence of zionism. Other authors describe Zionism as wanting as few arabs as possible, but do not describe that as part of the essence of Zionism. ] (]) 08:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::But some Zionists thought that the Arab minority would remain and integrate. For example, Amar-Dahl: {{tq|In the utopian novel The Old New Land (Altneuland, 1902), in which Herzl sketched his ideas of the new Jewish society in Eretz Israel, the author does ded-icate several pages to the Arabs who are already living in that region. But the main viewing directionof these passages remains fixated on the firm belief in the positive effects that a Jewish settlement would have on the development of the country, and thus presents a fixed conception that the Jewish presence would elevate the living standard of the Arab population. As such, Herzl thought that they would be grateful to Zionism}} ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 08:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Of course you can pick out statements and writings from zionist leadership along these lines. But here we are talking about the movement as a whole. At times when the movement was struggling or its success less clear, it was more open to compromise; that doesn't mean that the movement '''wanted''' to compromise. For example, recall that it was the arguments put forward against transfer were primarily on the basis of its practicality; Shapira: {{tq|The mainstream viewed it as a good thing that one could, if need be, do without.}} I'm not saying that Shapira is the ultimate authority on this issue, what I'm saying is that the movement wanted one thing but felt it had to settle for another.
::::::::::::::::So the desirability of transfer was certainly there. And we have a wide range of scholars who state "as few arabs" explicitly when describing zionism as a whole: off the top of my head, Shlaim, Slater, Ben-Ami, Masalha. The presence of Ben-Ami in this list is a strong indicator that this is in fact a mainstream view. ] (]) 18:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Since this whole dispute concerns the question of '''if and when''' population transfer was considered by the Zionist mainstream to be one of Zionism's core goals, the relevant meta-level discussion would be one that explores different views on this "if and when" question in a neutral and balanced way.
:::::::::::An article starting with unqualified assertion that Zionist approach was "focused on the Jewish people only, and believed that it was better to evacuate (“transfer”) the Arabs of Palestine in order to establish a homogenous Jewish state." is nowhere near that and is just another example of "the list (of those historians who agree with me) mentality" I thought we were trying to avoid. ] (]) 07:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::As a sidenote, I find the following passage from the "Editor's introduction" to the volume you quoted from quite illuminating:
:::::::::::{{tq2|The second ‘absentee’ is Ilan Pappé, the Israeli expat who has become something of a popular cult figure, arguably the chief advocate of the Palestinian Arab cause on European University campuses. '''His absence here is due to his having crossed the clear line between academic integrity and propaganda'''. Fifteen years ago, he wrote:<br> ''My bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the ‘truth’ when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and preposterous.''}}
:::::::::::This could be relevant in context of our previous discussion about BESTSOURCES, given the fact that Pappe is being quoted above both directly and indirectly (via Rouhana&Sabbagh-Khoury 2014, p. 6, and Lentin 2010, p. 7). ] (]) 08:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::If you want to discuss bestsources again, best open a new section. Getting back to the transfer issue, we have Morris and Masalha sort of confirmed as being good sources on this subject and can we please find other sources that cite them and/or anyone else for this topic, individual quotes from individual historians are not that useful, there are hundreds of them. We need a list and then we can see what that looks like when we run it past what we think are our best sources. ] (]) 10:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)


:It is alarming that editors have so-far succeeded in pushing edits that paint with a brush that portrays the most extreme extensions of Zionism as integral to it. keep In mind: people like Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Elijah Cummings identified with Zionism, which does not pare with how Zionism is now being portrayed in this article. 10:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC) <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) </small>
On ] you claimed in this discussion that "So far, we've identified three historians" that would argue against the idea that Zionism is some form of colonialism. Later on ] after I presented additional 3 scholars, you said "We're now up to six scholars who dispute that Zionism is colonialism". However from your comments in the recent ] about Nishidani’s aggressive behavior we can see that in the days immediately before you made that "3/6 scholars" comments, you have been closely monitoring the articles ] and ]. Yet, somehow you "missed" the fact that these articles contain the opinions of several more scholars critical of the idea that Zionism is Colonialism (beyond those mentioned so far in the discussion here): ],&nbsp;], ], ] and . In fact, some of these names and their opinions appear in two diffs that you yourself brought into that AE discussion on ]! One titled "", the other titled ""
] (]) 10:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC) ::Idk what this is supposed to be about but it is unsourced personal opinion afaics and has nothing to do with the subject under discussion here.] (]) 10:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::portraying the most extremist strands of Zionism as integral core beliefs of all Zionists is a SERIOUS problem. This would be akin to portraying the views of jihadists as the integral core beliefs of all Islam ] (]) 03:09, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I agree - this is exactly why multiple editors objected to this phrasing since it was introduced back in August, and also the reason for ] ] (]) 06:59, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::More unsourced personal opinion. The sentence first made it's appearance in the Nakba article a year ago, it was merely copied here. {{tq|Multiple editors}} supported this phrasing, sufficient of them for it to gain a consensus (including over objections by socks) and the RFC above (seeking removal of the entire sentence) appears at present likely to reaffirm that consensus. ] (]) 09:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::::1. As I showed above, a large part of the cherry-picked sources allegedly supporting this phrasing do, in fact, talk specifically about 1947-1948 period, so in the Nakba article this sentence at least made sense period-wise, but it's very innacurate as framing of Zionist consensus during the whole pre-state period.
::::2. While the way the RFC was formulated is problematic, most if not all the editors supporting the change talked about rephrasing the sentence in question, not removing it.
::::3. Most of the editors supporting the phrasing accepted the list produced by @] as evidence of scholarly consensus, without going back to the sources and checking the context from which the truncated quotes were taken. However, as I show above, when considered in full and within context, it becomes clear that most of the cited sources don't support this characterisation of core Zionist goals since movement inception, especially the "as few Arabs as possible" part. Moreover, the additional references I provided either explicitly contest parts of this narrative promoted in this sentence, or at least point to academic controversy around this narrative. ] (]) 10:05, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::No objection to revisiting all sources in order to once again determine best sources. Editors have already commented on your list of sources (btw, why are only your sources not cherrypicked?). Look at semantic scholar stats below and see where Karsh, prominent in your list and who you posit as refuting Morris, comes in comparatively. We should do a similar exercise for all sources including those not in your list such as Zureik. ] (]) 10:34, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::1. I didn't say that the sources currently used don't qualify as BESTSOURCES (apart from a couple of them who are tertiary sources and one that talks about 2006, the rest are perfectly ok), but that they only represent '''one side of the scholarly spectrum, and not the consensus''', and that at least some of them don't really support the sentence in question.
::::::2. Since all the currently used sources represent only one side of the academic debate, naturally the complementary list I shared contains sources from the other side of the spectrum. And since I don't suggest that those additional sources are the only ones that should be used, but rather propose to look at the entire spectrum of academic positions - including both the current sources and the ones I added - this is literally the opposite of cherry-picking.
::::::3. Starting to compare scholars' stats, in order to determine where the needle of the academic consensus should point to exactly, would be ] par excellence. ] (]) 11:37, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Determining the relative value of sourcing is something we actually do, see ] "One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes or lists such as DOAJ." and "However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, controversial within the relevant field, or largely ignored by the mainstream academic discourse because of lack of citations." ] (]) 11:50, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::1. The passage you quoted provides a secondary criteria for determining whether a particular publication should be considered a RS - not a ranking of authors holding opposite positions in academic debate.
::::::::2. Not sure where you got Karsh's stats from - the numbers I see on are 18/203/1416/42 ] (]) 07:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::It is correct to look at citations and reception to determine how much weight a reliable source should be given. And Karsh represents an extreme and outsider position in the scholarly spectrum, so shouldn’t be given excess weight. But it’s also correct that looking at the range of perspectives from serious scholars, our current wording reflects one side of the debate rather than the academic mainstream. ] (]) 16:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::I agree that his position is extreme, but its inclusion is important in order to delineate the full width of academic spectrum of opinions on this issue. ] (]) 17:14, 1 January 2025 (UTC)


If I just pick up raw data from semanticscholar:
:Nothing prevents yourself from bringing sources, wherever they may be found and no matter who found them. Go with that and everything will be fine. If you have some behavioral issue to discuss with another editor that would usually be a matter for that editor's talk page in the first instance. ] (]) 11:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::With a 2 minutes search in google and just lookin at the wikipedia articles for (Zionism as) Settler colonialism I have already brought the number of critical scholars in this discussion from 3 to 11. And there are of course more that I'll bring here later as time permits. ] (]) 11:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:{{tqq|you have been closely monitoring the articles ] and ]}} 😂 I don't closely monitor any articles. Also, I didn't say that ''I'' have identified. Also also, I said "colonialism," not "settler colonialism." ] (]) 11:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::LOL. So the diffs you brought with the critical opinions that you "missed" just fell on you from heaven without you looking for them or looking at them... And your trying to distinguish here between "colonialism" and "settler colonialism" is funny because that whole discussion was in the context of Penslar discussion of "settler colonialism". Anyway, here are 3 more critical names that I found in the last few minutes:
::] (https://momentmag.com/a-guide-to-zionism-in-hard-times/): What about colonialism? Despite its pioneers’ European origins, Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project.
:: (https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/r1azjsska<nowiki/>|): This is not a situation of colonialism according to its historical definition, but rather a situation of two conflicting nations sharing the same territory.
:: (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13531040108576162): The Colonialist School creates, then, a historical fiction which it calls "Zionism," but which is not really Zionism.
::More will come when I have more time to search later. Bye for now. ] (]) 11:34, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tqq|without you looking for them or looking at them}} 😂😂 You have correctly deduced that I looked for and at them. {{tqq|your trying to distinguish here between "colonialism" and "settler colonialism" is funny}} Is it also funny when scholars distinguish between the two, or just when I do it?
:::I do appreciate you bringing sources though, that's what we're here for. Our count is up to 9, although maybe more like 8.5 because Ginio wavers. (And that Bareli article is kind of old for this topic, as we've discussed earlier.)
:::By the way, remember when I said "modern academic books about Zionism"? That was to filter the pile of sources, so we weren't going at this forever. You're bringing in journal articles, op-eds, and newspaper interviews. You do realize that if we open up the search to include those non-book sources, it also opens the flood gates to the ''pro''-colonialist sources, right? If I can find 10 books saying it's colonialism, I'll be able to find 100 journal articles and probably 1,000 interviews and op-eds. So be careful. 9 is still a very small number, especially if you're searching op-eds and interviews.
:::{{tqq|More will come when I have more time to search later.}} No rush. ] (]) 12:16, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::@] 1. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that you admit now that you had looked at the diffs, and when you said that "so far we have identified 3/6" you were aware of the existence of more scholars that had criticized the '''colonial''' description of Zionism in general (not only specific "variants" of colonialism). And your excuse for this misrepresentation is that you said "we" instead of "I". Pardon me, but this excuse looks like sophistry.
::::2. You also had your math confused. Actually so far we have mentioned in this discussion 15 scholars who are critical of the "colonial" interpretation (11 of whom were brought by me). Nor is there any wavering in Ginio’s interview. Nor did Bareli change his mind since 2001, if anything he became more emphatic about it. Anyway very soon I'll post (in “round 5” section) a list that completes this number to 50.
::::3. The 50 scholars I’ll soon post are quoted from a variety of sources: Academic books, academic journal articles, opinion pieces and interviews etc. Please note that I am counting here 50 different '''relevant scholars''' and not articles by just any person, and as Selfstudier said once – if a scholar writes something related to his fields, he is considered a RS even if he wrote it on toilet paper. Anyway, if you believe you can bring here quotes from 1000 different relevant scholars that had written in favor of the “colonialist” view, in similar sources to the ones I used, then by all means feel free to do that. As for me, although I have more leads like these, I don’t intend to continue in this line in the near future, because I want to go back to working on my main argument here, i.e. the “Encyclopedias project”. ] (]) 11:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::1. Is this you trying to trap me in some kind of bullshit? Stop pinging me, we're done. I'm not down for another Vegan bludgeoning. ] (]) 13:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


Masalha - h-index 9, 42 publications, 335 citations, 19 influential
=== Round 5 regarding the (post-)colonialist interpretation of Zionism ===


Morris - 15/87/1449/45
Several editors in previous discussion seem to have wished to create the impression that the number of 21st scholars that are critical of the "(post) Colonial" interpretation of Zionism is only a single digit number (one going even as far as calling it a "fringe" view). To completely debunk this false impression that may have been created I bring here a list of 50 relevant 21st century scholars who are critical of the "(post) Colonial" interpretation of Zionism (most of whom wrote about it in the last 5 years). I actually have more leads like these but I got tired of exploring them and writing them nicely, so I decided to stop at a nice round number. Having made my point here, I don’t intend to continue in this line of randomly collecting scholar opinions in the near future, because I want to go back to working on my more systematic approach here, i.e. the “Encyclopedias project”. News on that will probably come next week on "Round 6".
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+
!Scholar Name
!year
!links
!quotes
|-
|]
|2020
|
|Economic theories of colonialism and sociological theories of migration movements are also inadequate when applied to the Zionist experience
|-
|]
|2020
|
|Colonialism is commonly defined as the policy and practice of an imperial power acquiring political control over another country, settling it with its sons, and exploiting it economically. By any objective standard, Zionism fails to fit this definition
|-
|]
|2011
|
|The Myth of Israel as a Colonialist Entity: An Instrument of Political Warfare to Delegitimize the Jewish State
|-
|]
|2016
|
|What Do Those Who Claim Zionism Is Colonialism Overlook?
|-
|
|2011
|
|Moreover, Zionism was not colonialism. Palestine had no economic attraction for the Zionists because there was nothing in Palestine to exploit.
|-
|]
|2019
|
|Zionist settlers were not European colonialists
|-
|]
|2016
|
|It is precisely this early international acceptance of Zionism as national rebirth in an ancestral homeland, rather than colonial encroachment on an indigenous populace, that the Palestinian Authority seeks to debunk by demanding an official British apology for the declaration.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|“colonialism is irrelevant to the Zionist experience.” Zionists were motivated primarily by “a historical vision for their future identity in what they considered their ancient homeland” rather than an “imperial strategic or economic vision or a desire to dominate the local population.” “most Jewish immigrants in Palestine and Israel did not come as Zionists but as refugees.”
|-
|]
|2019
|
|Without evidence or argument, it neatly defines Jews as invaders and the Jewish state as an intruding colonial-settler society in the service of an imperialistic mission.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|dealing with the establishment of Israel as a colonial enterprise is “a significant category error.” It cannot apply to a conflict involving “two indigenous peoples.” It is misplaced given that the 20th-century influx of persecuted European Jews came from a historically indigenous “population of refugees not sent by any empire.” It cannot be applied to the many other Jews from Muslim North African and Middle Eastern countries who arrived in Israel after they suffered expulsion.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|“Wars and social movements need to connect to dominant cultural tropes, and colonialism has become the go-to term for total pollution”,“Branding Israel with this term is seen as effective, ”
|-
|]
|2009
|
|The relation of the Jews to the Land of Israel is not colonial. It is religious and cultural.
|-
|
|2024
|
|"there is no real basis for the claim that the entire Zionist project and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 can be equated with European colonialism", "This is not a situation of colonialism according to its historical definition, but rather a situation of two conflicting nations sharing the same territory".
|-
|]
|2024
|
|What about colonialism? Despite its pioneers’ European origins, Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project
|-
|
|2024
|
|Post Colonialism as an introduction to Antisemitism: If we remove the national motivations that led Jews to immigrate to the country and to invest in it and leave only the "colonial" ones we wouldn't be able to explain the success of Zionism.
|-
|]
|2015
|
|"The anti-Zionist mythology of the left", "It is no accident that the confused ideology of the contemporary “post-colonial” left is vulnerable to antisemitism since it no longer has any anchor in the concrete, material realities or the geopolitical, security, and cultural contexts of the Middle East."
|-
|]
|2010
|
|the land was thus an existential necessity. Zionism was a stringent nationalism, a radical nationalism; but to claim that the arrivals were white settlers driven by a colonialist mind-set does not correspond to historical reality. The overwhelming majority - the Polish Jews in the 1920s, the German Jews in the 1930s, the displaced persons after the Second World War and the end of the British Mandate - came because they had nowhere else to go. The same applies to the immigrants after 1948, forced out of the Arab countries as a result of the founding of the State of Israel. To speak of a colonialist mentality in their case is absurd. The institutions set up in the inter-war period aimed at ensuring Jewish autonomy in all areas, rather than subjugating the Arabs of Palestine or expelling them.
|-
|]
|2019
|
|Wishful thinking on the Left is combined with a Manichaean world view: extreme animus against Israelis, identified as the evil white colonists, combined with an idealisation of the Palestinians, cast as the oppressed non-white revolutionaries. But what follows from any kind of Manichaean world is falsity, bad politics, and bad political analysis, because the world itself isn’t actually Manichaean.
|-
|]
|2019
|
|The use of the term “colonialism” by BDS supporters is not historiography but political rhetoric. They also assume that having named Israel as “colonial” that the political logic would be the need to dismantle the state.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|the Zionist project was ''never'' a colonialist one.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|Today, a particularly virulent strain of antisemitism holds not just the Jews but the Jewish state guilty. Guilty of what? Of the cardinal sin according to many on the Left today: the imperialist oppression of non-whites. According to this view, the “settler-colonialist” Jews arrived from Europe and Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries and set about stripping the indigenous Palestinians of their national rights. Never mind that there had never been a sovereign Arab Palestine or that the Jews returned to Israel to create a state only because their Russian and European “hosts” had made their life unbearable or actively sought to end it. When an independent state was offered to the Arabs in 1947, they rejected it. Nevertheless, the Jews went on to establish a sovereign state of their own, which flourishes 75 years after its creation.
|-
|]
|2005
|
|"Is Zionism Colonialism? The Root Lie", "This is a very great lie, and it is a self-serving lie. Those who believe it can sustain in their hearts the hope that in any given span of a few years, Israel will disappear. America will decide to dismantle it, or the Jews will decide that it is too costly to maintain, and so will go to other countries that are safer and more comfortable. For colonialism is something that is transient and lasts only so long as it is cost-effective. But authentic nations are forever, the ties of nations to their land are never really severed, and nations are bound by ties of solidarity that cross the generations."
|-
|]
|2023
|
|Human rights antisemitism is accompanied and amplified by the theology of the neo-Marxist left, which is focused on opposing “racist, capitalist, imperialist, colonial oppressors.” Under slogans such as “intersectional solidarity” and DEI, (diversity, equality, and inclusion — except for Jews) these ideologues have conquered the leading universities, claiming to speak for ostensibly oppressed peoples (many of which are led by terror regimes) in the “global south,” while Israel, particularly after the 1967 war, is branded as the tool of American and European imperialism. In this tortured version of morality and human rights, western nationalism, including Zionism, is automatically “evil,” but Third World nationalism and “liberation” movements are good — the victims can never be unjust oppressors (even when they engage in indescribable brutality), and the “colonialists” cannot be righteous victims.
|-
|]
|2022
|
|But this was not “settler colonialism” as usually defined.
|-
|]
|2018
|
|If Zionism Were Colonial It Would Have Ended Long Ago: The Palestinians’ refusal to accept that they are confronting a rival national movement has been disastrous for them.
|-
|]
|2021
|
|An Open Letter to Peter Gabriel et al explaining why Israel is not a ‘Settler Colonial’ society
|-
|]
|2013
|
|A third manifestation of political Antisemitism is the denial of any historical connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel, a form of Middle East revisionism or ‘memory cleansing’ that seeks to extinguish or erase the Jewish people’s relationship to Israel, while ‘Palestinizing’ or ‘Islamicizing’ the Arab and Muslim exclusivist claim. If ‘Holocaust Revisionism’ is an assault on Jewish memory and historical experience, ‘Middle East Revisionism’ constitutes no less of an assault on Jewish memory and historical experience. It cynically serves to invert the historical narrative so that Israel is seen an ‘alien’ and ‘colonial implant’ in the region that ‘usurped’ the Palestinian homeland – leading to the conclusion that its people are a ‘criminal’ group of nomadic Jews whose very presence ‘defiles’ Islam, and must be expurgated.
|-
|]
|2021
|
|Calling Israel racist, apartheid, genocidal, settler-colonialist and white supremacist or Jewish supremacist, is inaccurate and insulting, counterproductive and self-destructive. It encourages war, not peace; Jew-hatred, not reconciliation. It hardens hearts and polarizes positions. And, in demonizing the Jewish state, it encourages hooligans who target the Jews living in that state – and the Jews living everywhere else, too.
|-
|]
|2024
|
|The failure of Middle East scholars to account for developments in the Middle East is not a bug but a feature of the field’s ethos: an exercise in political liberation from Western powers rather than an analytical understanding of the region’s deeper dynamics and complexities. With this ethos, the May 1948 resurrection of Jewish sovereignty in its ancient homeland is described entirely as an act of colonial aggression rather than the ''actual'' springtime revolution that it was after generations of mandated Jewish disempowerment.
|-
|]
|2023
|
|Israel haters ignore a grievous history: The ‘apartheid’ analogy and the ‘colonial settler’ paradigm are simplistic and unhelpful
|-
|]
|2024
|
|how might Jews respond over the long term to those drawing from a linguistic arsenal stocked with lazy, jargon-based, anti-Israel lies about colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, all tied together by righteous fury and rhythmic sloganeering?
|-
|]
|2019
|
|“Claims that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, that it was an illegitimate colonialist enterprise from the outset, are indeed anti-Semitic in effect.”
|-
|]
|2023
|
|So the claim that Israelis are “colonial settlers” doesn’t hold water. Aside from the small population of Jews who never left the Holy Land, most of the returnees were refugees, half from Arab countries.
|-
|]
|2010
|
|Why is it that people don’t see what the situation is today, and try to see if there is a kind of resolution to what is essentially a national conflict that could free up progressive politics? To subsume the conflict under the rubric of colonialism misrecognizes the situation.
|-
|]
|2007
|
|In the middle of the 20th century Israel was not imagined as a European colony. It is strained, to say the least, to believe that Jews in the refugee camps in Europe and in British Cyprus, recovering from starvation and from existences as non-humans, were thinking of themselves as standard bearers of ‘the European idea’. The seamless insertion of the history of ‘Zionism’ into a schematic history of colonialism casts Jews as going to Palestine in order to get rich on the back of the people who lived there. Jews, who are said to embody some European idea of whiteness, also embodied a European idea of rats and cockroaches which was held to constitute an existential threat to Europe.
|-
|]
|2004
|
|This article seeks to show that such criticism often expresses a very different sentiment, an “anti-Israeli enthusiasm”. A vent for righteous indignation that brings some relief from the still-burning shame of the memory of the Shoah, it employs facile equations reducing the Jewish State to the last bastion of colonialism and thereby conceals the true issues underlying this conflict.
|-
|]
|2024
|
|Taught from Stockton, Calif., to Stockholm, Sweden, the doctrine has at its core white supremacy, which must be crushed. The gist is Western guilt, and it must be exorcised by laying it first and foremost on the colonialist state of Israel, i.e., the Jews.
|-
|
|2012
|
|The colonialist discourse is not a new one. The analogy, however, has been disproved by the facts. The Zionist settlement of Palestine took place without military or political assistance from foreign states and so does not resemble any colonialist movement. Zionism was not a religious movement, but a national movement that saw the return to Zion as the modern expression of a people that wished to forge its collective destiny through a return to its historical sources. The Israelis created a rejuvenated homeland and established an identity between a large part of the people and their soil; they developed settlement, science, and technology, achieved a clear national identity with a culture, language, and creativity of its own, and succeeded in maintaining a democratic existence (within the “Green Line”) under the most trying condition there can be for a democracy – a protracted military conflict. Most important of all, the Israelis never felt strangers in their country. They did not apologize for their national existence, but saw it as the historical realization of a universal right supported by international recognition – not as an original sin.
|-
|
|2015
|
|it is demonstrated that the de-colonial framing of Israel as a "Western colonial project" can blur with antisemitic stereotypes--for instance when Israel is depicted as a neo-colonial evil par excellence and "Jewish complicity" with Western (neo)-colonialism is postulated.
|-
|]
|2022
|
|there is a piece missing from the stock postcolonial discourse, a discourse that folds Zionism completely, without remainder, into the history of European hegemony over the Global South, as if this were the whole story'''.''' But it is not; and the piece that is missing is, for most Jews, including quite a few of us who are not part of the Jewish mainstream regarding Zionism and Israel, the centerpiece. Put it this way: For Jews in the ''shtetls'' of Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s (like my grandparents), the burning question was not “How can we extend the reach of Europe?” but “How can we escape it?” That was the ''Jewish'' Jewish Question. Like ''Europe’s'' Jewish Question, it too was not new; and it was renewed with a vengeance after the walls of Europe closed in during the first half of the last century, culminating in the ultimate crushing experience: genocide'''.''' Among the Jewish answers to the Jewish Jewish Question was migration to Palestine. But, by and large, the Jews who moved to Palestine after the Shoah were not so much emigrants as (literally or in effect) refugees.
|-
|]
|2016
|
|A brilliant entry on “Settler Colonialism” does the same against that lie and libel, in particular refuting the widely promoted notion that Israeli Jews are “white” and Palestinians are people “of color”—a notion that, other entries show, permits anti-Israel activists to make otherwise bizarre alliances with progressive campus groups and thus greatly fuels Israel-hatred across Western campuses.
|-
|
|2024
|
|The anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881 were not about settler colonialism. The Dreyfus Affair was not about settler colonialism. Zionism was not settler-colonialism but a response to the Jewish question.
|-
|
|2024
|
|“Critical race theory” brands Jews not only as “white” (a term used on campus to mean “structurally racist”) but “hyper-white” (the whitest, therefore most racist of all). Theories of “settler colonialism” misrepresent Jews as colonizers in their own indigenous lands.
|-
|
|2023
|
|Yet I find the “Zionism (Israel) = colonialism = apartheid” equation factually false, intellectually lazy, morally wrong and practically counterproductive.
|-
|]
|2007
|
|Categorization of Zionism as a case of colonialism, thereby stigmatizing it, may serve the partisan rhetorical ends of the Palestinian cause, but it is fallacious as an analytical tool for impartial comprehension of the Arab–Jewish conflict. In the final analysis, theories of nationalism, which command a vast and profound literature, are far more valuable aids in comprehending the history of Zionism and the nature of the Arab–Jewish conflict than whatever goes by the description of postcolonial theory.
|-
|]
|2016
|
|Some of them claim that Zionism is sheer colonialism. But if we grant that the Jews constituted a borderline case of a nation at the end of the 19th century, and that the European Jewish collective and its members then faced serious and urgent practical problems in Europe, we have to argue normatively about the reasonableness of the nationalist solution proposed and carried out by the Zionists, and not just dismiss it as sheer colonialism as some major post-Zionists (and the Palestinians) do.
|-
|
|2021
|
|"It seems that treating Israel as a settler-colonial state is supposed to provide the ultimate justification for singling it out for criticism and also to legitimize the Palestinian struggle in all its forms as an anticolonial movement. is presentation of Israel is to accentuate that the struggle is not between competitive nationalisms but between the conqueror, on the one hand, and the conquered, the displaced, the occupied, on the other", "This is is precisely the crux of the issue: much academic research on Israel has gradually lost scientific ambi- tion by adopting a solely political objective—the designation of a state as a colony is instrumental in this theoretical-political warfare, as it inherently comprises that state’s illegitimacy and calls for its termination.", "However, one does not have to be a Weberian to value this fundamental distinction and to repudiate the reification of concepts, the binaries and the false analogies in use within critical whiteness studies, settler-colonial stud- ies, and other fields of activist social science. But fallacious methodology has a clear function in these analyses—namely, a certain symbolic usage of the terms whiteness, colony , and settler colony , which inherently comprises an unequivocal moral judgment."
|-
|
|2017
|
|Tis complexity makes me wonder if the question Penslar poses (is Zionism a colonial movement?) is necessarily the right one to answer persistent ques- tions about possible relationships between the history of Israel/Palestine and the history of European colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If anything, his focus on a particular movement over a broad span of time has shown us that terms such as “colonial” and “anticolonial” have context-specifc valences; these words are more helpful to our understanding when they are understood to apply to dynamic relationships rather than to coherent identities that persist over time, institutions, or political movements.
|-
|
|2023
|
|On social media, Jews were painted as white-supremacist colonial settlers oppressing an indigenous ethnic minority. Very quickly, we saw that by employing these false labels, Israel wasn’t just ''accused'' of apartheid; on Twitter, apartheid came to ''mean'' Israel exclusively.
|-
|]
|2024
|
| “driven by oceanic historic ignorance and refusal to understand the complexity of the situation”. “writing and chattering classes” “most prone to grotesque, uninformed, historically ignorant stereotypes of Israel as a colonial settler state", “It is not a colonial settler state. It was a country of refugees, it was continuously occupied by Jews for many millennia.”
|}
] (]) 11:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


Those two are also cited by Zureik 19/102/1304/37
:Is it to be 10 rounds? Points decision? Wonder if I can produce a source table twice as big as that one? ] (]) 11:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::As many rounds as it take till we reach a consensus decision. We might even have an RFC if we cannot reach it. But at this early exploratory stage it is still early to even decide what the options is such an RFC would be. And I think that I probably could produce a source table twice as big as that one, but as I said I don't intend to work on this soon, as I want to concentrate on the systematic Encyclopedias approach. ] (]) 11:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:@] Yoav Gelber is an interesting inclusion, considering he has repeatedly stated that Zionism as colonialism is the mainstream view in the literature, and the view of Zionism as not colonial is a minority view. -- ] (]) 12:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::Apart from its irrelevancy, for we have been discussing the use of 'colonization' as an appropriate term in the lead, and there is no other word available to explain what we mean when a programme was undertaken to create a Jewish majority, via immigration, in a country that was 95% Arab, and there is no way to get round the documented fact that the Zionist leadership described this, from 1896 to at least 1948, as colonization, this is a very mixed bag, most of it expressing summarily opinions by Zionists dismissing the settler colonial thesis of Colonialism studies, by challenging the adequacy of the latter general concept, poorly defined. One would expect this in any faith-based belief system. I'm going through these but your very first should be removed. I particularly enjoyed the link to ], the son of a Belfast immigrant who, in a book review of the Palestinian historian, ], discredits a scion of the Khalidi family with its millenial roots in Palestine for his views about colonialism, because he was for a time, a spokesman for the PLO, in 1980s. And because he quotes a definition of colonialism that is no longer in use, in order to rebut it. That is the quality of most of the evidence here (sniping shots from Zionist (nothing wrong with that, but it is an emotional commitment) scholars who, ''en passant'' express their distaste for the term which they fail to adequately define, and are mainly concerned with the politics of the debate, and not the merits of the theory. I'll give details when I get the time.] (]) 14:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::And that Chaim Gans quote... the very next sentence is: "It might have been justified, as I think it was in fact, to propose solving the European Jewish problem by establishing a Jewish colony in Palestine." Somehow that next sentence didn't make it into the table.
::Elsewhere in the piece, he draws a distinction between other Western colonialism and Israel, writing that while Western countries moved away from their colonialist roots over time, Israel moved in the opposite direction. ] (]) 14:38, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::@] actually, Gelber was one of the only three three scholars in this list that I didn't find myself but rather copied from the discussion that happened here before I got involved, and where it was established that Gelber opposes the colonialist view vehemently. So I didn't really look much into his writings. So tell me where did he say what you attribute to him? ] (]) 14:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::@] his chapter in Cohen's The British Manadate of Palestine to begin with. -- ] (]) 15:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I looked at this chapter (I assume it is identical to , I couldn't find an accessible version of the book itself either in Google Books or TWL) and didn't find anywhere that he claims that the colonialist view is the majority view. Can you refer me to the sentences where he says that? ] (]) 17:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*]. Nope. He edited the book and you attribute to him an anonymous sentence in the abstract attached to it. It is bad practice to just google without reading the source.] (]) 14:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*], a book review. It defines ''en passant'' colonialism as
:<blockquote>Colonialism is commonly defined as the policy and practice of an '''imperial power''' acquiring political control over another country, '''settling it with its sons'''</blockquote>
:Palestine wasn't settled by British Jews during the ], ergo. . . Zionism was not colonialist. Go figure. ] (]) 14:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*] has a scholarly background, though he is predominantly a political polemicist on behalf of the state. It qualifies as an example of a scholarly Zionist challenge to the thesis of colonialism, though it betrays no knowledge of the literature Levivich and others have cited for use over the past few decades. Its historical references are limp, like citing the fringe conclusions (of ]'s otherwise impressive book) for 'indigenousness', such that Jews '''and''' Samaritans (i.e. non Jews) constituted the demographic majority at the time of the Arab conquest, which he sees as causing the wilting of a Jewish majority. That is nonsense, schoolbook legend. No one would deny that there was a continuous Jewish (and Christian, Samaritan, and I might add, Arab) population from antiquity to modern times. But at the time of Zionism, those indigenous Jewish communities constituted 5% of the Palestinian population, and Gold's argument is that Palestinians had no claim to the kind of indigenousness Jewish immigrants descended from 2000 years of ostensible diaspora could claim, and had no right to brand the massive, guided immigration project flooding their country under British auspices, as 'colonialist'. It's a defensive screed with a highly partisan reading of just a few key points, but nowhere addresses the scholarship, something we are looking for. Nonetheless it qualifies as an Israeli RS challenge to the mainstream view.] (]) 15:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*]. Israeli scholar. A very curious article which considers this is an Infra-Israeli debate (Zionism-Post Zionism). Almost all the sources predate the emergence of the studies on settler colonialism which only flourished after that date. Useless.] (]) 17:04, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*:This is actually false claim. The concept of settler colonialism was invented in the 20th century and all the sources are from the 21st century. Even the so called "seminal" work of Wolfe is from 2006 and almost all of the sources with 2-3 exceptions are from after 2006 (including Frilling). And quite a few of them specifically address the concept of settler colonialism. In fact the majority of sources are from the last 5 years just as Levivich loves... ] (]) 17:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*::the sources of the friling article are mostly from before 2000 ] (]) 17:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*:::Ok. It seems I misunderstood Nishidani. I thought he was talking about the sources in the table. But if he talks about the sources referred by Friling then isn't he not going into the realm of OR here? I mean starting to analyze the content of expert opinions and arguing with them based on your own personal judgement looks strongly like OR (not to mention the personal arguments he raised against Benny Morris, which are not valid arguments even as OR). ] (]) 17:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*]. doesn't work, at least for me. Eisen is a professor of Judaic studies, and at ] 2011 {{isbn|978-0-199-79240-5}} p.165 he makes the remark you cite. It is an ], like all the other armchair or piazza opinions about the conflict on that one page (Jewish violence in Palestine/Israel occurred because '''they''' (Jews) were fighting for their lives, (meaning the Palestinians weren't fighting for their livelihoods?)) . Worthless. An opinion isn't significant because a scholar entertains it, but is so when that scholar shows a thorough familiarity with that topic.] (]) 20:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*], Are you familiar wtih Waxman's work? That didn't sound like him, and in the next page after the link, he says there is some truth to the settler colonial interpretation.'In this respect the Zionist project was similar to colonial p0roject undertaken by European settlers' etc.] (]) 20:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
**] In that screed, he thinks Mahmood Abbas should underwrite the balfour Declaration, and drops the remark you cite. He thinks there is no such thing as an ''occupation''. He is a scholar, but his views are all fringe, if not, even among mainstream scholars, often an embarrassment.] (]) 20:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*]. A fine historian, but a personal opinion stated in an email to Jennifer Schuessler writing for the New York Times is evidence for nothing other than his 'take' for which he gives no evidence. I for one would like to see the statistics for the various ] from the early 1900s onwards, showing that they were all refugees.] (]) 20:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*]. he is a scholar and RS. He has very eccentric views, mind you, and apparently believes ] converted to Islam and ergo went on to develop a theory of Israel as 'settler-colonial' (actually were he familiar with Rodinson, he would have mentioned that that extraordinary man later modified his views, stating that the 'settler colonial' side did not work to render Israel or Israelis inauthentic, but that is another story. So this is an RS from an Israeli scholar who rebuffs, without addressing the scholarship (he mentions ] only in passing. The remark you quote makes the wild and false caricature of the relevant scholarship, were it applied to the settler-colonial thesis, that it is 'without evidence or argument,' is meaningless, because that literature is all about evidence and argument. ] (]) 21:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*], a scholar of international law, disagrees with ], who is an historian, and is cited by ] in a NYTs op.ed to that effect, and notably you omit what follows:'Israel’s settlement of the occupied West Bank since 1967 is another story. Professor Shany and many liberal Israelis acknowledge marked colonial characteristics: a dominant power sending a half-million settlers into an area through force, accompanied by expropriation, control of the economy and daily humiliation of Palestinians that left little or no room for independent statehood.' I.e.for Shany, post 1967 Israel acts in the territories as a colonial-settler state, which, in his view, it wasn't through the ] period.] (]) 22:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*] is a distinguished sociologist, who, when asked by Roger Cohen, his opinion, '(colonialism) connects Jews to the very white European colonizers who murdered them by the millions.' That's a nice piece of rhetoric: you have to be white to be a colonizer (tell that to the Tibetans, or ]). The missing premise is 'Jews are not white'. Then Nazis were white colonizers. nazis caused the Holocaust. Therefore, to associate Israel with colonialism is, one must presume, to imply that they are Nazis. This is all very remarkable, no doubt citable, in any course of logic as a text to tease out a meaning where no logical order is observable, but it is totally unengaged with the scholarship-] (]) 22:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
*] barrel-scraping.
*]. Idem. To assert that there is no evidentiary basis for a claim, when it constitutes a robust field of scholarly studies, means this is just an off-the-cuff assertion, neither here nor there, in a Ynet article.] (]) 09:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
*] An historian so RS relevant. But it is an opion patched up with Zionist memes and dumbed down soundbites:'Zionism is not, and never was, a colonialist project. Jews had lived in the Land of Israel/Palestine in unbroken continuity ever since the Roman Empire sent most of their brethren to exile.' It is quite extraordinary that an historian can sum up diasporic history by arguing that it was the Roman Empire which sent 'most of their brethren in exile'. The demographics tell us that more than half of the Jews in the Ist century (before 70 CE) were beyond the confines of Palestine, and by choice. ] (]) 09:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:This is getting extremely disruptive, the constantly moving conversations from one place to another. How could one possible publicize the discussion at a project or noticeboard when it moves less than a week later. I'm going to try and refactor some of this. '']''<sup>]</sup> 14:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::I give up for the moment because my browser keeps crashing trying to move round 4. Can someone please try and move part 4 between 3 and 5. I think there are other threads that need refactored as well. '']''<sup>]</sup> 14:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Ps, @], @], @], @] and @]. The conversation is up here now. '']''<sup>]</sup> 14:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I moved Part 4. ] (]) 15:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Thanks, that was getting seriously frustrating. '']''<sup>]</sup> 15:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:almost all of these don't actual dispute that Zionism was colonial or used colonial methods. Instead, they dispute stronger (or different) claims, for example:
:* that zionism is/was *only* a colonial movement
:* that zionism is specifically a settler colonial movement
:* that Jews moving to israel after 1948 are settlers
:* that the colonial framework is more suited than the nationalist framework
:* that is was a european form of colonialism
:* that it came from an imperial power
:* that colonialism is bad
:* that israel is "the last bastion of colonialism"
:] (]) 17:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::What is left of "colonialism" if you remove all of these claims? ] (]) 17:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::like i said, these are all either stronger claims than "zionism is a colonial project" or different claims entirely. ] (]) 17:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Not really. These are many of the defining characteristics of the claim that Zionism was colonialist project. Also your characterization of the actual claims made in many of these sources is not actually accurate. ] (]) 18:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:@] 1. All your original-research arguments and ad-hominem attacks on the experts in the table are irrelevant to the point I made. As I explained in the beginning, the point of this table was to refute the notion that the opposition to the “colonialist” interpretation of Zionism is a fringe view. The table proves that this view is (at least) not fringe, and no amount of your OR and personal attacks on these scholars can change that fact.
:2.     It is also interesting to note that your arrogant and condescending attitude (which led you into trouble in the past) is not reserved only to us humble wiki editors who disagree with you, but also to well-known scholars who disagree with you. It is particularly inappropriate in this case since the people in the table are recognized scholars in relevant fields, whereas you are NOT.
:3.     Although most of your claims are in the realm of OR, or irrelevant personal attacks, they cannot be left unanswered. I’ll make a few answers here, and a few on my discussion page ], so that we won’t be accused of bluding here with off-topic and OR discussions.
:3.     Regarding Benny Morris’s argument that Zionism is not colonialism. His argument looks like a valid argument. I would also add to it, that not only didn’t Britain send any British citizens (Jews or non-Jews) to settle in the Land of Israel, but in fact it didn’t send any person to settle there. The Jews who chose to immigrate to Palestine (mostly from Eastern and Central Europe and some from the Middle East) did this of their own initiative, and sometimes, particularly in the later period of the mandate, did this against the will of Britain. The Arabs who immigrated to Palestine during that time also did it of their own initiative. Your saying “go figure” doesn’t disprove that fact.
:4.     Regarding Dov Waxman. Your comment “it doesn’t sound like him” shows unwillingness on your side to face the truth. He stated explicitly his opinion black on white in this recent book that the Zionist settlers were not European colonialists. The fact that in this book he also admits that there were some aspects in which Zionism is similar to colonialism doesn’t change his conclusion. You can point to many similarities between any 2 things in the world, while claiming that despite those similarities they are still not the same thing, because there are also many differences between them. As an analogy I can mention the current scholarly debate about whether the Hamas are the new Nazis. Some scholars say that while there are definitely aspects of Hamas ideology and practices that are similar to those of the Nazis, Hamas cannot be described as Nazis because there are also differences between them.
:5.     Regarding Tom Segev. Tom Segev is definitely one of the leading experts on the history of Zionism, and you are not in a position to argue with experts. This is not what we do here. If you think that Segev made a factual error then bring a reliable source that proves that. Also you have misrepresented what he said. He didn’t say that all immigrants were refugees. Only that most of them were. Just to illustrate very shortly about the Alyahs from 1900 to 1948: The second Aliyah was triggered by the antisemitic pogroms in Tsarist Russia. The third Aliyah was influenced by the civil war in Russia and the antisemitic pogroms that accompanied it. The fourth Aliyah was triggered by what was perceived as economic and political discrimination against the Jews in Poland (via taxation, numerus clausus laws etc.). The fifth Aliyah was triggered by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. The post WW2 Aliyah was of Holocaust survivors.
:::Just this. 'Refugee' means 'a person '''who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution.''' It does not refer to anyone making a rational calculation to leave their home(lands) for better prospects elsewhere because the dominant culture is hostile to them. The nearly 3 million Ashkenazi who left eastern Europe for the United States (1880-1914 thereabouts) did not do so as 'refugees'. Certainly, Ukrainian Jews fleeing ]'s genocidal thugstate who came to Palestine, did so as refugees. NJo need to reply ] (]) 12:35, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:6.     As I said the rest of the answer will appear ]. I’ll notify you whenever I add something there. Just as a last point here I would like to see evidence for your claim that Troen had said that Rodinson converted to Islam.
:7.     I thank you for some technical comments about links that I will correct soon in the table. ] (]) 09:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:::It's not 'original research', but simply knowing the topic well enough to be evaluate at sight who said what and whether it's a tenable proposition or not. All but two of those names are familiar to me, and almost nothing there has any relevance to the gravamen of our analysis. It's just a ring-around-the-rosie dance of one-liner defensive memes attached to various scholars. Look. I understand the deep attachment Israelis have to their land, the pride etc. And that there is a tendency get nervous/upset at scholarship which makes the received picture of the establishment of the state far more complex, worrisome than most are born up to realize. But pride or fensiveness has no place here. I say that as someone who hails from among the first families to colonize Melbourne, raised to sing ], and who noticed from early youth how unacceptable to Australian pride in their country any allusion to the dark underside of its establishment was. In the last 2 generations, the pride persists but no longer under any illusions about what really happened to the indigenous people we displaced. This happens in all countries, Israel is no exception. People, even high educated liberals, get nervous, until scholarship's c onclusions filter down into popular perceptions. <small>One anecdote to underline this diffuse ignorance among the highly educated of the whole story. A TAU mathematician had to, as part of his IDF service, be present during the routine beatings that Palestinian prisoners undergo to make them grasp through brutalization who's the boss. He refrained from putting the boot in, and just observed. He noted that the prisoner who received the greatest number of thrashings was the quietest of that category, but more importantly, when he helped the ward up one day from the floor, that his identification number consisted of two ]. The became acquainted. Some time later, the Palestinian said Israeli Jews were immigrants into his land. The mathematician corrected him:'No, to the contrary. You Arabs are the settlers here. This is our land.'</small>
:::Given your response I won't procede with details on each of those entries. It's pointless pointing out how what is patently irrelevant is being churned out to demand a fifth, sixth, seventh, re-examination of an issue already resolved. You think views via emails and phone calls, or occasional remarks giving one's point of view, qualified or not, are proof of something other than the fact that people with degrees have opinions on everything. ] (]) 12:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
::::@]
::::# ROFL. Assuming that you know "the topic well enough to decide on you own, without reference to sources, what's "a tenable proposition or not", '''against the opinion of real scholars in the field,''' is the essence of bad original research and pretense.
::::# Your false characterization of all the sources as "one-liner defensive memes" shows that you didn't even bother to read many of them, which discuss the issue at depth, and that you didn't try at all to answer any of the arguments that you did read (e.g. Morris, Waxman, Friling). You also didn't bring here any sources to refute those scholars. As far as I can see all you did here was only to make unsourced ad-hominem attacks ("He has very eccentric views"), tell unverified anecdotes, and make pseudo-psychological claims about the motives of these scholars. You have to understand that we have no "illusions about what really happened" to the Palestinians. But this has nothing to do with the question of Colonialism. There are simply many good arguments why Zionism doesn't fit the definition of any of the varieties of Colonialism.
::::# Speaking of your unverified anecdotes, I see that despite my request you still didn't provide evidence for your claim that Troen said that Rodinson converted to Islam. If you can't supply reliable evidence, you need to delete this remark or be in violation of BLP. Do you want to get into trouble again? You know I would never make a complaint to AE about this kind of things, but others may be collecting evidence against you...
::::# As for your refugee remark above I should think that the ], and the threats and treatment of the Jews by the Nazis since 1933, and the holocaust of course, definitely answer the definition of "persecution".
::::# My main conclusion from this exchange is that I have to write a systematic summary of all the scholarly arguments (historical, sociological, linguistic etc.) why Zionism doesn't fit the definition of Colonialism (each argument with references to the reliable secondary sources that make it in this table and other sources, so it won't be OR). This is probably more important (and certainly more interesting to write) than the Encyclopedias project, so I'll concentrate on that first.
::::# And now I have to take a break again for a few days. See you again sometime next week.
::::] (]) 19:15, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::My unverified anecdotes (when not personal) all come from IP RS). If one reads comprehensively these things will be familiar, and hardly require sourcing on talk pages, as opposed to articles. You think it a BLP violation to mention an absurd insinuation about Maxime Rodinson, one of the finest minds of his generation, made by ]? Well, when you cited him as RS, I immediately recalled reading some years ago his polemical pamphlet , Academic Engagement Network April 2018, where he asserted that Rodinson had converted to Islam, I think adding something like ('though through a Communist lens') whatever that means. He states that on p.7. That remark suggested to me Troen doesn't know anything about Rodinson other than the usual clichés that try, not to address his scholarship, but merely sow suspicions about his politics. Therefore I don't take him seriously.
:::::It's not enough to google info one desires to find. One must at least have a sufficient familiarity with the field, the scholars, their background and record, to evaluate what google throws up. ] (]) 20:30, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
::You can keep writing walls of text (very bad habit you have there) and try to bludgeon your POV through but its just not going to work, you are not even making a dent in the pile of scholarship calling this (settler) colonialism. ] (]) 10:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:::And Nishidani didn't even make a dent in the pile of scholarship which says it isn't... ] (]) 10:33, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
:@] Thank you, this is a great summary. Given the expansive scholarly debate on the definition of colonialism and whether Zionism fits within any of these definitions, I suggest we change the lead to
::Zionism is an ethnic or ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the '''settlement of a specific territory'''.
:A mention that Zionism ''has been described by some scholars'' as colonialism, with a wikilink to ], would be sufficient. ] (]) 21:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)


(cf Karsh <s>3/10/24/2</s> 18/203/1416/42 Penslar 10/86/458/11) ] (]) 10:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
: Modern Zionism is essentially about ensuring the continued existence of Israel as a state where Jews can exercise self-determination and about the survival of Jewish identity and culture. However, throughout this discussion, Zionism seems to be treated as something from the past (which ended in 1948) or as something in the present that is responsible for the occupation, apartheid, and colonialism in the West Bank and Gaza, even though not all people who identify with Zionism support these practices.


Slater (12/91/448/13) Mythologies without End pp 46-51 cites:
{{Quote|Zionism is a political movement that was initiated in the late 19th century with the aim of actualizing the Jewish sense of peoplehood in a physical nation, leading to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Zionism today informs many Jews’ continued support and commitment to Israel.|}}
{{Quote|Zionism is a variety of Jewish nationalism. It claims that Jews constitute a nation whose survival, both physical and cultural, requires its return to the Jews’ ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Pre-1948 Zionism was more than a nationalist movement: it was a revolutionary project to remake the Jewish people. Zionism’s origins lay in a confluence of factors: physical persecution of East European Jewry, Jewish assimilation in the West, and a Hebrew cultural revival that rejected or transformed traditional Jewish religiosity.|
}} ] (]) 14:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


Morris, "A New Exodus for the Middle East?" This is a summary of the voluminous archival evidence developed by Morris in a number of his major works, including Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited and Righteous Victims. Other major works on transfer include Shlaim, Israel and Palestine, especially 54–61; Shahak, "A History of the Concept of 'Transfer' in Zionism"; Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; and Flapan, Birth, especially 103–6. See also the frank appraisal of Shlomo Ben-Ami, a Labor Party activist and minister of Internal Security and then foreign minister of Israel, who wrote, "The idea of population transfers had a long and solid pedigree in Zionist thought” (Ben-Ami, "A War to Start All Wars"). A number of Palestinian writers have discussed the concept of transfer in Zionist thought—and action. The most important is Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians.
:Cool, still haven't agreed on what Zionism is. ] (]) 15:04, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:: I picked the Schama interview in The Jewish Chronicle because it was the last entry in that wall of <waves hands uselessly>. He is clearly arguing against the mainstream view of Israeli colonization. It comes down to "the vast majority of people are wrong."] (]) 17:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::You have yet to prove that this is the view of the vast majority of scholars. So far nobody here did that.. ] (]) 17:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::::To the contrary, you have to show why Zionist literature from the outset is crammed with references to its colonial plans for Palestine, and why even scholars of great stature like Schama (who has yet to complete the third volume of his magnum opus covering this period, despite a lapse of 7 years) refuse to take the overwhelming documentary evidence from 1896 to 1948 at its word.] (]) 22:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
::The process by which the meaning of the words are defined is not an exact science, this topic falls within the realm of social sciences so it is not surprising that there is some debate about the meaning of the term. But the basic definition of the term has not changed. ] (]) 23:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:::<small>Actually ]/] is a very exact (and exacting) science, and the subbranch of ] equally subscribes to scientific methodology.] (]) 12:44, 18 July 2024 (UTC)</small>


Another mention for Shahak there. ] (]) 11:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Comment''': I was compiling a of definitions surrounding Zionism, but after seeing that {{u|Vegan416}} already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement, I don't understand why that claim hasn't already been removed from the lead as ]. Walls of text filled with personal opinions and original research are also not helping. It may be time for a RFC. ] (]) 07:41, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
*:A list collated by a now topic-banned user is your guiding star? That's extremely confidence-inspiring. ] (]) 14:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
: "already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement." No he didn't, no those sources do not "debunk" the established fact of the colonial underpinnings of Zionism. Please do not misrepresent sources. The claim that ''others'' are relying solely on personal opinion in this instance is very cute, though. ] (]) 13:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
::"Guiding star"? "very cute"? Sorry, but I will only entertain feedback that ]. ] (]) 07:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
:::So is that you saying you are unfamiliar with the concept of cherrypicking and how it works? As well as that merely aggregating sources with quotes deemed to be amenable to a certain POV does not in fact determine anything about weight or NPOV without similarly and thoroughly evaluating a wider selection of sources representing all POVs? The simple act of collating a single, POV list is meaningless other than to demonstrate that a POV exists; not that the POV has particular weight or is NPOV. ] (]) 09:48, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
-----


:Slater is not a good source. He’s pretty fringe, turned to Israel-Palestine after retirement. His book is framed as contrarian and revisionist; almost nobody has cited it. Shahak, a chemist, is extremely controversial and polarising. They should be viewed as polemicists not as serious sources within the scholarly consensus. ] (]) 16:53, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
{{reftalk}}
::Slater also explicitly admits that his book is "based on the existing literature rather than on original research in the primary documentary sources", which effectively makes is a tertiary source, that should be avoided in context of contentious topics, as per ]. ] (]) 17:10, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::If you don't think Slater is an RS, take it to RSN. If Slater is an RS, then I don't see why we wouldn't include it in the bundle cite. ] is an essay, and it's wrong. ] is the policy. ] is also policy. We follow the policies not essays. ] (]) 20:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I didn't say Slater is unreliable. I believe he would be reliable for facts, but not the best source for identifying how scholars have interpreted the facts, which is what we are discussing here. There are a massive number of reliable sources which talk about Zionism, but in identifying what is due in the lead in particular we should be using the best sources and not just the weak reliable sources which fit a particular interpretation.
::::I don't think it matters whether he's tertiary or secondary. Good tertiary sources can be especially helpful in identifying which secondary sources are most noteworthy and I doubt any serious tertiary source would pay Slater much attention. ] (]) 15:36, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::Yes but we can't seem to conclusively agree on which are the best sources and people keep introducing new ones and saying they must be considered as well. So it's a case of muddling along, I think, looks like we are going to have to do this issue by issue for most things. ] (]) 15:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::You called him "pretty fringe" -- his book is published by Oxford University, do you seriously believe Oxford publishes ]? He's one of 18 sources cited for "the sentence". He's saying the same thing as the other 17 sources. All they all fringe? "turned to Israel-Palestine after retirement" - That's a new one. That makes a work less reliable, does it? That's a new one for me, haven't seen anyone make that argument before. He's saying the same thing as Manna and Morris--so which side is he on? Or are Manna and Morris both on the same side? And he's not one of the best sources... ok, so we're ''only'' using best sources for the lead? Or for the whole article? Because Karsh ain't a best source, either. Many sources brought up on this page, and used in this article, aren't. But during the "best sources" discussion, I remember many people saying we cannot limit the article to only using best sources. Now we are saying we shouldn't use a source if it isn't a best source. Which is it? And what's the damn point anyway? So you remove Slater... now we only have... 17 sources saying Zionists were territorially and demographically expansionist. Are we seriously going to keep going with this nonsense, or can we just finally all admit that, a yeah, Zionists wanted as much territory as they could get, and they wanted the largest Jewish majority they could get in that territory, and they were willing to--and ultimately did--accomplish both by kicking out Palestinians? Can we just stop pretending like that's basic historical backed up by over a dozen different historians, and move on with improving the rest of this article? Or do we need to still convince some that the RSes say what they are say? ] (]) 16:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::I can understand your frustration, but I still think the current phrasing is a gross oversimplification and overgeneralization and is not really supported by the RSes - especially, the "kicking out the Palestinians" part.
::::::I won't repeat all the detailed arguments I made previously to prove this point - it's all ]. ] (]) 18:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::...and Slater is a secondary source, anyway. ] (]) 20:25, 1 January 2025 (UTC)


{{reflist-talk}}
===RFC Workshop: WP:DUE definition of Zionism in the lead===


== El-Haj 2 ==
A RFC may be necessary to resolve the above discussion. There should be some agreement about options that are ].


@] pointed out to me on my talk page that the quote to El Haj isn't even an accurate summation of her views. I agree. It should be revised. El Haj "{{tq|isn't saying that there will never be proof of shared genetics among Jews. Instead, she points out that, at the time, even when the science wasn't there yet to prove it, it was treated as a guaranteed truth}}" (quoting BB) and this is a much more nuanced claim than the present article text. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 22:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Option 1''' (presently in the lead): Zionism {{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|z|aɪ|.|ə|n|ɪ|z|əm}} {{respell|ZY|ə|niz|əm}}; {{lang-he|צִיּוֹנוּת|Ṣīyyonūt}}, {{IPA|he|tsijoˈnut|IPA}}}} is an ethno-cultural ]<ref name="Conforti-2024">{{cite journal |last=Conforti |first=Yitzhak |date=March 2024 |title=Zionism and the Hebrew Bible: from religious holiness to national sanctity |journal=] |publisher=] |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=483–497 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2023.2204516 |doi-access=free |issn=1743-7881 |lccn=65009869 |oclc=875122033 |s2cid=258374291}}</ref>{{refn|group=fn|Zionism has been described either as a form of ]<ref>{{cite book |last=Medding |first=P. Y. |year=1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=22iwFNfIWMwC&pg=PA11 |title=Studies in Contemporary Jewry: XI: Values, Interests, and Identity: Jews and Politics in a Changing World |publisher=]/Institute of Contemporary Jewry, ] |isbn=978-0-19-510331-1 |access-date=March 11, 2019 |page=11}}</ref> or as a form of ]-] with ] components.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gans |first=Chaim |year=2008 |url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001/acprof-9780195340686 |title=A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-986717-2 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001 |access-date=March 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227181827/https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340686.001.0001/acprof-9780195340686 |archive-date=December 27, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>}} movement that emerged in ] in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a ] through the ] of a land outside of Europe.<ref>"Should the powers show themselves willing to grant us sovereignty over a neutral land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land. Here two regions come to mind: Palestine and Argentina. Significant experiments in colonization have been made in both countries, though on the mistaken principle of gradual infiltration of Jews. Infiltration is bound to end badly." ] quoted in ] , Fall 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1 pp. 1-32, p.5, p.20</ref><ref>'Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.. .Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population’. ] (] 1923) cited Alan Balfour, ] 2019 {{isbn|978-1-119-18229-0}} p.59.</ref><ref>'Dr. ] was sent to Palestine for the first time in 1907 by the heads of the German Zionist Organization in order to make a pilot study of the possibilities for colonization. . . ] was a German sociologist and political economist. As a worldwide expert on colonization he became Herzl’s advisor and formulated the first program for Zionist colonization, which he presented at the 6th Zionist Congress (Basel 1903) ….. ] wrote that the group of Zionists who
imagined themselves colonialists inclined to that persona “because sucha representation was pivotal to the entire project of becoming ‘white men’.” Colonization was seen as a sign of belonging to western and modern culture;' Etan Bloom, ''Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Pre-Israeli Culture,'' ] 2011 {{isbn|978-90-04-20379-2}} pp.2,13,n.49,132.</ref><ref>"Never before", wrote Berl Katznelson, founding editor of the Histadrut daily, ''Davar'', "has the white man undertaken colonization with that sense of justice and social progress which fills the Jew who comes to Palestine." ] cited in Shira Robinson, ] {{isbn|978-0-804-78802-1}} 2013 p.18</ref>


:Do you have a citation to El Haj rather than another editor? Or maybe some secondary and tertiary sources who reflect on what El Haj means? That would be helpful for reaching speedy consensus on what to replace the quote with. ] (]) 09:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Option 2''': Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed at the re-establishment of a national estate in what it considers Jewish homeland. ]
::The full quote can be read on and I agree that this is about something in history, not current. She talks about the Ostrer stuff on . It points out the research was widely acceptd and also says that Zoosman-Diskin was dismissed or widely ignored. This has only accelerated since then. Roughly what I'd want to do is add something from or one of the other review or summaries (like Balter 2010, even though old) and attribute whatever critical El Haj quote. We could also use who summarizes both, or something like one of these ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 13:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::It's not just El-Haj, you have Weitzmann, as well, apart from Falk and McGonigle, all saying much the same sort of thing, that genetics is not the be all and end all. So bashing El-Haj, which seems to be a popular sport, has it's limits. ] (]) 14:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::First of all, that doesn't address that the current material in the article isn't even an accurate summary of El-Haj. Regarding the other sources,
::::*it's true that McGonigle is also critical of "genomic citizenship" and "biologization of Jewish culture and historical narrative, but he doesn't deny that there are markers of Jewish ethnicity in DNA. In fact he's critical of the use of DNA tests to determine Jewishness but doesn't deny that they can. He's concerned more with the politics, not in claiming that genetic evidence of Jewishness is "elusive."
::::*As I mentioned earlier, Falk is outdated. He also doesn't say what you are claiming he says. Falk also admits that there is a Middle Eastern component to Jewish ancestry: {{tq|findings support the hypothesis that posits that European Jews are comprised of Caucasus, European, and Middle Eastern ancestries}}
::::*Weitzman also doesn't support your argument. Weitzman 2017 on p. 275: {{tq|I am not a geneticist and cannot claim any expertise...}} p. 308: {{tq|El-Haj has convinced many readers that modern Jewish genetics research is a twenty-first-century race science...To accept the critique of genetics as a revived form of race science, there are a lot of things one has to downplay or ignore...}} p.314 {{tq|I have read many reviews of Abu El-Haj's work, but scarcely any have been written by geneticists themselves, perhaps a sign that they do not take her argument seriously or are not even aware of it}}
::::*Yarudumian also references the studies, and has a nuanced critique that doesn't support what you claim, writing: {{talkquote|Population genetics research into this question has done much to clarify the related- ness of Jewish individuals and groups, but also fostered its own series of conflicts where geography and chronology are concerned. Of the numerous and varied studies published since the 1950s, some number of researchers have interpreted the genetic data as showing that Jewish people constitute a mostly homogeneous community that emerged from Hebrew-speaking tribes of the Levant, with or without limited European and North African admixture (Behar et al. 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2010; Hammer et al. 2000, 2009; Livshits et al. 1991; Ostrer and Skorecki 2013; Rootsi et al. 2013; Shen et al. 2004; Skorecki et al. 1997). Other researchers are more circumspect in their conclusions concerning a specific geographic origin or sim- ply have not been directly concerned with the issue, focusing instead on genetic ad- mixture between Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern men (Hammer et al. 2000), within Ashkenazi Jews (e.g., Behar et al. 2004a; Carmi 2014; Listman et al. 2010; Need et al. 2009), and between Jewish populations (Behar et al. 2010; Bray et al. 2010; Campbell et al. 2012; Zoossmann-Diskin 2010). Certain genome-wide stud- ies have yielded a view of Jewish populations as being tightly clustered and reasonably distinct from neighboring populations (Behar et al. 2010; Campbell et al. 2012), while very recent research into admixture history (Xue et al. 2017) has further re- vealed the complexity of Jewish (in this case, Ashkenazi) population history. Various other studies offer further valuable insights into the genetic composition of contempo- rary Jewish communities (Atzmon et al. 2010; Behar et al. 2003, 2004b, 2006, 2013; Feder et al. 2007; Haber et al. 2013; Hammer et al. 2000, 2009; Karlin et al. 1979; Kopelman et al. 2009; Livshits et al. 1991; Muhsam 1964; Nebel et al. 2001, 2005; Olshen et al. 2008; Ostrer and Skorecki 2013; Seldin et al. 2006; Shen et al. 2004; Thomas et al. 1998)..these findings suggest a common ancestry for Ashkenazi, North African, and Sephardi Jews, the analysis also revealed support for an Italian source in the autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, thus suggesting a southern European origin.....The most compelling evidence to date of a mosaic ancestry for contemporary Jews comes from the work of Xue et al. (2017). Their admixture analysis suggested a 70% European origin (and within this, 55% Southern Europe, 10% Eastern Europe, 5% Western Europe) and a 30% “Levantine” component in Jewish populations.}} These sources don't support the language that Jewish DNA evidence is "forever elusive." In fact, Yarudumian supports the idea of Middle Eastern heritage and has a nuanced take on whether Jewish ancestry is a mosaic versus more homogeneous, but doesn't in any way support the current claim of "elusiveness."
::::''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 20:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I have some different quotes. ] (]) 21:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::But surely you admit that Weitzman is not in El-Haj's camp, he threw a bit of shade at her currency even though he's sympathetic to some of what she says, but it can't be read as a full-scale endorsement. Yardumian doesn't mention El-Haj at all, unless I missed it, and he does like Xue. Yardumian is skeptical and critical, and I'd be happy to use him for some things. But he also isn't a geneticist nor is Schurr his co-author. Both are anthropologists. Anyway, I know there are definitely quotes in there that are skeptical, and that could be part of balancing the POVs and writing a balanced view of what disagreements there are in this field. But again, this is anthropologists adding nuance to a genetic field. And as mentioned, Yardumian likes Xue and Ostrer likes Xue, so what's the problem with Xue? ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 04:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::As I said, I'm not specifically referring to El-Haj bashing, just the general conclusions, whether by geneticists or not. So, for example, Weitzman
:::::::"The Jewish Genetic Narrative - The same may well be true of what genetics can tell us about the origin of the Jews. Genetic history is a developing field, and like most science, a self-correcting one, and perhaps someday, scientists will be able to resolve the ambiguities we have noted here. But even then, geneticists will always need to rely on non-genetic evidence to make any historical sense of the data—written texts, oral traditions, and interviews with people about where their ancestors come from. It is impossible to turn the testimony of DNA into a definitive account of the past. The process of assemblage, dot-connecting, and interpretation means there will also always be some degree of imagination involved in the construction of genetic history, and choices to make about which story to believe." ] (]) 09:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I don't really see how that Weizman supports El-Haj except vaguely, I don't have any particular objection to including that though. It doesn't directly address anything that was at issue in my view. At any rate, since I added some material to ], , per your suggestion/request, can we balance it on this page now? ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 21:41, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Of those three additions, two of them are from 2010 supporting Ostrer/Behar even before the 2013 work. And the third one is just Ostrer confirming himself.
:::::::::Properly, all we should be doing is picking up the lead of the Racial conceptions article as a summary for here. ] (]) 14:13, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Would you care to proffer a version, then? Would it replace or amend the current text sourced to El-Haj? Why don't you go first. I'm not wedded to the specific text. If we agree that the present text is imbalanced, that'd be progress. Roughly, the point is that Zionists wanted genetic confirmation of their traditional history, and in the 1930s a lot of science was tinged with problematic ideas. Today, though, we know that ethnicity is a more flexible concept than "race." There's no biological explanation of "white," but there are genetic markers that can tell me someone is Cajun. Right? Or wrong? Geneticists like Ostrer and Xue balance and add context to the view expressed by El-Haj currently ("biological self-definition"..."forever elusive" which is about history, not present-day) which ignores modern developments suitable for the general overview on Zionism. Modern research suggests a shared Jewish ancestry, though of course Jewish ethnicity is more than just that.... This counters Abu El-Haj's claim of a purely ideological pursuit; she is an anthropologist, so her expertise on the topic is bounded. Using her quote alone and unattributed may give undue weight to a minority viewpoint. She is a controversial voice in the field who has met with considerable controversy and criticism, such as her interpretation of archeology as well. I can offer more critical sources, but you said you wanted to move on from that. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 02:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Maybe it seems not to you but to me the Weitzmann para and the El-Haj elusive thing are the same thing using different words but leaving that aside, is there any reason that we cannot just use the lead of ] for the section here, which, given the earlier kerfuffle over the title, should probably just be renamed as I suggested at ] to Racial conceptions of Jewish identity? {{re|Fiveby}}? ] (]) 12:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Weitzmann definitely isn't saying the same thing at all, he's saying that we need non-genetic data to make sense of the genetic data, not that there's something elusive about the DNA evidence of Jewish ancestry. Could you propose the text? ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 20:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It doesn't matter since I am not suggesting that Weitzmann or El-Haj be in the text at all. I just did propose a text, didn't I? ] (]) 20:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Sorry, didn't understand. Use the whole lead? Or a specific part? And I guess that'd be an improvement. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 21:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::Right, just use the lead from there, it had a lot of eyes on it during the discussions over the title so it is likely a better summary than we have here, then any further tweaking of that would need to be done there first. ] (]) 09:52, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::{{re|Selfstudier}}, i see that as an improvement, a step in the right direction at least. Thinking about this more, as you say: {{tq|genetics is not the be all and end all}}; the way the content is presented could easily lead the reader down an essentialist path. Probably the ultimate fix here is better organization of the article sections and content, this should maybe flow from ] and ]? Reorganizing the body content is probably going to be a very complicated task tho so probably just incorporating the lead with some tweaks might be best for now. ](]) 14:23, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Seems we are agreed, I can't just copy paste it because all the harv refs, will copy it over at some point. ] (]) 15:02, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::OK, I copied that in, this is what I took out, case we need to refer back to it:
::::::::::::::Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ] myth of common descent".<ref>{{harvnb|Hirsch|2009|pages=592–609}}: "The work of Jewish race scientists has been the subject of several recent studies (Efron 1994; R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000; Kiefer 1991; Lipphardt 2007; Y. Weiss 2002; see also Doron 1980). As these studies suggest, among Jewish physicians, anthropologists, and other 'men of science' in Central Europe, proponents of the idea that the Jews were a race were found mainly in the ranks of Zionists, as the idea implied a common biological nature of the otherwise geographically, linguistically, and culturally divided Jewish people, and offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent (Doron 1980: 404; Y. Weiss 2002: 155). At the same time, many of these proponents agreed that the Jews were suffering a process of 'degeneration, and so their writings advanced the national project as a means of 'regeneration' and 'racial improvement' (R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000: 17)... In the Zionist case, the nation-building project was fused with a cultural project of Westernization. 'Race' was an integral concept in certain versions of nationalist thinking, and in Western identity (Bonnett 2003), albeit in different ways. In the discourse of Zionist men of science, 'race' served different purposes, according to the context in question. In some contexts 'race' was mainly used to establish Jewish unity, while in others it was used to establish diversity and hierarchy among Jews. The latter use was more common in texts which appeared in Palestine. It resulted from the encounter of European Zionists with Eastern Jews, and from the tension between the projects of nation-building and of Westernization in the context of Zionist settlement in the East."</ref> According to ], as early as the 1870s Zionist and pre-Zionist thinkers conceived of Jews as belonging to a distinct biological group.<ref name="Falk-2014">{{cite journal |last=Falk |first=R. |author-link=Raphael Falk (geneticist) |date=2014 |title=Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent |journal=] |volume=5 |issue=462 |page=462 |doi=10.3389/fgene.2014.00462 |pmc=4301023 |pmid=25653666 |doi-access=free}}</ref> This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the "]" of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping.<ref name="Falk-2014" /> The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as a nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory.{{sfn|Masalha|2012|loc=Chapter 1}}
::::::::::::::It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of ] were not known.{{sfn|McGonigle|2021|p=35 (c.f. p.52-53 of PhD)|ps=: "Here, the ethnic composition of Israel is crucial. Despite the ambiguity in respect of the legal, biological, and social 'nature' of 'Jewish genes' and their intermittent role in the reproduction of Jewish identity, Israel is an ethnically diverse country. Many Jewish immigrants have arrived from Eastern Europe, North Africa, France, India, Latin America, Yemen, Iraq, Ethiopia, the US, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the ex-Soviet Union, not to mention Israel's indigenous Arab minority of close to 2 million people. And while Jewishness has often been imagined as a biological race—most notably, and to horrific ends, by the Nazis, but also later by Zionists and early Israelis for state-building purposes—the initial origins of the Ashkenazi Jews who began the Zionist movement in turn-of-the-century Europe remain highly debated and enigmatic."}}<ref>{{harvnb|Abu El-Haj|2012|p=98}}: "There is a "problem" regarding the origins of the Ashkenazim, which needs resolution: Ashkenazi Jews, who seem European—phenotypically, that is—are the normative center of world Jewry. No less, they are the political and cultural elite of the newly founded Jewish state. Given their central symbolic and political capital in the Jewish state and given simultaneously the scientific and social persistence of racial logics as ways of categorizing and understanding human groups, it was essential to find other evidence that Israel's European Jews were not in truth Europeans. The normative Jew had to have his/her origins in ancient Palestine or else the fundamental tenet of Zionism, the entire edifice of Jewish history and nationalist ideology, would come tumbling down. In short, the Ashkenazi Jew is the Jew—the Jew in relation to whose values and cultural practices the oriental Jew in Israel must assimilate. Simultaneously, however, the Ashkenazi Jew is the most dubious Jew, the Jew whose historical and genealogical roots in ancient Palestine are most difficult to see and perhaps thus to believe—in practice, although clearly not by definition."</ref> Notable proponents of this racial idea included ], Herzl's co-founder of the original ], ], the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's ] party,{{sfn|Baker|2017|p=100-102}} and ], considered the "father of Israeli sociology".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Morris-Reich |first=Amos |title=Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race |journal=] |publisher=] |volume=11 |issue=3 |year=2006 |issn=1084-9513 |jstor=30245648 |pages=1–30 |doi=10.2979/ISR.2006.11.3.1 |s2cid=144898510 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30245648 |ref=none |access-date=July 11, 2023 |archive-date=July 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230711081058/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245648 |url-status=live}}</ref> Birnbaum, who is widely attributed with the first use of the term "Zionism" in reference to a political movement, viewed race as the foundation of nationality,{{sfn|Olson|2007|pp=252,255}} Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on "racial purity",{{sfn|Baker|2017|p=100-102}}{{efn|'"A Jew brought up among Germans may assume German customs, German words. He may be wholly imbued with that German fluid but the nucleus of his spiritual structure will always remain Jewish, because his blood, his body, his physical-facial type are Jewish." {{harv|Jabotinsky|1961|pp=37–49}}}} and that "(t)he feeling of national self-identity is ingrained in the man's 'blood', in his physical-racial type, and only in it."{{sfn|Falk|2017|p=62}}
::::::::::::::According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of ] and the "]" in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Haddad |first=Hassan S. |author-link=:ar:حسني حداد |title=The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism |journal=] |publisher=], Institute for Palestine Studies |volume=3 |issue=4 |year=1974 |issn=0377-919X |jstor=2535451 |quote=The Zionist moveinent remains firmly anchored on the basic principle of the exclusive right of the Jews to Palestine that is found in the Torah and in other Jewish religious literature. Zionists who are not religious, in the sense of following the ritual practices of Judaism, are still biblical in their basic convictions in, and practical application of the ancient particularism of the Torah and the other books of the Old Testament. They are biblical in putting their national goals on a level that goes beyond historical, humanistic or moral considerations... We can summarize these beliefs, based on the Bible, as follows. 1. The Jews are a separate and exclusive people chosen by God to fulfil a destiny. The Jews of the twentieth century have inherited the covenant of divine election and historical destiny from the Hebrew tribes that existed more than 3000 years ago. 2. The covenant included a definite ownership of the Land of Canaan (Palestine) as patrimony of the Israelites and their descendants forever. By no name, and under no other conditions, can any other people lay a rightful claim to that land. 3. The occupation and settlement of this land is a duty placed collectively on the Jews to establish a state for the Jews. The purity of the Jewishness of the land is derived from a divine command and is thus a sacred mission. Accordingly, settling in Palestine, in addition to its economic and political motivations, acquires a romantic and mythical character. That the Bible is at the root of Zionism is recognized by religious, secular, non-observant, and agnostic Zionists... The Bible, which has been generally considered as a holy book whose basic tenets and whose historical contents are not commonly challenged by Christians and Jews, is usually referred to as the Jewish national record. As a "sacrosanct title-deed to Palestine," it has caused a fossilization of history in Zionist thinking... Modern Jews, accordingly, are the direct descendants of the ancient Israelites, hence the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine. |pages=98–99 |doi=10.2307/2535451}}</ref> This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around the concept of an "]" and the "]", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews.<ref name="McGonigle 2021">{{harvnb|McGonigle|2021|p=36 (c.f. p.54 of PhD)}}: "The stakes in the debate over Jewish origins are high, however, since the founding narrative of the Israeli state is based on exilic 'return.' If European Jews have descended from converts, the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people. The politics of 'Jewish genetics' is consequently fierce. But irrespective of philosophical questions of the indexical power or validity of genetic tests for Jewishness, and indeed the historical basis of a Jewish population 'returning' to the Levant, the Realpolitik of Jewishness as a measurable biological category could also impinge on access to basic rights and citizenship within Israel."</ref> The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and ] alike,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rich |first=Dave |date=January 2, 2017 |title=Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682 |journal=] |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=101–104 |doi=10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682 |s2cid=152132582 |issn=2373-9770 |access-date=July 11, 2023 |archive-date=July 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708194611/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682 |url-status=live}}</ref> as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people,"<ref name="McGonigle 2021"/> whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return".{{sfn|McGonigle|2021|p=(c.f. p.218-219 of PhD)|ps=: "The biobank stands for unmarked global modernity and secular technoscientific progress. It is within the other pole of the Israeli cultural spectrum that one finds right-wingers appropriating genetics as a way of imagining the tribal particularity of Jews, as a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return. It is across this political spectrum that the natural facts of genetics research discursively migrate and transform into the mythologized ethnonationalism of the bio-nation. However, Israel has also moved towards a market-based society, and as the majority of the biomedical research is moving to private biotech companies, the Israeli biobank is becoming underused and outmoded. The epistemics of Jewish genetics fall short of its mythic circulatory semiotics. This is the ultimate lesson from my ethnographic work in Israel."}} A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for the claim has "remained forever elusive".<ref>{{harvnb|Abu El-Haj|2012|p=18}}: "What is evident in the work in Israeli population genetics is a desire to identify biological evidence for the presumption of a common Jewish peoplehood whose truth was hard to "see," especially in the face of the arrival of oriental Jews whose presumably visible civilizational and phenotypic differences from the Ashkenazi elite strained the nationalist ideology upon which the state was founded. Testament to the legacy of racial thought in giving form to a Zionist vision of Jewish peoplehood by the mid-twentieth century, Israeli population researchers never doubted that biological facts of a shared origin did indeed exist, even as finding those facts remained forever elusive... Looking at the history of Zionism through the lens of work in the biological sciences brings into focus a story long sidelined in histories of the Jewish state: Jewish thinkers and Zionist activists invested in race science as they forged an understanding of the Jewish people and fought to found the Jewish state. By the mid-twentieth century, a biological self-definition—even if not seamlessly a racial one, at least not as race was imagined at the turn of the twentieth century—had become common-sensical for many Jewish nationalists, and, in significant ways, it framed membership and shaped the contours of national belonging in the Jewish state."</ref>
::::::::::::::{{reftalk}} ] (]) 17:40, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== § Terminology ==
What other options could we consider? ] (]) 08:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)


There are some ] claims in the terminology section. The first attested usage of 'Zionism' should appear with higher priority, and terms and usages should be presented in their original language with accompanying English translations. ] (]) 18:22, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:{{tq| that Vegan416 already provided 50 sources basically debunking that Zionism is a colonialist movement}} Then if I bring 100 saying it is then that will debunk your interpretation of Vegan416 sources? Just checking.
:Why not ask the question outright? Should the description of Zionism in the lead include reference to colonialism and/or settler colonialism? ] (]) 10:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
::I agree with this. Giving a list of options can be constraining. Better just to put the question as "Should the description of Zionism in the lead include reference to colonialism/colonisation?". '']''<sup>]</sup> 11:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)


In the alternative, I think adding the word controversial/controversially (sourced) might resolve the issue here without an RFC, unless of course, you just want the reference gone altogether, in which case ignore this suggestion.] (]) 11:07, 26 July 2024 (UTC) :While I certainly agree with de-emphasizing the Biblical term, I think ] should have priority over Birnbaum, as the 1890 formal coining is clearly just an evolution on the 1880s terminology. ] (]) 20:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::I agree that 'Hovivei Zion' should have greater prominence than it does now. I haven't read thoroughly about this period, but my impression of the sources is that these groups—not as politically oriented and lacking the focus on a state that would come to characterize Zionism—are treated as proto-Zionist more than Zionist proper. While there is a clear connection, my impression is that Lovers of Zion and Zionism are distinct. Starting the section with Hovivei Zion might emphasize continuity more than it should.
:This is a pointless RfC. Vegan, now permabanned, tried to repeatedly recast the question in order to sow doubt on the established fact that colonization was a core feature of Zionism. Each reframing was rebutted. The last was a mess, easy to rebut but extremely time consuming. There must be a limit to how simple issues can be contested endlessly through new recourses, RfCs etc. Yes, I know. There's no limit, but the RS now recognize what Zionist leaders openly avowed for half a century, that the project to use immigration to establish a majoritarian Jewish state in Palestine was colonial, and was designed and implemented by taking as models the colonial experience of European nations. We cannot rewrite history according to the princiople of political correctness, as that is defined by the state in question, which is now uncomfortable with its past as described by modern scholarship. ] (]) 12:47, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
:: At some point up is down, black is white gaslighting like this needs to be shut down. Indulging the blizzard of bullshit on zionism and colonialism with an "rfc" crafted to favor an outcome at odds with scholarship is not the way to do it.] (]) 13:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC) ::I would suggest starting with the formal first attestation of 'Zionismus' and working backwards etymologically, with a statement about Hovivei Zion immediately after the first attestation and eventually referring to the Biblical content on Zion. What do others think? ] (]) 03:45, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Proto-Zionism should rightly have a continuity with Zionism; why wouldn't it? ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 16:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:I'm only interested in ] and ]. ] (]) 07:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Dictionaries typically give the etymology from the first attestation and trace the evolution of the term back in time. gives first attestation of 'Zionism' as 1890s, and coming from German. I'm not saying there's not connection, but proto-''x'' is not ''x'' ; ''x'' is ''x'' and proto-''x'' is proto-''x''. My argument is not that Hovevei Zion should not be addressed in the terminology; my argument is that to start the terminology section with it might over-emphasize that connection, and it seems to be out of step with the sources. ] (]) 04:34, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::You're not going to be demonstrably interested in ] until you show similar signs of interest in sources representing POVs other than present in more than a handful of sources. The current selection of sources you have presented numbers 11, most of them more than a decade old. ] (]) 10:17, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I don't know why you're bringing up dictionaries. Dictionaries are some of the worst sources and this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. We prefer scholarly journal articles, books, and maybe other reliable sources by reliable experts. Citing the dictionary is a clear tell that your argument doesn't have a strong grounding in policy or en.wikipedia norms. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 04:59, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
:::We may as well make an RfC alone the lines:'Should Zionism be described in the lead as engaging in colonization when for the first half century that is how it described itself, as a colonial project?' ] (]) 11:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|Citing the dictionary is a clear tell that your argument doesn't have a strong grounding in policy or en.wikipedia norms.|q=y}}—this is nonsense. OED is a perfectly valid source for this section.
::::Selfstudier suggested fairly similar above and I agree. '']''<sup>]</sup> 08:03, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|We prefer scholarly journal articles, books, and maybe other reliable sources by reliable experts|q=y}}—such as? If you want your argument to be taken seriously, you need to actually cite specific sources instead of vaguely gesturing to their existence somewhere in the ether. ] (]) 16:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::But, if one accepts this point, (and it is hard to deny) why after extenuating denials, do we make an RfC. Basically because one editor refused to accept '''that''' evidence, was permabanned, and someone else stepped up to represent their viewpoint. Endless talk is okay, I guess, but the amount of effort expended on challenging a talkpage consensus just keeps distracting us from improving the article.] (]) 08:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::No, the OED isn't a valid source to use here. And the history of Zionism predates the 1890s. Such as Shaftesbury and Montefiore in the 1840s. Shaftesbury wrote about 'recall of the Jews to their ancient land' in 1840. Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1885. We have plenty of good sources for proto-Zionism and Zionism, we don't need the OED and it doesn't meet the agreed-to principles of ] for this article. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 19:41, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::There does seem to be a bit of theme of relatively new editors, with relatively low edit counts, showing up to argue against the consensus version. You are right to an extent about the usefulness of and RFC given consensus is abundantly clear. '']''<sup>]</sup> 09:21, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Even if we were to use a specialist etymological dictionary, or a specific technical dictionary (the OED is neither of which), they are still poor sources compared to academic sources which are dedicated to whatever point you believe we should include. -- ] (]) 01:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*If there is a consensus already, then I'll ]. ] (]) 11:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Feel free to cite some. ] (]) 01:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I see that Hibbat Zion have been removed from the lead and reduced back down to one paragraph in the history section. Surely they should get a little bit more prominence? ] (]) 11:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I agree. ] (]) 16:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::I think Pharos's contribution is good. ] (]) 00:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
My main concern with the section at the moment is the claim {{tq|numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland|q=y}} given in Wikivoice. ] (]) 03:49, 31 December 2024 (UTC)


:{{ping|AndreJustAndre}} Although Birnbaum and "Zionism" in 1885 appears in some , I believe this is clearly an error. 1885 was actually the year of founding of {{Q|Q131629624}} itself. More detailed sources actually give the exact dates he coined "Zionist" (which came first, April 1, 1890), and "Zionism" (May 16, 1890). Incidentally, he seems to use these terms quite casually, and doesn't really treat them as the introduction of a new concept.--] (]) 00:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
-----
::It is definitely possible that this is an error, but Shindler is a very good source. I'll look into it a bit more. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 01:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::], might you have those sources handy? These details would be nice to add in a footnote. ] (]) 01:57, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Sure, I figured I might as well add them to Wikidata too: ] ] (]) 18:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Thank you ], and also for fixing the title of Pinsker's pamphlet. But shouldn't we render it as 'Autoemancipation!' as appears on the cover? ] (]) 19:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


A bibliographic summary of German literature published in 1886 has :
{{reftalk}}
: Jeschurun. Herausg. von Isaac Hirsch. N.F. 4. Jahrg. Nr. 16 u. 17. Inh.: Die heilige Sprache und der moderne Zionismus. — Aus der amsterdamer Gemeinde 1795–1812. (Fort.) — פרקי אבות (Fort.) — Wandelungen. (Fort.) — An die Juden Rumäniens. — Stöcker, die Juden und die Anarchie. (Schl.) — Bücherschau. — Erkannte Errungen. (Fort.) — Correspondenzen und Nachrichten.
This is an entry for a periodical "Jeschurun" which I'll look for next. The translation is as follows (Pirket Avot is a talmudic tract):
: Jeschurun. Edited by Isaac Hirsch. New Series, 4th Year, Nos. 16 and 17. Contents: The Holy Language and Modern Zionism. — From the Amsterdam community, 1795–1812 (continued). — Pirkei Avot (continued). — Transformations (continued). — To the Jews of Romania. — Stöcker, the Jews, and Anarchy (concluded). — Book Review. — Recognized Achievements (continued). — Correspondences and News.
]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 04:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


== A request ==
== The lead should say "aimed for the *re-establishment* of a homeland for the Jewish people" rather than "establishment" ==


Can we go back to the old definition of Zionism because the one here is full of bias
Two of the sources referenced for this sentence use the word "re-establishment": ref </nowiki>] & </nowiki>]. Also there is no dispute that this was the ancient homeland of the Jews. Also, Selfstudier, contrary to your claim, this sentence in the lead doesn't say anything at all about Balfour declaration, and doesn't refer to it. This declaration is mentioned only at the end of two paragraphs later. The sentence describes the aim of Zionism starting at the end of the 19th century. This is the full sentence: " Zionism is an ethnic or ethno-cultural ] ] that emerged in ] in the late 19th century and aimed for the re-establishment of a ] through the ] of ]". Balfour declaration happened only in 1917. So, Selfstudier, I have to ask you to self-revert.


I propose reverting it back to this version
] (]) 13:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


:"homeland for the Jewish people" comes from the ] and that is the reason why it occurred at all. ] (]) 13:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC) https://archive.ph/L50Cr ] (]) 20:01, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::Nonsense. The concept of the Land of Israel as "the homeland for the Jewish people" preceded the Balfour deceleration by many years, even if you limit yourself only to the Zionist movement, and by many many many years if you look at Jewish history at large. Also, it is quite telling that you made this erroneous claim without even remembering the exact words of the Balfour declaration... Anyway, your OR hypothesis, even if it was correct (and it is NOT) doesn't stand against the language used by the RS referenced in the sentence. So I must ask you again to self-revert. ] (]) 13:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
:::No idea where the Land of Israel is, is that Palestine? ] (]) 13:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
:"Re-establishment," i.e. to make an ideological connection between the ancient past and the modern era, is POV and not a factuality. ] (]) 13:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Palestine was (part of) the homeland of the Canaanites, the Israelites, the Philistines, the Jews, the Samaritans, and Christians whose formative world began there and persisted for several centuries while, as with Judaism, flowing abroad. For a millenium it has been a homeland for Palestinian Arabs. It has long been a core religious symbol of original belonging for Jews,many of whom, if I may hazard a generalization based on my own background, have very little awareness of how powerful that symbol of origins was for Christians, Catholics, and of course, for Palestinians. When you wish to write 'homeland of the Jews' you are, between the lines, intimating no other historic people considered it a homeland, which is contrafactual. It is pointless trying to wedge in standard clichés that have a certain rhetorical valency, but dumbdown the complexities of history.Zionism 'colonized' a Jewish homeland?] (]) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Your claim that writing "re-establishment" instead of "establishment" implies somehow that "no other historic people considered it a homeland" is completely false and has no basis in logic or the ways of the English language. And as for the Canaanites, Philistines etc, if a Canaanite nation would have survived till now and wished to rebuild its homeland in Canaan then we would also say that their aim is to "re-establish a homeland for the Canaanite people". What's the problem with that? ] (]) 16:42, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::The problem is that it is POV and not factual. ] (]) 08:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:It seems sources typically use "established":
:Shapira: {{tq|Pinsker analyzed antisemitism in depth and concluded by calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland}} also {{tq|The establishment of the Jewish state was one of history’s rare miracles.}}
:Ben-ami on the Basel Congress (uses "create"): {{tq|‘The aim of Zionism’ was, as the Basel Congressdefined it, ‘to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine securedby law.’}}
:The making of Modern Zionism: {{tq2|Herzl’s state, Ahad Ha’am argues, may perhaps be a State of Jews (Judenstaat—as Herzl’s pamphlet was indeed called); but it will not be a Jewish State (Jüdischer Staat), and it is a Jewish state that Ahad Ha’am would like to see established. Since a large proportion of the Jewish people will remain for a long period outside the state after it is established—and it may also take some time for such a state to be created—it is imperative that the new Land of Israel should become a focus for identification for all Jewish people. Because of the nationalist context of modern cultural development in Europe, a renaissance of Jewish culture in the Diaspora is no longer possible. Therefore, for the continued existence of a national Jewish identity outside of Palestine, a Jewish community in Palestine is necessary, which will radiate its culture to the Diaspora and facilitate this modern Jewish existence. Otherwise, any Jewish person who does not go to Palestine will lose his Jewish identity sooner or later. A political Zionism, focusing exclusively on the establishment of a Jewish state, overlooks this cultural dimension, which is vital for Jewish continued existence.}}
:Benny Morris of course uses "re-establishde": {{tq|The Zionists saw their enterprise and aspirations as legitimate, indeed, as supremely moral: the Jewish people, oppressed and murdered in Christendom and in the Islamic lands, was bent on saving itself by returning to its ancient land and there reestablishing its self-determination and sovereignty.}}
:Penslar (create): {{tq|Until 1948 Zionism’s goal was to create a Jewish homeland in a terri-tory with which Jewish civilization was intimately linked: the ancient Land of Israel.}}
:To The Promised Land (describing the revisionist congress): {{tq|As its title implied, its manifesto was to ‘revise’ Zionism by returning to the original principles of Herzl: a Jewish homeland guaranteed by international law as the prerequisite for mass colonization, leading to a Jewish majority in Palestine and the establishment of the Jewish state.}}
:Shlaim: {{tq|At the end of the congress, Ben-Gurion presented himself for reelection as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive for the specific purpose of working toward the establishment of a Jewish state.}} ] (]) 18:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
::Just to drive this point even further, what is colloquially known as the Israeli declaration of independence is officially called: the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. ] (]) 02:27, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:Ill add myself to the chorus of voices opposed to this suggested change, "re-establishment" is an explicitly Zionist POV. ''']''' - 18:31, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
::Nableezy & @], This is not a Zionist POV. This is factual. I can show it both by logical argument and by reference to RS:
::1. The logical argument is simple: There are 3 '''facts''' that are not denied by any scholar: (a) The was a Jewish homeland/state in the Past in this region. (b) The Zionists wished to establish a Jewish homeland/state in this region again. (c) In English the phrase "to establish again" can be shortened to "re-establish". Conclusion: "The Zionists wished to re-establish a Jewish homeland/state in this region". If you claim that this conclusion is a POV and not factual you have to show RS that dispute one of the 3 premises of this simple syllogism.
::2. As for RS, contrary to your claim that this is an "explicit Zionist POV", many books published by reputable and academic publishers, that have nothing to do with Zionism, use "re-establish/reestablish a Jewish homeland" (and variations thereof). Here are a few examples: <ref>{{Cite web |title=Zionism |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133512904 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240601025838/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133512904 |archive-date=2024-06-01 |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en }}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RmKHDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22re-establish+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA146 |title=Cosmopolitics and the Emergence of a Future |last2=Banham |first2=G. |date=2007-02-28 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-21068-4 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last=Brennan |first=Michael G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7gjeDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22re-establish+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA111 |title=George Orwell and Religion |date=2016-11-03 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4725-3308-1 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last=Nappo |first=Christian A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TWp2EAAAQBAJ&dq=%22reestablish+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA91 |title=Pioneers in Librarianship: Sixty Notable Leaders Who Shaped the Field |date=2024-02-28 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-4876-1 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last=Nelson |first=Garrison |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4YYDgAAQBAJ&dq=%22reestablish+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PT449 |title=John William McCormack: A Political Biography |date=2017-03-23 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-1-62892-518-0 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Downing |first1=John D. H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwPX23VameIC&dq=%22re-establishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA570 |title=Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media |last2=Downing |first2=John Derek Hall |date=2011 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-0-7619-2688-7 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Barberis |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qps14mSlghcC&dq=%22re-establishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA124 |title=Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century |last2=McHugh |first2=John |last3=Tyldesley |first3=Mike |date=2000-01-01 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-8264-5814-8 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jelen |first1=Ted Gerard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6HFq0eyEK4QC&dq=%22reestablishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA101 |title=Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, The Few, and The Many |last2=Wilcox |first2=Clyde |date=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-65971-0 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ben-Canaan |first1=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xz23BAAAQBAJ&dq=%22reestablishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA128 |title=Entangled Histories: The Transcultural Past of Northeast China |last2=Grüner |first2=Frank |last3=Prodöhl |first3=Ines |date=2013-10-29 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-319-02048-8 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last=Dowty |first=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E4uFDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22reestablishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PT32 |title=Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide |date=2019-03-01 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-03866-1 |language=en}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite book |last=Ciment |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ru3qBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22reestablishment+of+a+jewish+homeland%22&pg=PA161 |title=Social Issues in America: An Encyclopedia |date=2015-03-04 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-45971-2 |language=en}}</ref> (there&nbsp;are many&nbsp;more, but&nbsp;I got&nbsp;tired of&nbsp;copy pasting) ] (]) 08:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::First source is a dictionary; second refers to the perspective of a novel; third from the perspective of George Orwell; fourth is not a high quality source; fifth from someone's perspective; sixth also from Zionism's perspective; seventh low quality source; 8th, 9th and 10th from Zionism's perspective; 11th low quality source.
:::And no, the Jews of 2,000 years ago are not the Jews of today. They are different genetically, culturally and linguistically in multiple ways. In fact, no ethnic group remains the same after 2 to 3 centuries. So yes, this would indeed be POV and ideological, mythological even, phrasing. ] (]) 09:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::I didn't ask for your personal idiosyncratic view on the continuity of ethnic groups in general, and the Jewish nation in particular. It is both wrong and, more importantly, irrelevant. I asked for RS that dispute either that (a) The was a Jewish homeland/state in the Past in this region 2000 years and before that, or (b) That the Zionists wished to establish a Jewish homeland/state in this region starting in the 19th century. ] (]) 12:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::See my below reply, RFC or drop it. ] (]) 12:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::But you did..: "(a) The was a Jewish homeland/state in the Past in this region." You connected some ancient period state/s, with the modern period nation state of Israel on the basis that both are "Jewish" even though they barely share anything in common as characteristics of a state; one was a supposedly religious monarchy, and the other is a supposedly secular parliamentary republic. If there is neither commonality in the political structure nor in the ethnic groups which has morphed into European, Arab, and Andalusian genetic branches; then what is there left of a connection? What I am trying to say, you can make the argument for both, although weaker for the connection in my opinion. But the point stands that this is a POV and not a sacred factuality. And most importantly as demonstrated above the connection is not supported by any high quality RS speaking in its own voice. ] (]) 12:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::Once again you are evading the question. Which assertion to you deny? (a) or (b)? and on what RS you rely for your denial? ] (]) 12:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I am not denying neither a nor b; I am '''refuting''' the connection between a and b. The burden of proof for the connection between a and b lies within those making the claim; no high quality RS has been provided about this bit. ] (]) 10:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Consensus here is clearly against, an RFC could be opened, else drop it. ] (]) 10:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
::::It is surprising to see people here deny the plain fact that there were Jewish states in this area in antiquity... The sentence simply states that the modern Zionist movement aimed to re-establish an independent Jewish state in a region where previous ones existed. Denying this is a denial of historical truth, regardless of whether contemporary Jews are closely related to those of antiquity (which genetic studies indicate they are). I will be adding this factual information shortly. ] (]) 10:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::Editing against a clear talk page consensus is ]. ''']''' - 12:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)


:I trust I can be forgiven for assuming that an editor that has clearly not read the talk page nor any of the archives must be non EC.
Agree that "establishment" is more in line with RS than "re-establishment", also it should be "establishment" "of a ] in Palestine", rather than of "a ]". ] (]) 20:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
:At any rate, even if EC, this is just a waste of editorial time. ] (]) 21:46, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::They are implementing the task assigned externally . ] (]) 12:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:@], I think you might want to weigh in ] as this RfC deals with one of the changes introduced recently. ]<sub>]</sub> 21:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)


== Non-Jewish support ==
"Re-establishment" is a Zionist talking-point, perhaps even the main Zionist talking-point. Because of this, we should avoid using it. Whether it is factual or not is a secondary issue. Lots of propaganda is factual, and there are plenty of factual Palestinian talking-points that we are also not using as ''the'' definition of Zionism. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 05:27, 30 July 2024 (UTC)


This section also describes support for the state of Israel rather than specifically for Zionism. I don't think these discussions belong in this article unless RS describe said support in the context of Zionism specifically, not just the Israeli state. ] (]) 06:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:What makes this a "Zionist talking-point"? Why ignore that Jews originated in Palestine (as indicated by the name), where their main states and kingdoms existed in ancient times? Contrary to your statement, Palestinian talking-points are used here, such as the term "colonization", which was included through edit warring, and even a false claim that Zionism started first with looking for a land outside Europe before settling on Palestine. It was the opposite. ] (]) 14:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
::The history is not disputed (much), that's not the point, the re-establishement refrain has long been used as justification for the creation of Israel (and now for land grabbing at the expense of the Palestinians) even though 3000 year old history has zero basis in law to found any claim, leaving aside the other flaws in this argument. Balfour's Declaration, without which we would not be having this discussion, does not mention reestablishment despite early failed efforts to include the word "reconstituted". Ultimately the best that was obtained was in the Mandate where a "historical connection" was mentioned (and the historical connection of anyone else ignored). ] (]) 14:36, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:: האופה: Your first question is hard to take seriously; you have read no Zionist literature? While you are correct that a Palestinian position would include "colonization", it is actually a mainstream scholarly position and even the Zionist position up to mid-century. A real "Palestinian talking-point" would say that the Zionists intended to supplant the existing population, but the Palestinians are not even mentioned directly in this article until later. Regarding your last point, I think that "It eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine" is poor wording as "eventually" depends on a timeline that is not defined. I'm not sure it should be in the second sentence, though it should be in the lead. Here for fun is Herzl writing in June 1895: {{tq2|Once we have agreed on the continent and the country, we shall begin to take diplomatic steps with the utmost delicacy. So as not to operate with wholly vague concepts, I shall take Argentina as an example. For a time I had Palestine in mind. This would have in its favor the facts that it is the unforgotten ancestral seat of our people, that its very name would constitute a program, and that it would powerfully attract the lower masses. But most Jews are no longer Orientals and have become accustomed to very different regions; also, it would be hard to carry out there my system of transportation, which will follow later. Then, too, Europe would still be too close to it, and in the first quarter-century of our existence we shall have to have peace from Europe and its martial and social entanglements, if we are to prosper. (Patai, Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p133.)}} ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 14:39, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::tangential to the discussion, but I think in the lead we shouldn't even bother with including that territories other than palestine were considered. When introducing Zionism, most RS will specify that Palestine was the aim. In any case, I agree it's poor wording. ] (]) 16:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
::Whoop-di-doo. There were ancient states. That doesn't make a modern establishment in the same place related to them – except as a romantic fantasy. Keening nostalgia isn't a substitute for actual historical continuity. And the majority of sources ignore the language of "re-establishment", treating such pageantry with all the respect that it deserves, i.e. very little. ] (]) 14:39, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::The majority of sources also ignore the language of "colonization", but for some reason it was added anyway. ] (]) 15:02, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
::::If you're referring to scholarship older than a decade, maybe. The threat of penury was sufficient to encourage generations of scholars to hold their tongues and to pull the wool over their own eyes. But if you're talking about recent scholarship, welcome to the resurgence of colonial studies. And thus, the terminology comes full circle, right back to the term once so freely used even by the now muffled . ] (]) 15:10, 30 July 2024 (UTC)


:Can you be more specific? What do you think doesn't belong to it? ]<sub>]</sub> 09:20, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
::For example
::{{tq2|Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the Druze have demonstrated solidarity with Israel.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Nisan |first=Mordechai |date=Autumn 2010 |title=The Druze in Israel: Questions of Identity, Citizenship, and Patriotism |journal=] |volume=64 |number=4 |pages=575–596 |jstor=40926501}}</ref> Israeli Druze citizens serve in the ].<ref name="Christian Arabs">{{cite news |last=Stern |first=Yoav |date=23 March 2005 |title=Christian Arabs / Second in a series – Israel's Christian Arabs don't want to fight to fit in |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=555549 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071210000545/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=555549 |archive-date=10 December 2007 |access-date=January 7, 2006 |work=]}}</ref> The Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred to as "a covenant of blood" ({{langx|he|ברית דמים}}, {{langx|he|latn|brit damim}}) in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.<ref>{{cite news |last=Firro |first=Kais |date=August 15, 2006 |title=Druze Herev Battalion Fights 32 Days With No Casualties |url=http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=110102 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181224210256/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ |archive-date=December 24, 2018 |access-date=August 15, 2006 |publisher=]}}</ref><ref name="The War for Palestine1">{{cite book |last=Rogan |first=Eugene L. |title=The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 |publisher=] |year=2011 |isbn=9780521794763 |page=73}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Nisan |first=Mordechai |title=Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression |edition=2nd |publisher=McFarland |year=2015 |isbn=9780786451333 |page=284 |quote=This Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred to as a "covenant of blood," in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.}}</ref>}}
::This discussion is about Israel, not about Zionism specifically and should be removed or replaced with a discussion about Druze support for Zionism specifically. ] (]) 17:12, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Just take the Israel related ones out. ] (]) 17:14, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
{{reftalk}} {{reftalk}}


:I think perhaps a more basic flaw in this section is the division of all supporters by religion. Certainly the history of pro-Zionist (as well as anti-Zionist) sentiment in the Western world is driven not just or even primarily by flavors of Christianity, but rather by a number of secular ideologies that span the political spectrum.--] (]) 19:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
== "Alternative options to Palestine" - inaccurate 2nd paragraph ==


:Yeah, and the RSes say that Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism, or at least the modern political version. ] (]) 19:46, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
The second paragraph claims: "Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, some Zionist figures, including ], supported alternative options to Palestine in several places such as "]" (actually parts of ] today in ]), ], ], ], ], and the ], but this was rejected by most of the movement."


== Lede ==
This is incorrect. At most, Herzl supported "Uganda" only as a temporary refuge for Jews in Eastern Europe fleeing pogroms. Herzl never supported Uganda, or any other location, as an alternative to Palestine.


Lede is becoming progressively worse and long; less encyclopaedic as in less factual and more philosophical/editorial, and less structured. ] (]) 17:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
See Herzl's address to the Sixth Zionist Congress on August 23, 1903:https://archive.org/stream/congressaddresse00herziala/congressaddresse00herziala_djvu.txt ] (]) 19:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


:I suggest to remove the last paragraph - discussion about various Zionists fractions and the controversy about Zionism characterization as "national liberation movement"/"settler-colonialism" are too specific for the lead section, in my view.
:Treating this as an edit request: what Misplaced Pages articles say is based on secondary sources (like modern history books), not primary sources (like Herzl's 1903 speech). I think "supported" is correct according to the balance of ] on the topic. However, the particular source cited for those "supported" lines about Uganda, etc., say "considered," so I changed the Misplaced Pages article from "supported" to "considered." No objection to someone putting it back to "supported," but I think we'd need to cite sources that support "supported" in order to do that. ] (]) 19:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
:I'd also remove the sentence about "the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" that already appears verbatim in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section and also seems to be too specific for the lead.
:: There's also the problem that Herzl changed his mind repeatedly. In his diaries one can find support for Uganda and opposition to it. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 08:57, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
:Finally, I suggest to move the mention of antisemitism to the opening sentence, since it's widely considered to be a primary motivation behind the emergence of the Zionist movement, so it would make more sense to place it in the beginning. ] (]) 19:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::Appearing in the body is absolutely not a reason to exclude from the lead. The lead summarizes the body, the point is to contain the same material.
::Your position is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a key aspect of Zionism as a topic? That's certainly not consistent with the coverage in RS. ] (]) 19:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The reason I suggested to remove it from the lead is not because of its appearance in the body, but because this particular claim, placing the start of the conflict at 1880s is too specific for the lead, in my view. ] (]) 20:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::But it doesn't state a specific year. It just says zionists arrived and the conflict began--that's a pretty high level statement, not something specific or detailed. ] (]) 21:24, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::{{tqq|Although some critics argue that choosing 1882 as starting point unduly accentuates the antagonism between the parties by ignoring centuries of earlier Jewish–Muslim and Arab–Jewish amity and collaboration, this is the timeframe adopted by most historians of the conflict ...}} - Caplan 2020, ''The Israel-Palestine Conflict'', Wiley
::::{{tqq|This is not an “age-old” conflict. Its origins lie in the 1880s, when Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe began settling ...}} - Dowty 2023, ''Israel/Palestine'', Polity
::::{{tqq|What triggered this conflict was an event thousands of miles away in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire (which then included the Baltic states and most of Poland and was home to more than half of the world’s Jewish population). On March 1, 1881, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated ... It was the arrival of these Jewish immigrants in Palestine from 1882 onward that sowed the seeds of what eventually became the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.}} - Waxman 2019, ''The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'', Oxford
::::{{tqq|Thousands of books have been written on various aspects and periods of the conflict; this one attempts to relate the entire story in an integrated fashion, covering Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states from the 1880s to the present.}} - Morris 2001, whose book is, of course, called ''Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001''.
::::I disagree that {{tqq|placing the start of the conflict at 1880s is too specific}}. The ] of the 1880s is where historians place the start of the conflict. ] (]) 21:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::Definitely, 1880s/late 19th century is universally accepted as the beginning of the conflict. Historians note that this is because the first Aliyah -emphasis on first- was the first wave of Zionist, not first wave of Jewish settlers to Palestine, as noted on the ] article page. There had been several waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, including those fleeing the Spanish inquisition during the Ottoman period for example. So of course this is due for the lede of the article on Zionism. ] (]) 10:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::I’d remove the following sentences: “The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.” I’d keep the last para though, which summarises quite a lot of the body. I’m not sure it’s longer than MoS prescribes is it? ] (]) 19:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::These are factual sentences, the least I would consider removing. ] (]) 19:54, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::"widely seen" in this instance can be somehow removed to paraphrase it in a factual style. ] (]) 10:20, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The claim to the land is a key component of Zionist ideology, represented across the spectrum from left to right within the movement. ] (]) 19:55, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::As we discussed earlier, this framing of the claim to the land misrepresent what sources actually say - not that Jewish historical rights outweigh that of the Arabs, but rather that they outweigh Arabs claim to *exclusive* rights to the land. ] (]) 20:51, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::The claim is well sourced in the body from a wide range of authors:
:::::{{bulleted list|
:::::|{{harvnb|Gorny|1987|p=210}}: "This set of assumptions was intended to stress the equal status of the Jews vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and to provide the basis for their superior right to Palestine."
:::::|{{harvnb|Shapira|1992|p=41-42}}: "The basic assumption regarding the right of Jews to Palestine—a right that required no proof—was a fundamental component of all Zionist programs. In contrast with other prospective areas for Jewish settlement, such as Argentina or East Africa, it was generally believed that no one could deny the right of the Jews to their ancestral land... The slogan 'A land without a people for a people without a land' was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth, century. It contained a legitimation of the Jewish claim to the land and did away with any sense of uneasiness that a competitor to this claim might appear."
:::::|{{harvnb|Slater|2020}}: "According to the standard Zionist and then the Israeli narrative, for a number of reasons the land of Palestine rightfully belongs to the Jewish people—and no others, including today's Palestinians."
:::::|{{harvnb|Khalidi|2006}}: "he Zionist claim to Palestine, which since even before the establishment of the state of Israel had depended in some measure on arguing that there was no legitimacy to the competing Arab claim"
:::::|{{harvnb|Alam|2009}}: "Zionism was a messianic movement to restore Palestine to its divinely appointed Jewish owners... Conversely, the Palestinian, whether his ancestors were the ancient Canaanites or Hebrews, would forfeit all rights to his lands; he had become a usurper."
:::::|{{harvnb|Sternhell|1999}}: "Like all Zionists, Gordon did not recognize the principle of majority rule, and he refused to acknowledge the right of the majority to 'take from us what we have acquired through our work and creativity.' Moreover, he had confidence in the spiritual vitality of the Yishuv, its energy and motivation, and believed it was supported by the entire Jewish people. In 1921, he spoke in much stronger terms than he had between 1909 and 1918: 'For Eretz Israel, we have a charter that has been valid until now and that will always be valid, and that is the Bible, and not only the Bible.'... And now came the decisive argument: 'And what did the Arabs produce in all the years they lived in the country? Such creations, or even the creation of the Bible alone, give us a perpetual right over the land in which we were so creative, especially since the people that came after us did not create such works in this country, or did not create anything at all.' The founders accepted this point of view. This was the ultimate Zionist argument."
:::::}} ] (]) 21:33, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::What does it even mean to not have exclusive claim to Palestine? That Palestinians had to accept Jewish immigration to Palestine? Of course Zionism entails a lot more than just immigration. The factions in the Zionist movement pushing for a binational state were fringe, small and "ultimately marginal" (morris on brit shalom). ] (]) 21:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::If you look at the quotes in the passage I added yesterday that you reverted, you'll see that the discussions about binational federalist models wasn't limited to Brit Shalom, and included major leaders like Ben-Gurion, Katznelson
::::::Hopefully, I'll have the time later today to expand it somewhat to make it suitable for the body - still not sure which section would be the best place for it - will be happy to hear you suggestions. ] (]) 12:06, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::Sure they were involved in discussions around such models, but when describing the mainstream Zionist perspective, do RS say that binational federalist models were a goal of Zionism? No they dont. ] (]) 18:41, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::The RS show evolution of the mainstream Zionists views regarding the practical realization of the national home concept, and show that "nation state" in its modern sense wasn't a consensual Zionist goal in the first decades of the movement's existence. ] (]) 19:22, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::I disagree and will bring RS to demonstrate, Zionists may not have have found it practicable or desirable to press for a state but they certainly desired it, starting with Herzl "Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter." ] (]) 19:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::Right, this is a key point and a theme that appears repeatedly when looking at the history of the movement. ] (]) 20:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::Shumsky (2018) explicitly addresses this point (emphasis mine):
::::::::::{{tq2|"It is extremely important to realize the fact that '''Herzl’s clear misgivings about the separatist Greek model of a unitary linguistic-cultural nation-state''' in no way contradicts the contents of ''The Jewish State'' or of the term ''Judenstaat''. Indeed, most of the neighboring non-Jewish national movements of the Habsburg imperial space in Herzl’s time '''used the term Staat with explicitly substatist intentions''' in their national political programs and positions... Herzl clearly states that Altneuland is '''a district of the Ottoman Empire''', just as the Transylvania envisioned by Popovici and the Czech lands envisioned even by the radical Czech nationalists were imagined as districts of the Habsburg Empire."}} ] (]) 20:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::::Shumsky is a very good source. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 20:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::::Shumsky is the principal architect of the that "prior to World War II, the leaders of the Zionist movement did not aspire to a Jewish nation-state" in contradiction to "the conventional narrative, according to which the goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a Jewish nation-state." ] (]) 18:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::When RS talk about Zionism, they talk about a Jewish state. Yes the movement took time to consolidate around that goal and that should be covered as part of the history of the movement (as you've done). But "Zionism" still entails a Jewish state. ] (]) 20:17, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::The claim to land is mentioned earlier in the lead. ] (]) 23:11, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::I disagree with your three points. ] (]) 19:54, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:Less factual? please be specific. ] (]) 19:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::"The support of a Great Power was seen as fundamental to the success of Zionism and in 1917 the Balfour Declaration established Britain's support for the movement." is too editorial and can be replaced with something fully factual and concise such as: "In 1917 the Balfour Declaration by Britain established imperial support for the movement." ] (]) 19:56, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::again, the support of a great power was a key component of zionist ideology which is heavily emphasized in RS covering Zionist ideology. The point had a very widespread and clear consensus. So no, this is not "too editorial" ] (]) 20:01, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I agree with Makeandtoss on this one. It’s an interpretation, even if widely shared. ] (]) 23:16, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
::::How is it an interpretation? ] (]) 23:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::"was seen" clearly defines it as a perspective/interpretation, which is more appropriate for an editorial article rather than an encylopaedic entry; at least, not in the lede as a concise summary, it could be added in body with attribution. ] (]) 10:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::We aren't supposed to describe the Zionist movement's perspective in the lead? ] (]) 18:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I agree as well with Makeandtoss and BobFromBrockley. Keep it simple and succinct. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 16:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::: +1 to being succinct. See also below re: not introducing new synth in the lede. <span style="color:#666">&ndash;&nbsp;]]</span> 22:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


== Overview section == === "state ideology" claim ===
The last sentence of the first paragraph read:
{{tq|There is an inappropriate image/content attached to the phrase "secular Jews" in one of the first paragraphs of this section. Someone with more knowledge than me on how to remove this perversion should do so immediately. }} from user @152.133.7.197
: ''Following the establishment of the ] in 1948, Zionism became Israel's ].''


That's confusing and a bit misleading: the linked article on ] provides a definition that doesn't include Israel (citing Piekalkiewicz and Penn saying that 'only religious settlers and ultranationalists seek ideocratic solutions'); the Zionist movement and meaning of the term changed after the establishment of a state; the ] includes non- or anti-Zionist parties such as ] and ].
Why is there an "overview" section in this article? What's the best way to merge it into the rest of the text? Should someone just "be bold" and do it? I imagine if we discuss each point we will never agree. ] (]) 18:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


The lead sentence of ] offers different language: "Politics in Israel is dominated by ] parties." Earlier versions of this lede were also clearer in conveying the change over time. "Following the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism became an ideology supporting the development and protection of the state." <span style="color:#666">&ndash;&nbsp;]]</span> 22:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah, the whole article is an overview. To this point, and to {{u|Nishidani}}'s point above ("cries out for a thorough rewrite"), I see ] as a ] article, whose primary purpose should be as a navigational aid, to organize and link to various sub-articles. Most of the detail should be in the sub-articles.
:The TOC should look something like this:
:* Lead
:* Terminology
:* History - should be condensed to be much shorter than it is currently, and should include the "role in the I-P conflict" stuff
:* Features (or "characteristics" or something, but I don't like "beliefs") - needs to be limited to features that are common across all types of Zionism, not just some types
:* Types - here is where to list the various sub-types of Zionism
:* Non-Jewish support
:* Anti-Zionism
:* See also, etc.
:Thoughts? ] (]) 18:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::I agree mostly, especially about "Features" or "Characteristics" (not sure if either are great) instead of "beliefs". Maybe "Principles"?
::I think "role in IP" deserves its own section since "History" would be focused on the history of the Zionist project. ] (]) 18:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::The history section is generally huge. See the section sizes up top. Ripe for a split. ] (]) 18:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::On "features" - the "overview" section currently begins with "common characteristics", so that's sort of ready to be turned into a general features section preceding the specific "types" section, or as the general introduction to it. ] (]) 18:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Do we have secondary sources analysing the common features in the several or more varieties of Zionist thought and practice? My major problem is with how Zionism is conceptualized historically, and most of the sources I am familiar with addressing this do not break it down that way. Of course, Lev's proposal is sensible. Getting there is another matter.] (]) 18:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Two sources that come to mind are Zionism: an Emotional state (Penslar), and Zionism and the Arabs: a study of ideology (Gorny). Ben-Ami also discusses this at some length in his Scars of War. Shapira discusses "left" vs "right" in the Zionist movement wrt the use of violence (Land and Power). There is also Image and Reality (Finkelstein) which focuses on political and cultural zionism but does not spend too much time discussing individual zionisms within those.
::::Part of the challenge is that there are both ideological and political differences between these groups (although most differences are political rather than ideological, esp wrt the basic tenets). And also that when RS say "zionism" they almost always mean political zionism. ] (]) 18:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I don't think we should be dwelling on the various types of Zionism since RS primarily describe "Zionism" based on the ideology, tactics and strategy of the Zionist mainstream. ] (]) 19:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::The 2024 's intro calls it "Classifying Zionism" (), perhaps we should call it "Classifications". BTW, does everybody agree this is a good source on which to base this article? ] (]) 19:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Seems uniquely apt. ] (]) 20:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::What do you mean by "base"? Ill have to spend some time with this source ] (]) 20:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::After skimming the introduction, I would say that no i do not agree this is a good source to base this article. ] (]) 20:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::It seems to emphasize differences between different forms of Zionism in an unorganized way, leaving the reading thinking there isn't a fundamental set of principles that define what Zionism is. Plenty of RS show very specifically what the foundational ideas of Zionism are and have been historically. ] (]) 20:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Also, the third to last paragraph is so disconnected from reality, I would hesitate to use this source for anything in the 21st century. ] (]) 20:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Also, is there mention of the IP conflict *anywhere* in this introduction? ] (]) 20:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::At a quick read (England vs Holland, and the discussion now beginning) Shindler's overview is odd. One of the distinctive features of Zionism in Israeli/diaspora studies for decades was the total elision of the indigenous (other) context. The change in paradigm in the last three decades pivots around this silence. But it seems to be apparent that histories of Zionism of the numerous kinds Shindler covers exhibit that tendency - they read Zionism in terms of its internal dynamics, and not in terms of the conflict with the 'other' intrinsic to Zionism's practices. The thrust of settler colonialism studies in this field was to critique that silence, and amend it by, in the wake of Baruch Kimmerling and Gershon Shafir's 1980s studies, re-examining this lost context. I'm paraphrasing my memory of an acute metacritical essay on this ten years or so ago. Gabriel Piterberg,* ], 44: 3, Spring 2015 pp. 17-38 (and many elaborations on the point followed). In that perspective, the Routledge preview strikes me as vitiated by an a conservative infra-Zionist approach which still fails to see (and it is a methodological defect) the elephant in the room (how each type, variety of Zionism in their respective fields affected the Palestinians who were ineludibly impacted in numerous ways by almost every implemented variety of Zionism. ] (]) 21:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::*<small>To anticipate objections to this source, I am ] (]) 21:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)</small>
::How about this instead:
::* Lead
::* Terminology
::* History
::* Historiography
::* Support for Zionism
::* Anti-Zionism
::* See also, etc.
::The "types" (or whatever you call them) of Zionism can be linked in the #History section--e.g., we can link to and briefly describe ] in the part of the History section where we mention the rise of Political Zionism. Same with Labour Zionism, Religious Zionism, etc. We can link to ] in the lead and/or infobox. In my view, that achieves the goal of providing the reader with a link to these sub-articles and placing them in context with one another.
::I also think that the entirety of the History section, and Zionism, will be about the I-P Conflict, so there isn't a need for a separate section about that in addition to the History section (and the I-P conflict can be mentioned in the lead, and also the infobox). But that's just my view.
::The #Historiography can be the place to discuss "theories about Zionism," e.g. it's nationalism, it's settler colonialism, Penslar's new theory that it's an emotion, etc.
::"Support for Zionism" should have a section about Jewish support for Zionism. (A heading called "Non-Jewish support for Zionism" implies all Jews support Zionism.) ] (]) 21:40, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Perhaps a collectively edited sandbox with some such alternative is worth considering? Is there any preciedent for this? It would certainly avoid a lot of edit whoring.] (]) 22:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::I think this is great. The sandbox idea sounds great, but like a possible edit conflict nightmare. Really disappointing to see how weak wikipedia's support for collaboration is. ] (]) 22:06, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Well, I'm pressed for time, and this is a large task. Someone interested in doing such a revision might draft, bit by bit, a revised text according to Lev's suggestion, and post links here every time a section is completed, for input, as comments under the sections on that page. So it would avoid edit-wars there. The lead, per policy, would be the last part to be written. I have in mind what Tom Reedy and myself were given the opportunity to do at the ] which was hopelessly compromised by edit-warring. Admins suggested the sceptics of an alternative candidate like Tom and myself, prepare our ideal page, while the promotor of the de Vere hypothesis could do his version, with neither side interfering. I did a first draft, Tom, a really accomplished Shakespearean scholar, then rewrote and greatly finessed my draft. The other party simply dipped out. He apparently couldn't do it in another sandbox, with assistance from other true believers or alone, perhaps through topic ignorance, inability or fear of the competition were he to accept the challenge. So, once our draft alone was completed, it was accepted as the only horse in the race and then submitted to FA, where dozens of specialists could have a go at knocking it for any defects, formal, verification, style. It passed. This took some months, but it stopped several years of pointless bickering. I often wonder why this strategy might not be used more broadly for conflicted articles. I.e. each 'POV' produce their ideal version, and then compare the results, to evaluate which version comes closer to FA standards. ] (]) 22:47, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I will try this, but it will take some time before I come back with anything. If you could take some time to share some sources that you all think are important, that would be greatly appreciated. I am starting with: Goldberg (To the promised land), Gorny (Zionism and the Arabs), Avineri (The making of modern zionism), Masalha (The Zionist Bible), Almog (Zionism and the Arabs), Flapan (Zionism and the Palestinians) ] (]) 18:17, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
:::1. I don't really agree that the entire history section should be about the IP conflict--of course there is relevant history for the development of Zionism in Europe, and possibly some discussion of protozionist initiatives.
:::2. The way I'm thinking of this re-write, the types of zionism will play a much smaller role than they currently do in the article.
:::3. Lastly, shouldnt we also have a section describing *what* zionism is, as a movement and an ideologically? I imagine this would discuss: territorial concentration and the desirability of a Jewish majority and possibly a Jewish state in Palestine, revival of the hebrew language/renaissance of jewish culture, negation of diaspora life/the abnormality of diaspora life and the "conquest of labor". ] (]) 02:52, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


:Thanks for fixing that. a good edit. I think there is still other unresolved synth. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 22:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
== Example of how a redraft might look. Terminology ==


== sources for "Some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist." ==
Since the page is locked in, ostensibly to keep out the usual suspects and their focus on one word, the article cannot be improved or revised except laboriously. In any case, this is how I think it might be reordered (a) Using the received text (b) weeding out the many arbitrary sources, esp. general books and articles that incidentally contain some 'useful stuff'. (c) Prioritizing just say 15-20 RS by specialists, as I have done here with Penslar (d) trying to simplify it by cutting out the unessential. I'm too busy to go further, but I hope this helps-


None of the sources quoted actually support this claim:
===Terminology===
* Masalha talks about Zionist use of the term "colonization" - claiming this implies that "some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial" would be ]
The term "Zionism" is derived from the word '']'' ({{lang-he|ציון|translit=Tzi-yon}}), a hill in ] which from ancient times became a core symbol of the Jewish cult centered around the kingship of Yahweh established in that city.{{sfn| Ollenburger|1987|pp=19-22}}, and thereafter became emblematic of a sacred association between Israel and the Jewish people.{{sfn |Glatzer|Buber |1997|pp=vii,ix}}
* Same for Jabotinsky's quotes that uses of the word "colonization" and Morris' quote that uses the word "settlers"
* Tony Judt misquoted Avraham Burg, who didn't say "colonial state" - in the he says "''un Etat qui développe des colonies''" and in the - "''a state of settlements''". Moreover, Burg didn't talk about Zionism in general, but specifically about Israel in 2003
* Similarly, Finkelstein's quote contains criticism of Shapira's book and doesn't contain any evidence that Shapira, or any other "proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist"


Accordingly, either better sources need to be provided, or this sentence should be removed altogether. ] (]) 19:03, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
As early as 1882, in a German pamphlet entitled ] the Russo-Polish Jewish doctor and activist ] had written of the need, in the face of anti-Semitism, for the Jews to emancipate themselves by international mobilization to establish a national homeland.{{sfn |Penslar |2020|p=94}} A new generation of Eastern European Jewish nationalists arose and, in 1884, federated in a movement called ''Hovevei Zion'' (]), which then began to promote piecemeal settlement in Palestine.{{sfn|Penslar|2020|p=93}} The first use of the term Zionism itself is attributed to the Austrian ], founder of the ] nationalist Jewish students' movement; {{sfn|Penslar|2020|p=93}}. he employed the word in 1890 in his journal ''Selbst-Emancipation'' (''Self-Emancipation''), {{efn|'Nathan Birnbaum wird immer wieder als derjenige erwähnt, der die Begriffe "Zionismus" und "zionistisch" eingeführt habe, auch sieht er es selbst so, obwohl er es später bereut und Bedauern darüber äußert, wie die von ihm geprägten Begriffe verwendet werden. Das Wort "zionistisch" erscheint bei Birnbaum zuerst in einem Artikel der "Selbst-Emancipation" vom 1 April 1890: "Es ist zu hoffen, dass die Erkenntnis der Richtigkeit und Durchführbarkeit der zionistischen Idee stets weitere Kreise ziehen und in der Assimilationsepoche anerzogene Vorurteile beseitigen wird.'{{harv| Kühntopf-Gentz|1990 |p=39}}}} ] initially used the word to denote these earlier movements before embracing it for his own proposal for establishing a homeland abroad.{{sfn|Penslar|2020|p=93}}


:Agree. Would just delete sentence. I always found it clunky and odd. ] (]) 19:42, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
===Notes===
:{{tq|Tony Judt misquoted Avraham Burg|q=yes}} they didn't as a "state that develops colonies" is by definition a "colonial state". If you believe otherwise, then you need to find a reliable source that supports your statement. ] (]) 21:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
{{notelist}}
::French "colonies" can be translated to English as either "colonies" or "settlements", and in the English version of his article Burg himself says "a state of settlements".
::Also, as I said above, Burg was talking specifically about 2003 Israel, not Zionism in general. ] (]) 21:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
===Citations===
:::Your ] contradicts what the RS says. As for the irrelevant English version (not the one used by the source), "a state of settlements" is by definition a "settler colonial state". ] (]) 21:55, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
{{Reflist}}
::::1. Quoting a primary source is not ]
::::2. Your "by definition" inference is ]
::::3. In both French and English versions of his article, Burg talks specifically about Israel in 2003, not Zionism in general. ] (]) 10:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::1. Quoting a source is not OR, but interpreting it (like you did) is most definitely OR.
:::::2. It's not (it's perfectly in line with what the cited RS says).
:::::3. Irrelevant to the claim that you made about the inexistent misquote. ] (]) 10:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::3. If you read my initial comment, you'll see that I said two things about this quote, and the second was that Burg talked specifically about Israel in 2003, not Zionism in general.
::::::So even if you insist on justifying Judt use of "colonial state", this quote still cannot be used as evidence for the claim that "some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist" ] (]) 11:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::I did read it, and more important than that, I read ] (used as a justification for the removal of the content). I haven't checked the others. ] (]) 12:00, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I agree with BobFromBrockley and DancingOwl. It's not supported by the material. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 16:30, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:The sentence has now been . I don't object to its presence in the body, but we need to address the sourcing concerns raised here. The primary Jabotinsky and secondary Masalha very adequately source the "colonisation" claim. I don't understand how Morris or Finkelstein support any part of the claim. No source now present supports "settler-colonialism", a term I doubt any Zionist has used positively. ] (]) 14:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::I agree. It's always been synth and has never been justifiable. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 02:00, 5 January 2025 (UTC)


== Duplicate sections ==
===Sources===
{{refbegin|35em}}
*{{Cite book| chapter = Foreword
| last1 = Glatzer | first1 = Nahum N.
| author-link = Nahum Norbert Glatzer
| last2 = Buber| first2 = Martin
| author2-link = Martin Buber
| year = 1997
| origyear = 1973
| title = On Zion:The History of an Idea
| publisher = ]
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rfjV6S8ib3EC&q=zion++symbol+Judaism
| isbn = 978-0-815-60482-2
}}
*{{cite book|title=Nathan Birnbaum: Biographie
| last=Kühntopf-Gentz|first=Michael
| publisher= ]
| year=1990
| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=bNcsAQAAIAAJ
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader
| last = Penslar| first = Derek
| author-link =Derek Penslar
| year = 2020
| publisher = ]
| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=IwHMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1
| isbn = 978-0-300-18040-4
}}
*{{Cite book| title = Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult
| last = Ollenburger| first = Ben C.
| year = 1987
| publisher = ]
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0IN-F-nsgEAC&q=Zion+hill+jerusalem+symbol
| isbn = 978-0-567-31141-2
}}
{{refend}} ] (]) 15:03, 12 July 2024 (UTC) {{od}}


The section 'The concept of "transfer"' is duplicated under both "Beliefs" and "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict". The part in "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" is also duplicated (though rephrased) under the section header itself. For example, the sentence 'transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day"' appears three times in the article. ] (]) 15:13, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
:Thank you. I would think we should also focus on books about Zionism. At the moment the references section is full of journal articles which makes it hard to discern mainstream views from notable views from fringe views. ] (]) 16:30, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
::If you want wiki to take up Ollenburger's arguments re Mount Zion's symbolic history, I think you should try ] first. And even then there would be a ] issue including it here. Better to just rely on Glatzer for the whole thing. ] (]) 23:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Why would I want wiki to take up Ollenburger's arguments? At the moment, we have as a source a book by Menashe Harel, about Zion being a hill with symbolic value for Jews (''This is Jerusalem,'' Menashe Harel, Canaan Publishing, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 194–195)
:::As with a score or more other sources here, this is just plain useless and cried out for a better, high quality RS stating more or less the same point.
:::*(a) Harel was a geographer, with no known competence in stating anything other than that Zion is a hill
:::*(b) Canaan Publishing? That's almost a self-publishing venue.
:::*(c)The book is very dated (and the remark banal, a cliché.
:::I substituted it with Ollenburger because the issue touched on by Harel is very complex, and Ollenburger has a very thorough coverage of it, as an expert on the topic itself, of Zion as a symbol. Secondly, unlike Harel's book, this gives the reader a direct link (for both verification, and for further exploration of a point we barely have time to touch on)
:::Ollenburger has of course, (like Nahum Glatzer, Martin Buber) his religious views about the symbolic value of 'Zion', but he does, unlike the Glatzer Foreword, provide a very detailed overview of all of the scholarly views about that symbol, together with a useful survey of the state of scholarship on the theories of symbols.
:::The section is about terminology, '''not etymology''' (for which the ] article provides a good survey of course).
:::Glatzer was a brilliant scholar but his brief Foreword is very generic, more concerned with celebrating Buber's life and unlistened to theories about what the quintessence of 'Zion'(ism) was, than approaching the theme (Zion through history) in anything other than cursory terms. My preference is, always, to come up with a source which allows the reader direct access to the larger issues which, for succinctness, we don't have time to go into.
:::There is no WP:OR issue, in my view, when the text to be edited requires a statement about, not Zionism, but 'Zion' the hill the name for which became central to traditions about the symbolic heartland of Judaism. Ollenburger says nothing of Zionism, but summarizes everything (up to 1987) one could wish to know about the scholarship on that 'Zion'.] (]) 00:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::<small>ps. by the way the extraordinary assertion that 'Zionism arose . . . (as) a consequence of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment' should be removed as utterly contrafactual, in that Zionism was a reaction against the haskalah as much as anything.] (]) 01:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)</small>
::::I mean that the idea that Mount Zion "from ancient times became a core symbol of the Jewish cult centered around the kingship of Yahweh established in that city" or "became central to traditions about the symbolic heartland of Judaism" is (1) Ollenburger's own and not shared by many other scholars, which is presumably why no one has added it to ] or ], and (2) has nothing to do with Zionism. Buber makes a similar historical argument in ''On Zion'', but his book is hardly an RS for Biblical history. The word "Zion" had been a poetic alternative to "Jerusalem" for millennia in 1882 and implied nothing cosmogonic whatsoever. In the political and philosophical terminology of Zionism (including Buber) it means either "Jerusalem" or "Israel", not a hill.
::::I don't necessarily agree with your thesis re Zionism as anti-Haskalah but it doesn't matter because you've misunderstood the current wording. It's a "consequence of the Haskalah" in that it was enabled by the Maskilic push for secular learning and cultural identity, not in that it was a linear intellectual outgrowth. Zionism required an outward-facing Westernized culture to germinate. And even if one goes as far as you the statement is still true: "reaction" itself implies a causal connection. ] (]) 02:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::*I'm only comfortable with source-based reasoning. If I state something, you may presume I have at least one source in mind. I'm busy but a few points. I'd appreciate it if the same methodology was shared by the page's interlocutors.
:::::*I don't necessarily agree with your thesis re Zionism as anti-Haskalah but it doesn't matter because you've misunderstood the current wording.'
:::::*(a)It's not '''my''' thesis. That Jewish nationalism arose in opposition to the haskalah is a commonplace. See for just one (related to a critique of a book on Zionism) Isaiah Friedman,''Review: Gideon Shimoni—"The Zionist Ideology",'' ] , Spring, 1998, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 1998) pp. 251-265 p.252.
:::::*(b) 'misunderstood the current wording'. You mean I don't grasp what the word 'consequence' means, I guess. Don't take my word for it. The O.E.D glosses it thus:'A thing or circumstance which follows '''as an effect or result''' from something preceding.'(O.E.D.1989 vol.3 p.762 column 1.
:::::It follows, without imaginary construals like the one you provide, that our text in claiming that 'Zionism arose . . . as a '''consequence of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment,''' is asserting that Zionism 'followed as an effect or result of the Jewish enlightenment'.
:::::The clear intimation of such a choice of words is that Zionism is somehow consequential on the enlightenment rather than being a reaction against the latter's general dismissal of nationalism.] (]) 13:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::When I speak of the intent of the word "consequence" all I'm trying to do is summarize what the cited sources say about the relationship between Zionism and the Haskalah. It's simply not true that the Haskalah and Zionism developed separately. ] was both a very important Maskil and a proto-Zionist. His involvement in the transition from Haskalah to Zionism is detailed (for example) .
::::::I don't want to get dragged into semantics but the word "consequence" implies causality ("effect or result") without making a qualitative statement. Actions can have unintended, undesired, unanticipated consequences. Thus we can say at ] that in the exact same period {{tq|Geiger and others presented exegesis as an arbitrary, illogical process, and consequently defenders of tradition embraced Maimonides' claim that the Sages merely buttressed already received laws with biblical citations, rather than actually deriving them}}. ] (]) 16:16, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It's a matter of method, (a)Smolenskin, whose wiki biography is a bare stub without significant sourcing, died 11 years before Herzl's book. Indeed it is mostly free composition, which is the curse of wikipedia. It would be useful if you could flesh it out by adding material from the Hebrew source regarding him, but it doesn't change the point made per 'One swallow doesn't make a spring' or the Ciceronian '] (b) Wiki articles (], etc.) are not reliable sources. (c) it's our proverbial strawman, to rebut something, i.e. 'the Haskalah and Zionism developed separately,' when I never said anything even vaguely similar to that.
:::::::People can take or leave proposals like mine. Since the article can't be edited, it's pointless wasting time at the moment, or for some weeks/months, making suggestions here, I realize. But multiple sourcing from strong RS is the only way to secure an encuclopedic entry worthy of the name, and that should be achieved by adducing and discussion numerous scholarly sources, not just one or two.] (]) 16:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Bnd, the adverb 'consequently' cannot gloss 'consequence'. The latter has the meaning I cited. The former simply indicates a succession in time, i.e. 'consecutively' without the implications of effect present in the substantive. The first lesson of historiography is to avoid ] reasoning.] (]) 18:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::This is not true. "Consequently" means precisely "as a consequence" and not "consecutively". ] (]) 22:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::<small>My apologies for this terrible lapse, of confusing its primary historic meaning with its modern use as the adverbial form of consequence. Of course it doesn't change things. Since 'consequence' implies result, and I object to that for the stated reasons, the adverb's use would suffer from the same problems. Regards.] (]) 09:09, 16 July 2024 (UTC)</small>
::::::::Just going to insert here a passage from Derek Penslar's ''Zionism: An Emotional State'' (2023) ch. 1: {{tq|The concept of Orthodox “forerunners” is also problematic in that it gives pride of place to only one of the many strands of modern Jewish sensibility that were necessary preconditions for the birth of Zionism. Another precondition was Jewish engagement in the cultural politics of nineteenth-century nationalist movements. Over the course of the nineteenth century throughout Europe (and, late in the 1800s, in the Middle East), writers chronicled their nation’s history and produced new editions of literary epics and new works of fiction and poetry. They not only exalted the alleged uniqueness and majesty of the national language but also standardized it, welding variants of a spoken vernacular into a literary medium; they modernized it as well, adding words to enable discussion of advances in science and technology. Jews also engaged in these efforts . . . in fact Zionism was deeply dependent on the Haskalah. Both movements sought to modernize Jewish culture and normalize the Jews’ existence while retaining a strong sense of Jewish particularity.}} Penslar doesn't really read Hebrew so a lot of the specific history in that book is confused, it's not really an RS for history per se; nonetheless he does a good job summarizing English-language scholarly consensus. Michael Stanislawski (2017) ''Zionism: A Very Short Introduction'' goes much further: {{tq|The true historical invention of modern Jewish nationalism, and then Zionism, did not have any “precursors” but was the result of an internal development within the Jewish Enlightenment movement known as the Haskalah.}} ] (]) 17:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the two quotes. I admire Penslar's work, but, for some of the reasons you give, exercise care about it. For example, his recent biography of ''Herzl: The Charismatic Leader,'' covers a lot of the background but never once mentions 'haskalah' or even its translation 'enlightenment'. Three years later, he makes the judgment you cite. The point is that the direct descendants of the haskalah, its exemplars, leaders of Reform Judaism and the secularizing Jews, were not so much Jewish nationalists, whom we much study for Zionism, but overwhelmingly passionate patriots of each of their respective countries: their nationalism was Polish, German, French, English, Italian, etc.etc. I keep remarking on this defect in many studies. Zionism for almost two decades found an assent in 1% of Jewish communities, and great hostility from Jews in the haskalah mainstream, precisely because it challenged what they thought was the essence of their own enlightenment tradition. Zionism (as we see in Herzl's endless vituperations against prominent Haskalah Jews) unsurprisingly an ally in antisemitic nationalists for a brief time, and the latter were profoundly opposed to the Enlightenment and all it represented, as Herzl was violently opposed to assimilation, though himself, like everyone else in the early movement, thoroughly assimilated (and like most of its Western European promotors, would never have settled in the future state, preferring Europe). Intellectual history can go some way towards clarifying these things, but, though I haven't read it, Penslar's punningly titled ''Zionism: An Emotional State,'' touches the real core. ideologies spread not by rational persuasion but prove effective in so far as they are efficiently affective. But all this is straying from the simple points I wished to make, and I am under some obligations to spend more time in offwiki work.] (]) 21:49, 14 July 2024 (UTC)


:::::I hope to respond to the rest when the Wimbleton final is over, and before the Spain vs English Euro final starts. But in essence, all your objections are met with a simple tweak, 'Zion became synonymous with, a heteronym for, Jerusalem'<nowiki>{{sfn|Renz|1999|p=85}}</nowiki>] (]) 13:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC) :There has been a bit of back and forth on this, to my way of thinking, transfer/colonialism/IP conflict (and the few Arabs business) are all related things, I don't much like the way the article tries to separate them, tbh. ] (]) 16:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::Colonialism also has two sections, one in "anti-Zionism" (where it doesn't really belong) and then one tucked right at the end of the article. It might be sensible to create a single section that covers colonialism, transfer and the conflict together (perhaps as three sub-sections) and place it either before or after the "History" section. ] (]) 16:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::Sounds fine to me. I don't know what "Renz 1999" is. This transition occurs relatively early even within the Biblical corpus, so Jerusalem at 1 Kings 8:1 "the city of David which is Zion" or Israel at Isaiah 51:16 "to say to Zion, you are my people". I imagine there are some sources specifically about the 19th-century concept more objective than Buber's but I don't know what they are. ] (]) 17:02, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:I would move all of the material into the second section (within "Role in the conflict") as it's not a "belief" of the movement. ] (]) 16:22, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::To be perfectly honest I think you're operating with a political bias. You admire the Haskalah and Reform Judaism and secularization, but dislike Zionism, and you want to line up all the people you admire on the same "side" against the Zionists. But for one, a very large part of the Haskalah, from start to finish, took place among completely Orthodox-practicing Jews who opposed Reform-style theology and the ritual innovation which came to typify the Reform movement. Some early Zionists adopted anti-Maskilic rhetoric because of political differences, but even more tried to brand Haskalah as out-of-date for its (compared to Zionism) typically fundamentalist approach to religion. The banner of the Haskalah is just as credibly raised by Zionism, or by ], which is an Orthodox-practicing but culturally Westernized and Zionist movement, or by ], which is similarly Westernized and Zionist but is slightly more progressive in ritual practice and dramatically less focused on classical text study. All these movements claim to be the legacy of the Haskalah but in reality it's "all of the above". It's almost as silly as asking "which denomination is the true Judaism" or "which modern country is heir to ancient Rome".
::I agree, it could use some tightening up and removing of duplicative material. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 16:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I think maybe there's almost an automatic bias in reading exclusively English-language history of the Haskalah, because the authors are all people who interpreted the Haskalah in such a way that led them to write in English. But of course the Haskalah itself was very intentional in its use of Hebrew.
::Agree - it makes much more sense to put it under "Role in the conflict" ] (]) 18:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Anyway there weren't ever many "Jews in the Haskalah mainstream". Haskalah was a professional activist phenomenon which didn't succeed at developing self-sustaining institutions. There were Westernized Jews, but that isn't the same thing as being Haskalah Jews. The total number of non-Zionist non-Orthodox second-generation Hebrew readers probably maxed out in the four-digits. If you only count professional intellectuals, there were more anti-Zionist Maskilim than Zionists for a few years, sure.
::::I think you may like Penslar's next book a lot less, I've spoken to him recently and October 7 did a number on him. ] (]) 23:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::If I read your last remark correctly, well, what a pity. I wasn't surprised by 7 October, as opposed to being horrified. Of course, like everyone, I have biases. Commitment to scholarship is premised on an awareness of how ineludible this is, and a commitment to watching oneself as one researches and writes to weed out, or render oneself less fragile to those pressures as one assays the evidence. My point re the Haskalah, aside from the usual general works, reflects a 'bias' in reading numerous biographies of the great minds, poets and musicians of the haskalah and post-haskala dispension, where religion is almost zero (Walter Benjamin is a special case), and whose activities went a long way to informing, civilizing and taming the ethnocentric cast of Western civilization. My shower's running and I must rush to a dental appointment, but what I wrote reflected among other texts. Friedman's critique of Shimoni's book on Zionism.
:::::<blockquote>In his chapter dealing with the origins of Zionist ideology, Shimoni relies heavily on the theory of ]. Smith argues that the matrix of Jewish nationalism is traceable to the ethnic (he uses the French term “ethnie” )composition of a given society. Nationalism matured in the modern period, and its standard bearer was the intelligentsia. In Smith's own words: "Nationalism is born among the intelligentsia, when the 'messianic' assimilationists try to realize their former vision by adopting the ethnicity solution of the defensive reforming 'revivalists'." This fusion produces "the ideological spark of the rationalist movement.",</blockquote>


== King-Crane quote ==
:::::<blockquote>Taking a cue from Smith, Shimoni attributes the same role to the nineteenth-century haskala movement. However, there is a snag. Smith's theory is based primarily on the European experience; it hardly sits well with the development of nationalism in Africa and Asia,2 and, to my mind,is inapplicable to the historical experience of the Jews. With due respect,Jewish nationalism is not Smith's forte. A glaring example of his lack of familiarity with Jewish thought and history clearly transpires in his article in which he considers nineteenth-century Reform Judaism in Germany as the progenitor of Jewish nationalism. This assertion is palpably fallacious,for, if anything, the Reform Movement was the antithesis of Jewish nationalism. Its ideologues deliberately expunged national elements from Judaism in order to make Jews eligible for emancipation and equality of civic rights. Hence their redefinition of Jewish identity as "Germans of Jewish faith," which became a model for the Jewish communities. pp.251-251] (]) 08:29, 15 July 2024 (UTC)</blockquote>
:::::<small>Do I have a bias in citing that? Well, Smith walked out of the first lecture I gave. It was on a topic he knew nothing about, Japanese nationalism, and (not taking that personally, for my neophyte lecture was horribly turgid) I only realised why when I later read his deeply flawed 'The Ethnic Orgins of Nations', which reads as an attempt by a passionate Zionist to rewrite the theory of nationalism in such a way that it would vindicate the normalcy of Israel. In that, I sided with Smith's great mentor, ], who, once hearing me lecture, gave me his friendship. Neither, I believe, knew much about Judaism. Like myself at a far lower level of achievement, they were comparativists. ] (]) 15:49, 15 July 2024 (UTC)</small>
::::::As to my 'political bias', that is a 'bias' that comes from a principle of historical methodology: that in a historical conflict between two parties, one must read in the light of what both sides were aspiring to achieve, and did. It may not be true, but numerous observers have remarked on the essentially closed, self-referential characteristic of the historiography of Zionism on Jews, as they immigrated into Palestine under that banner. The thrust of most of that literature is the long Jewish history of oppression in Europe, and how this dilemma was resolved by Jews in building Israel in the Middle East. Palestine as an overwhelmingly Arab country was marginalized as an embarrassing obstacle, though every measure taken by Zionism affected them deeply. One has occasional allusions to spiriting them across the border (Herzl), shifting them out of our future valleys (Ben-Gurion) ''ad infinitum''. But, understandably, the impelling concern is with ''us'', ''our security''. The only historian I know of who approaches this even-handedly is ] in his 4-volume magnum opus, in a historiography that is dominated by and large by Israeli and diaspora scholars, and that reflects their deep emotional assent to the creation of a Jewish state (whose corollary was the non-creation of a Palestinian Arab state ineludibly. I'm alluding to ]'s point in ] that the 'solution' to the 'Jewish question' undertaken by Zionism merely created a mirroring 'Palestinian Question' of a new stateless people). That it was in a country where 95% of the population around 1900 was not Jewish is rarely grasped for its fundamental structural implications. Palestinians are irrelevant to resolving a millennarian problem of Jewish statelessness. And if it is 'political' that I read the literature by bearing in mind, as I read Zionist history, the 'other' suppressed context in which Zionism put down its roots, then how do we describe the vast amount of our secondary literature which is written from within the fold of an almost religious attachment to the narrative primacy of one's own 'Jewish'/Israeli identity as a heuristic premise? ] (]) 15:49, 15 July 2024 (UTC)


Can someone explain to me what the recently added quote from the King-Crane commission adds to the article? It seems better to add a brief one-sentence analysis/summary of the commission in the body rather than adding an out of context quote from the commission. ] (]) 20:20, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
== Opening paragraph sentence ==


:It's not out of context altho it might be out of position. It relates to the Jewish home material recently added, which in turn relates to the Balfour material in the History section which does mention the King Crane commission. And then it further relates to the Mandate (which included the Balfour Declaration within it) and what Zionist views were on statehood, territory and whatnot from 1917 to 1948 (Balfour to Mandate end). ] (]) 21:00, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
"of a Jewish homeland in Mandatory Palestine" shouldn't this just be ] given that Zionism had focused on Palestine prior to 1917, i.e. prior to Mandatory Palestine that came to being in 1920? ] (]) 17:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
::I fixed up the scattered material so it is all together as part of the history. Still needs tweaking tho. ] (]) 12:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


== Types of Zionism ==
:Yes. ] (]) 18:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
::Idem ] (]) 19:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
:::Done. ] (]) 19:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Never mind, article is locked. ] (]) 19:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I dont know how to do it, but you can ask the locking admin to change the text, can't you. Since it's a fact, and the text we have is visibly flawed,. per consensus, they should act on such a request. ] (]) 20:09, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::And it would be helpful to know how long we have to wait until editing can rebegin. As is usual, a locked page for edit-warring simply means the warriors lose interest. No sign of their presence on the talk page. 3 of the 7 troublemakers are permabanned. The lock arose from reverts over just one word in the whole article, and that is now stable with a 12 vs 4 agreement.] (]) 20:15, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Which three were permabanned? ] (]) 20:19, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Um, perhaps that's not the technical word for one, but those whose accounts were indefinitely blocked were ], ] and ].] (]) 20:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
:We say "'''eventual''' focus on establishment of a Jewish homeland in Mandatory Palestine". At a previous stage it had focused on establishment in Ottoman Palestine, and in its final stage etc. But in a sense the reader is always correct about clarity. ] (]) 02:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::But that does not follow the previous part of the sentence which states the goal was in a place outside of Europe, thus the "eventual" refers to the territory of choice specifically. ] (]) 08:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::'''Eventual''' is supererogatory, and confusing. It is confusing because by its placement it mixes 'Zionism' (the political movement created by Theodor Herzl) with prior 'return to Zion' movements like ] etc. Our article is focused on the former, and alludes to the other as background, seeing Zionism as the organized crystallisation of promptings to emigrate to Palestine. Hovevei Zion was exclusively concerned with Palestine/Eretz Israel, but statehood wasn't its focus, whereas that was the core of Herzl's formulation. In Der Judenstaat (1896) he did mention Argentine as an alternative, but realistically added 'The very name' of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvellousI potency,' and the various other options floated for a few years never got off foot. The First Zionist Congress a year later formally endorsed Palestine as the aim.] (]) 09:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I agree with what you said about the focus being on Herzl's movement and the other being its background. I think eventual is necessary to highlight how there were different territories considered which were eventually settled with a focus on Palestine as the aim. Do you have any suggested alternatives that would highlight this important point? ] (]) 09:31, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
::::::I don't think the point is important. The alternatives were a momentary blip, and Palestine became the default aim for Zionists from the very outset, as we see in Herzl's preference and the Ist Zionist Congress. It's not lead-worthy- But then again, I have no desire to puish the point.] (]) 12:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)


I disagree with and don't understand by {{u|DMH223344}}. Yes, the material is largely unsourced; as I said in my edit summary it comes from the lead of the linked main article, ] and the leads of the main articles for those specific types with their own articles, e.g. ], where there are sources given in the body. I can easily address this issue by adding sourcing. In the literature, political Zionism is universally presented as a different stream of Zionism from labour Zionism, as is very clear in the ] article. Again, that can easily be shown with sources. I'll have another go at an edit with sources. ] (]) 12:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
== Inline citations for colonization in lead ==


Currently the inline citations in the lead present only quotes from the primary sources — from the founders of Zionism. It should rather be presenting quotes of secondary sources stating that Zionism was colonial. Perhaps something @] would be interested in correcting. ] (]) 06:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC) :Would you agree that the strain currently in the ascendancy is religious Zionism? But of a different character than the earlier version. ] (]) 12:56, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::Good question. My sense is you're right on both counts: the religious Zionism incubated in the settler movement is ascendant now, but it differs sharply from "classical" forms of religious Zionism, due to the influence of far right movements, such as Kahanism, that perhaps draw more from the Revisionist tradition. ] (]) 13:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
:Thanks for adding sources. The content fits better under the history section where we can discuss the movement at various points in time. This new section discusses "Practical Zionism", "Political Zionism" and "Cultural Zionism" as various strands during the beginning of the movement's development. Such a discussion would fit much better in the history section where we can place the factions in context and also link out to other pages for more detail. I do think Cultural Zionism deserves to be mentioned under "types" since it remained its own distinct strain for several decades and also is consistently treated as a distinct strain by RS.
:Lastly, see this comment from Finkelstein: {{tq|Labor Zionism thus represented less an alternative than a supplement to political Zionism.}} which I dont think is a controversial claim. ] (]) 18:37, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
::Thanks. I have created basic sourced versions of each of these subsections but they obviously need a little more work to strengthen the referencing, so good to flag any unsourced or dubious content. I can see an argument for merging them into the history, and wouldn't totally oppose that if the reader could still easily identify the main currents and types of Zionism, but personally I think it's helpful on this top level page to have at least a one para intro to each of the main currents (although some of the detail for labor Zionism, general Zionism and liberal Zionism might be currently too much so easier to move leaving introductory paras in place). The literature as a whole overwhelmingly distinguishes between these currents so I think we should too.
::I am wary of putting too much interpretation, e.g. by Finkelstein or Gorny, into these sections. If we do, it should be in the interpreter's voice not ours. See talk section below for example on Gorny's take not necessarily being the final one. ] (]) 09:05, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I’d also add that we need to be careful to avoid over emphasising yishuv/Israeli politics in this section (as some of the material I inserted might have). In the pre-1948 period (and perhaps always?) the majority of Zionists didn’t live in Palestine. Socialist Zionism was a major force in the Russian empire for example (see John Klier) long before it came to
:::dominate yishuv and then early Israeli politics. ] (]) 18:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)


*Having initially expanded this section based on the under-referenced main article, ], but then adding more material as a result of the sourcing work, many sub-sections are now longer than the parent sub-sections at the main article. Given concerns lower down this talk page about the excessive length of this article, I am going to copy the longest versions (which still need more sourcing) to the Types article and strip the content here somewhat. I assume that is non-controversial.
:{{ping|ABHammad}} I do not understand your removal? ] (]) 10:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)


== Marcus Garvey and Black Zionism == == Heterogeneity of Zionism/Historiography ==


Not sure how to use it, but just came across this striking quote:
Is this section just about movements inspired by zionism? I don't know much about marcus garvey or "black zionism", but "zion" barely has any matches in any of the wikilinked articles.
* {{cite journal | last=Dubnov | first=Arie M. | title=Zionism on the diasporic front | journal=Journal of Israeli History | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=30 | issue=2 | year=2011 | issn=1353-1042 | doi=10.1080/13531042.2011.610125 | pages=211–224}}
<blockquote>Once we discard the assumption one can speak of a Zionist “idea,” “doctrine” or “ideology” in the singular, we will be able to reassess Zionist thought in a new light and produce a more critically and historically grounded narrative.Footnote16 Most significantly, instead of searching in vain for “germs” or “sprouts” of this Zionist core-doctrine, we might offer an alternative view of the “family resemblance” of Zionist ideas, which (to allude to Wittgenstein's metaphor) are connected by a series of overlapping similarities, and which show no one feature common to all.</blockquote>
And from the footnote:
<blockquote>Relatively recent examples of the search for this “core” idea in Zionism (which tends to label ideological diversity as “heresy” or “deviation”) can be found in Gorny and Netzer, “‘Avodat ha-hoveh ha-murhevet’”; Halpern and Reinharz, ''Zionism and the Creation of a New Society''; and Shimoni, ''The Zionist Ideology''. Older studies which are based on a similar presupposition include Heller, ''The Zionist Idea'', and most famously Hertzberg, ''The Zionist Idea''.</blockquote> ] (]) 16:26, 3 January 2025 (UTC)


:I think that's an interesting quote. I mean whether its the early Practical, ], and Political Zionists, or whether its the contemporary Zionist right, center, left, and messianic nationalist factions of the Zionist movement, there always seems to have been immense diversity of thought as to what Zionism is and should be. Everything from the utopian socialist Zionism of ] to the uber-capitalist revisionist Zionism of ], from the bi-nationalism of ], ], and ] to the religious ultranationalist fundamentalist supremacist terrorism of ]. Zionism as an ideology has always been diverse. ] (]) 22:13, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Should we rename this to "movements inspired by zionism"? or does is it missing a lot of relevant information? or just remove it entirely? ] (]) 22:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)


== "Concept of Transfer" belongs under Beliefs ==
:I'll remove this section. If someone disagrees please revert and discuss here ] (]) 14:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


The "'''concept''' of transfer" is a key aspect of Zionist thought as discussed in RS. The section as written belongs under the Beliefs section and not under the History section (it is a discussion of zionist '''thought'''). Morris, for example, describes transfer as "one of the '''main currents in Zionist ideology''' from the movement’s inception."
== Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 July 2024 ==


We should move the section "concept of transfer" back to where it was under the beliefs section after the discussion on the claim to a demographic majority. It flows well after this section.
{{Edit extended-protected|Zionism|answered=yes}}
This is the wrong definition and has no basis in what the movement actually is. Source: the actual original literature of the Zionist movement. It's about the actualization of a safe homeland for the Jewish people


Tagging @] for visibility (I believe you had moved these sections around). ] (]) 17:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
https://zoa.org/about/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodor-Herzl ] (]) 17:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
:] '''Not done:''' it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a ] and provide a ] if appropriate.<!-- Template:EEp --> ] (]) 18:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)


:Already discussed at ] and consensus was to move it. ] (]) 17:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
==Zionist consensus==
:I know Morris has jumped around a bit on various matters, including this one apparently, see
:"Second, the idea of transfer was never adopted as part of the Zionist movement's platform, nor as part of the programme or platform of any of the main Zionist parties, not in the nineteenth century and not in the twentieth century. And, in general, the Zionist leaders looked to massive Jewish immigration, primarily from Russia and Europe, as the means of establishing and then assuring a Jewish majority in Palestine or whatever part of it was to be earmarked for Jewish statehood." ] (]) 18:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::But that doesn't contradict at all what I quoted from Morris. The '''beliefs''' section discusses thought and ideology. Transfer is studied specifically in the context of "zionist thought/thinking" and is directly relevant to the idea of demographic majority; this is how RS describe transfer, as a mechanism to achieve and maintain a demographic majority. ] (]) 18:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::and while that discussion was happening I deleted the duplicated section, so there was no longer an issue with duplicates at that point, making the discussion irrelevant. ] (]) 18:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::In any case, editors agreed to move it to "role in the conflict" not into "history" where it does not flow well with the other content. ] (]) 18:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I had originally moved it once without discussion but you reverted it so I let it go. Then the issue came up again and I still have the same view I had originally, it sits better where it is now and other editors seem to agree. If they have changed their minds, would they please say so?
::::Which is not to rule out further rearrangements of material as matters progress (I have already done some of that, too). ] (]) 18:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::Can you explain why you think it fits better under the history section? The current placement gives the reader whiplash going from a chronological discussion about events in 1938 to a general discussion of the Zionist perspective on the concept of transfer.
:::::I do agree that some of the content would make more sense under the history section:
:::::Points which would flow well under the '''history''' section:
:::::* perspectives on the peel commission partition proposal
:::::* discussions around population transfers in the 20's setting a precedent
:::::Points which I think belong under the '''beliefs''' section:
:::::* The zionist perspective on the morality and practicality of transfer
:::::* The breadth of support for transfer across factions of the movement
:::::* The motivation behind transfer and its relevance to maintaining a demographic majority
:::::] (]) 21:32, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::I already explained before {{tq|to my way of thinking, transfer/colonialism/IP conflict (and the few Arabs business) are all related things, I don't much like the way the article tries to separate them, tbh}} and your asking me to explain it again serves no purpose, atm, afaics it is only yourself with this idea, I would rather see if other editors agree with you. ] (]) 22:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::Well to be clear that quote doesn't explain to me why it all should go under the history section. ] (]) 01:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::Because originally, transfer was discussed in two separate places and I thought it should all be in one place, at that time I chose to put it in the separate section that was there for the role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But you reverted that. Then when the issue came up again, I first moved it per talk page discussion but then subsequently folded that section into the History section because it didn't look right sat there by itself. If you want to have all the related things under a different section, that's possible, I said that too, right? I do not agree that this should be discussed completely separately as a belief, I cannot be plainer than that, I'm afraid. ] (]) 10:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::Although open to persuasion, I very much lean to selfstudier position. It works well to explain the shifting approaches and positions to transfer and demographics historically in the history section. Putting it in the beliefs section either leads to an overly simplistic generalised claim about Zionist essence (see Arie Dubnow quote elsewhere on this talk page on why that’s a bad idea) or an overly convoluted discussion if it’s caveated properly.
:::::::::incidentally, morris said: “The transfer idea goes back to the fathers of modern Zionism and, while rarely given a public airing before 1937, was one of the main currents in Zionist ideology from the movement's inception.” Even in that strongest version, the “while” clause shows why giving it too central a role is problematic. Many earlier Zionists had no position on the issue or a barely thought through position and a few important exceptions opposed transfer at key moments. ] (]) 18:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::Would you describe the current section as "overly simplistic?"
::::::::::Transfer is directly related to demography, and demography is unquestionably part of the essence of Zionism. RS cover transfer both when explaining the history, but also when describing Zionist ideology; we should follow the same pattern here. The details of discussions on transfer can still be covered in the history section, but transfer as part of Zionist thought should still be covered under "beliefs."
::::::::::As for the use of "while" in that quote, it doesn't actually qualify the statement about transfer being a main current of zionist ideology (or belief), it just specifies what was shared openly by the movement. ] (]) 19:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::::No I think the current version, with the transfer concept discussed in the history section, is not overly simplistic, which is one reason I'm inclined to think it works there. ] (]) 12:43, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::::The section as it is discusses transfer as a belief/part of zionist ideology. And as you say it is not overly simplistic. So why include it in the history section rather than under beliefs? After all, RS tend to discuss transfer as a part of zionist ideology rather than just something that was considered at times during the movement's development. ] (]) 19:54, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I think part of the problem here is just language, to me "belief" suggests something like "believe in X" with no evidence for X.
:::::::::::::Whereas ideology suggests goals that might or might not be based on a belief.
:::::::::::::Timewise, I tend to associate historical belief as going back a ways in time (in this case, way way back and quite possibly part mythical) and ideology as something more recent (actually historical).
:::::::::::::Maybe if we call it just Goals, the problem goes away? ] (]) 20:05, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::::::I had originally titled the section "beliefs" since i thought it was strictly broader than "ideology", but I guess that's not true. "Ideology" still seems to fit better than "goals" since the other subsections dont make sense as "goals" and the "existential right and need" aspect is discussed as part of zionist ideology in RS. ] (]) 22:50, 7 January 2025 (UTC)


== Yishuv support for European Jews during the war ==
Hello {{u|DMH223344}}, I don't understand this . What do you mean by "the definition of the quoted term given is at least specific to after 1948"? The paragraph where I added this information also talks about modern Zionism, which appears to fit well with the content I introduced. The rest of that section also discusses incidents post-1948. ] (]) 05:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


Removing this comment about "little Zionist resources being deployed", which is controversial in the literature and presented out of context here.
:This is the first paragraph of a section titled "Overview", so defining a new term "Zionist consensus" especially one with a definition that is only relevant after 1948 is not appropriate ] (]) 14:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
: ''The Zionist war effort focused on the survival and development of the ], with little Zionist resources being deployed in support of European Jews.'' (quoting Morris 99)
::An overview surely also encompasses definitions from 1948 to the present, specially since that section also discusses incidents post-1948. I'll move this further down the section where 1948 events are mentioned and add more sources. ] (]) 06:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
:::I think it's fine further down in the section. Really, this whole section shouldnt even be here since we already have the lead which should serve the same purpose as this section. ] (]) 16:33, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
::::If you find something would be better placed somewhere in the article, please move it there instead of deleting it. Also see ]. ] (]) 06:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)


The Morris cite talks about selective quotes from Ben-Gurion, who is not representative of the whole Yishuv or how it spent resources, which in turn was not representative of the whole movement. Other scholars such as Frilling addressed this at length reaching different conclusions, more appropriate for inclusion on ], which already addresses related claims in some detail (support for rescue, and for enlistment drives to support the war effort). <span style="color:#666">&ndash;&nbsp;]]</span> 23:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
== Recent additions done against consensus, and request to get collaborative ==


:It looks like some citations may have been mixed around. This statement should reference {{harvnb|Pappé|2004}}: {{tq|"Little Zionist energy was invested in saving Jews, as the priority in those difficult days remained the survival of the Jewish community in Palestine."}}.
The presentation of Zionism as "the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe" was introduced through edit warring, and despite ongoing discussions that haven't reached any new consensus. The original definition reflected a long-standing consensus. I'm asking all to be fair. Please restore the previous long standing version since we haven't reached consensus, and if required, start an RFC. Let's respect Misplaced Pages's policies, and let's respect each other. ] (]) 14:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:There's also {{harvnb|Sternhell|1999}}: {{tq|"The labor elite thus concentrated its efforts on what had always seemed to them, and which from their point of view remained, of greatest importance: the protection of the Yishuv, the last bastion of the nation. They did not wish to use their resources for purposes for which they would be ineffective. The Zionist movement and the Yishuv knew that the financial and political resources they devoted to helping the Jews of Europe were insufficient or even ludicrous. Yet they did not wish to enter into open conflict with governments or public opinion."}}.
:Redad the five threads, please. And, out of curiosity, tell me how the expansion of Jewish immigration from Europe to augment the 5% jewish population base from 5% to 31% in a half a century did not constitute, as its leaders and promotors explicitly said it was, 'colonization'. Unless you can explain that, RfCs are pointless, and repeated attempts to overthrow a consensus look like battle ground attrition. ] (]) 14:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:Can you share the Frilling reference you mentioned? ] (]) 02:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
::@], the term 'colonization' has evolved in meaning over time, and as @] shows, many reputable sources on the subject do not employ it in the context of Zionism. Additionally, the claim that Zionism initially sought territories outside Europe is false. The movement was deeply rooted in a desire for a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, and later considered other options as a compromise, but this was never widely accepted.
::@] pinging in case you missed the comment above: can you share the Frilling reference? ] (]) 20:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::But before discussing the content, we must address conduct and good faith. This addition, unfortunately, was not made in good faith but in the face of substantial opposition and through edit warring. I ask editors who wish to engage in good faith to revert this controversial change and restore the original, long-standing framing before the edit warring. We all know that's the right thing to do. Then we can discuss everything collaboratively, and start an RfC. ] (]) 14:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::This has been discussed exhaustively, and the consensus is for 'coplonization'. The permabanned Vegan's several attempts to show contrary evidence also failed to convince. because it was erratically googled to obtain the results he highlighted, among other reasons. We collaborate here, and if an argument is lost, as happened (and it happens to all editors of whatever POV), endless recourse to other forums, or RfCs by an exiguous minority smacks of attrition and bludgeoning. Most of us have lives to lead.] (]) 15:02, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
::::There is no consensus, I don't know why you keep on saying this. There is clearly no consensus. ] (]) 15:03, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::I reciprocate your impression. I don't know why you persist, and you haven't explained what I asked you to explain: why is mass immigration from 5% to 31% over a half a century under the explicit banner of 'colonization' 'colonial project' not, as our best sources state, a variety of colonization/colonialism? If you can't answer that, and neither could Vegan, then persisting is pointless. So don't shift the goalposts, or dodge the obvious question.] (]) 15:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::::: "This addition, unfortunately, was not made in good faith." Ah, the old "all the people who disagree with me, who happen to be the majority of scholars of Zionism and the editors of this Misplaced Pages article, are operating in bad faith" trick. Works every time. And in such good faith!] (]) 17:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
:::The consensus is clearly on making reference to colonisation in regards to Zionism. It has been more than adequately shown that an abundance of high quality sources make reference to colonisation. I'd advise you to not imply that there is ] from anyone who has argued it is appropriate to refer to colonisation in relation Zionism. '']''<sup>]</sup> 06:23, 31 July 2024 (UTC)


== History section needs properly splitting ==
Zionism (named after ] or ]) is the Jewish nationalist movement in the Land of Israel. To frame it as "outside of Europe" in the first sentence is an embarrassing anti-Israel attempt to disconnect Jews from their homeland in the eyes of the readers. --] (]) 10:14, 7 August 2024 (UTC)


There is a separate history child, but the history section here is still gargantuan and contributing significantly to the overgrown page size. Just noting this here as a background task that the material here should be copied over the child if it isn't already and then better summarised here. ] (]) 19:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
:{{tq|Zionism (named after Zion or Mount Zion) is the Jewish nationalist movement in the Land of Israel}} Is that the religious definition? Reinvented itself, has it? Isn't Zionism just Jewish nationalism, writ large? An ideology purporting to cater for all Jews everywhere. Pretty sure Zionism was led by European colonists views and actions on colonial settlement at the time of its creation. ] (]) 12:10, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
::I agree with Triggerhippie4. The recent changes were not only implemented through edit warring but also contradict the sources and come across as anti-Israel propaganda. As many others have noted, (a) the construction of colonies—originally a neutral term—was just one of many aspects of Zionism, which the new lead emphasizes for apparent reasons; and (b) the assertion that Zionism initially aimed for 'land outside Europe' is incorrect, there's a reason Zionism is named like this - it was always focused on Zion. Given that this new framing clearly lacks consensus, as evidenced by the discussions on this talk page, the original, longstanding version should be promptly reinstated. ] (]) 05:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
:::My reading is that version/s which refer to settler colonialism or colonialism are the conensus. '']''<sup>]</sup> 05:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
:::(a) As noted multiple times, the Zionists regarded their "colonization" (a term they used thousands of times) to include establishment of national institutions and other nation-building endeavors. It is simply false that it only meant the establishment of settlements. (b) It also ] that Zionism "always focussed on Zion" though no other preference ever achieved the same prominence in Zionist thinking. I've said before that I don't like the way the first two sentences are written and wouldn't mind if the other destinations moved down the lead a bit. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 06:30, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
:::There's clearly no consensus here. {{ping|TarnishedPath}} I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion because, when I count the opposers, I see 9-10 voices against the change. {{ping|Zero}}, Zionism has always been centered on Zion—yes, there was the brief Uganda phase, but it was quickly rejected by most members of the congress and never really took hold in a movement that literally named itself after Zion (Those who didn’t necessarily aim for Zion had a different name and their own article here on Misplaced Pages at ]). As for colonization, sure, some early Zionists used the term, but, as ABHammad pointed out, it was just one aspect, and it means something very different today. We can't base this claim only on primary sources, and we also have to keep in mind that its usage here is anachronistic. I'm going to restore the original first paragraph because this new version is clearly disputed. If anyone wants to change it back, they should start an RFC. ] (]) 07:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Consensus isn't determined by a simple head count. It's determined by which policy arguments are the best. Nishidani has demonstrated over and over that the very best sources reference settler colonialism/colonialism. In any case your numbers are off as this discussion has occurred over many threads. '']''<sup>]</sup> 08:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)


:+1. ] (]) 19:03, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
=="Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist."==
::Check the section sizes in the page header. Despite being "split", the history is still 1/3+ of the page. ] (]) 19:06, 5 January 2025 (UTC)


Thanks to {{u|DMH223344}} for trimming the History considerably, which I think has improved the article. I support the "agressive" trim of the Russian detail. From the previous discussion on this page, though, I wonder if some editors might want to retrieve some of the material in this trim:
I :
https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?diff=1267808344&oldid=1267807865&title=Zionism ] (]) 22:00, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

:Can I ask if editors still
:think History is too long? It seems fine to me now, and it’s proper that it’s one of the longest parts of this encyclopaedia article ] (]) 10:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

== Guys...The Irgun Weren't Labor Zionists ==

Irgun was founded by ]<ref>{{cite news|https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245768?searchText=%28Ze%27ev%29+AND+%28Irgun%29&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2528Ze%2527ev%2529%2BAND%2B%2528Irgun%2529%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Aaf1702ffe7e4e97a81df1f4815ae7993|title=A Rebel with a Cause: Hillel Kook, Begin and Jabotinsky's Ideological Legacy|work=]}}</ref> and led for most of its history by ]<ref>{{cite news|https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.21.3.06?searchText=&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dirgun%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A61fe9e39a5861d3e98dd07867774a682&initiator=recommender|title=Between Ideology and Reality: The Right Wing Organizations, the Jerusalem Question, and the Role of Menachem Begin 1948–1949|work=]}}</ref> and ],<ref>{{cite news|https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt1mtz7b4.6?searchText=irgun&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dirgun%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Adb6ea3ce3e215a1fd45686b5c44f956c&seq=2|title=''THREE The Irgun''|work=]}}</ref> three leaders of the ] movement, the main rivals to the ]<ref>{{cite news|https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7zt60k.7?searchText=%28%28labor+zionism%29+AND+%28revisionist+Zionism%29%29&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2528%2528labor%2Bzionism%2529%2BAND%2B%2528revisionist%2BZionism%2529%2529%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A81e1720f82e55711720e9a706993c8ff|title=3 The Birth of the Symbolic Systems of Labor and Revisionist Zionism|work=]}}</ref>. The main labor Zionist attitude during the ] was ], or "restraint," i.e. nonviolence towards Palestinians, maintaining only ] if ] were attacked.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kessler |first=Oren |title=Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict |date=2023 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-4881-5 |location=Lanham Boulder New York London}}</ref> It was the position of ], it was the position of ], it was the position of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kessler |first=Oren |title=Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict |date=2023 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-4881-5 |location=Lanham Boulder New York London}}</ref> ] (]) 21:52, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

:<s>I haven't looked into this, but I suggest you strike the last portion. I do think there's a legitimate point to be made about the pluralism and multifaceted nature of Zionism, and how the article sometimes conflates different strains, but let's not accuse anyone of active malice, that's a good way to get your account blocked. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 21:56, 5 January 2025 (UTC)</s>
::If that is a Misplaced Pages bureaucracy thing I will gladly do that. Just let me know how to file a complaint for a moderator of some kind to look it over. ] (]) 22:00, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Thanks. Striking mine since you removed yours. I suggest you review ] and ]. As far as complaining or moderation, there is an active case already on related topics, ]. It's closed now, though, awaiting decisions from arbitrators. This isn't the venue to discuss that, though, but we can discuss the issues about Revisionist Zionism and the Irgun for sure. Keep it unemotional and logical and focus on the material. ''']'''<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">]</span> 22:04, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Thanks! ] (]) 22:14, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

The article says {{tq|The Irgun, the military arm of the revisionist Zionists}} so what's the actual problem here? ] (]) 10:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

{{reftalk}}

== A subsection about evolution of the "national home" concept ==

This subsection, which I wrote a few days ago, has been moved around the article several times and eventually removed altogether.

I strongly object to this removal - the exact nature of the "national home" envisioned by the Zionist movement is a key part of its ideology and belongs to the "Beliefs" section.

I would like to restore this subsection and put it under the "Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine", and would also suggest to replace the "Jewish state" in the name of the subsection with "home for the Jewish people" or with "national home", in order to reflect the initial ambiguity of the concept.

Below is the proposed phrasing, that includes all the edits made by me and other editors, before the section was removed, as well as several minor changes that take into account the proposed location of the section:

<hr/>

==== "Home for the Jewish people" - evolution of the concept ====
The Zionist concept a "home for the Jewish people", as articulated, for example, in the ], or a "national home for the Jewish people", as it was later referred to in the ], initially encompassed diverse views on its nature and scope.<ref>{{harvnb|Brenner|2020|p=89}}: "What was a "national home"? The truth is that nobody really knew. This formula reached back to the First Zionist Congress, when "a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine" became the central demand of Herzl's new movement. Even then it was not clear if this meant an independent state or a cooperative as in Herzl's "Society of the Jews," a spiritual center as envisioned by Ahad Ha'am and his followers or an autonomous region within a multi-national empire based on the Habsburg monarchy."</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kedar |first=Nir |date=2002 |title=Ben-Gurion's Mamlakhtiyut: Etymological and Theoretical Roots |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245598 |journal=Israel Studies |volume=7 |issue=3 |page=120 |jstor=30245598 |issn=1084-9513 |quote=The Zionists argued whether to fight for a sovereign state in Palestine first (as some of the General-Zionists and later the Revisionists demanded) or to concentrate on a Jewish socio economic infrastructure. Others questioned whether a Jewish sovereign state should be Zionism's final goal or an alternative type of polity was preferable. As opposed to the "statists" who favored of sovereign statehood, some Zionists advocated an autonomous Jewish canton affiliated either with the Ottoman or British Empire, or in alliance within a future Middle-Eastern federation or confederation. Still others endorsed the vague concept of a Jewish "Homeland" or "National Home" that would flourish under the aegis of the British Empire. In sum, Zionists not only lacked a Hebrew rendering for the terms "state", "commonwealth", "republic" and "polity", but were also divided upon the type of polity they wished to create in Palestine. Only in 1942, at the Biltmore Conference in New York, did the Zionist Movement finally abandon the ambiguous concepts of "National Home" and "Homeland," officially declare Jewish statehood as its ultimate goal, and adopt the word "medinah" as Zionism's formal rendering for "state".}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Laqueur|2009|p=}}: "Up to the 1930s the Zionist movement had no clear idea about its final aim. Herzl proclaimed that a Jewish state was a world necessity. But later he and his successors mentioned the state only infrequently, partly for tactical reasons, mainly because they had no clear concept as to how a state would come into being. Two generations of Zionist leaders, from Herzl to Weizmann, believed that Palestine would at some fairly distant date become Jewish without the use of violence or guile, as the result of steady immigration and settlement, of quiet and patient work. The idea that a state was the normal form of existence for a people and that it was an immediate necessity was preached by Jabotinsky in the 1930s. But he was at the time almost alone in voicing this demand. It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood."</ref>{{pn|date=January 2025}} Early Zionists initially envisioned a limited autonomy within a larger multinational framework.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorny|2006|ps=:
pp. 41-42: "The idea of national autonomy within a federative state structure was related to the tradition of political liberalism and, especially, Eastern and Central European social democracy. They were brought to Palestine by members of Po’alei Tsiyyon who settled in the country during the Second Aliya years and found expression in the early
writings of Ber (Dov) Borochov. However, the ideas had been publicized first in the Ottoman era, in a "Manifesto" put out by four socialist parties, including Po'alei Tsiyyon, during the first Balkan War (1912)... Following the traditional attitudes of social democracy on the eve of World War I, the authors expressed staunch opposition to the partitioning
of the Ottoman Empire into independent nation-states. Instead, they proposed a federative political structure, based on national autonomy, that would preserve the integrity of the state and satisfy just national aspirations as well."}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Penslar|2023|ps=:
p. 47: "Initially, Statist Zionism did not necessarily demand a sovereign state for Jews in Palestine. The ZO’s Basel Program, affirmed at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, called for a Jewish “national home, secured by public law,” not a state. Herzl himself was willing to accept alternate arrangements for Palestine, such as a designated Jewish province of the Ottoman
Empire or a Great Power protectorate...}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Shumsky|2018|ps=:
pp. 79-80: "It is extremely important to realize the fact that Herzl’s clear misgivings about the separatist Greek model of a unitary linguistic-cultural nation-state in no way contradicts the contents of ''The Jewish State'' or of the term ''Judenstaat''. Indeed, most of the neighboring non-Jewish national movements of the Habsburg imperial space in
Herzl’s time used the term ''Staat'' with explicitly substatist intentions in their national political programs and positions... Herzl clearly states that Altneuland
is a district of the Ottoman Empire, just as the Transylvania envisioned by Popovici and the Czech lands envisioned even by the radical Czech nationalists were imagined as districts of the Habsburg Empire."<br/>
p. 152: "During the imperial period, as we saw in his programmatic 1909 article “The New Turkey and Our Chances,” Jabotinsky considered the term “state” to be totally irrelevant to Zionism’s political purpose, whose realization he envisioned as part of a wider sovereign-political framework in the form of an autonomous district in a federative Ottoman nationalities state." <br/> pp. 173: "it is well-known that shortly after immigrating to Palestine (1906), and particularly on the eve of and during World War I, Ben-Gurion, along with his friend and Poalei Zion party comrade Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, clearly espoused the political vision in favor of turning Palestine into a Jewish national district under an Ottoman nationalities state"}}</ref> During the ], these aspirations evolved into discussions that considered binational federalist models that sought to reconcile Jewish national goals with coexistence and shared governance with the Arab population in Palestine.<ref>{{bulleted list|
|{{harvnb|Brenner|2020|ps= p. 93: "Even for David Ben- Gurion, the emerging leader of the Yishuv (the Jewish population in Palestine), an independent Jewish state was by no means his only future vision during the 1920s... In a speech to the Assembly of Representatives of Palestine’s Jewish community in 1926, he stressed that there could not be a single legal system in a territory with so many different national and religious groups as Palestine. He demanded far-reaching autonomy for all groups and a decentralized government. Ben-Gurion and other Labor leaders drafted several proposals for a future Jewish society based on autonomous rights for both the Jewish and the Arab communities, and they developed federalist plans for the region as well"<br/>pp. 111-112: "Jabotinsky never doubted the necessity of granting Arabs equal rights in a future Jewish state and, throughout almost his entire life, he opposed plans to expel them from their native lands. His agenda called for both individual and collective rights for the Arab population... In 1918 he wrote an unpublished treatise, over 100 pages in length, suggesting a bi-national administration of Palestine, and in 1922 presented a federalist proposal for a Middle Eastern federation consisting of Muslim (Syrian and Mesopotamian), Muslim- Christian (Lebanese), and Jewish (Palestinian) cantons, each with a high degree of autonomy. A year later he presented another federation plan together with Chaim Weizmann."}}
|{{Cite book |last=Gorny |first=Yosef |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rIZSEAAAQBAJ |title=From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought |publisher=] |year=2006 |isbn=978-90-474-1161-1}}
|{{Cite book |last=Chaim |first=Gans |year=2008 |title=A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State |publisher=Oxford Academic |page=54 |quote="At the beginning of the 1920s, even Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the right‐wing Revisionist faction within Zionism, still spoke in terms of a binational "Jewish‐Arab federation."}}
|{{harvnb|Shumsky|2018|ps=: p. 200: "Ben-Gurion was not the only figure in the Mandate-era Zionist Labor movement who spoke in autonomist terms about the Jewish nation's self-determination in Palestine. Berl Katznelson, the ideological mainstay of the Zionist Labor movement, gave a long political lecture in the Third Mapai Congress, February 5–8, 1931, only days before the MacDonald Letter was published, in which he argued that Zionism must work toward an equitable model of joint binational sovereignty in Palestine, and to do so as a matter of principle."}}
}}</ref> However, as the political landscape hardened — marked by growing Arab opposition and shifting British policies — a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged.{{cn|date=January 2025}} According to historian Walter Laqueur, the bi-national solution was advocated in only a "half-hearted way" by the Zionist movement. In Laqueur's analysis, the proposed relied on the unrealistic expectation of gaining Arab agreement. Arabs rejected bi-nationalism and parity, feeling no need to compromise on Palestine's Arab identity and were particularly concerned that increased Jewish immigration would threaten their status in Palestine.<ref>{{harvnb|Laqueur|2009}}: "The bi-national solution (parity), advocated by the Zionist movement in a half-hearted way in the 1920s and, with more enthusiasm, by some minority groups, would have been in every respect a better solution for the Palestine problem. It would have been a guarantee for the peaceful development of the country. But it was based on the unrealistic assumption that Arab agreement could be obtained. Bi-nationalism and parity were utterly rejected by the Arabs, who saw no good reason for any compromise as far as the Arab character of Palestine was concerned. They were not willing to accept the yishuv as it existed in the 1920s and 1930s, let alone permit more Jewish immigration and settlement. They feared that a further influx of Jews would eventually reduce the Arabs to minority status in Palestine."</ref>{{pn|date=January 2025}}
] (]) 09:04, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

<hr/>

*I would support something like this. ] (]) 12:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*I have some question about this, mainly because it goes beyond "belief". I accept that there is an argument that the concept of a Jewish homeland going back into history, exile, return and all that jazz, even if it partly has the tenor of foundational myth and that should go in the belief section. Where I part company is with the idea that the amiable Zionists were not really that interested in a Jewish state until somewhere late in the Mandate era, where does the statement {{tq|a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged}} come from, btw? If one consults (for instance), the sections starting "The historical background of the Jewish national home» concept", it gives a quite different impression. So my thought would be that sure, the actual belief part can go into that section but that the rest of it has nothing to do with any belief as such and more to do with Basel and after events ie history. ] (]) 13:51, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:On reflection, I agree with Selfstudier. The detail should be in the History section, with a more concise summary of the belief in the Belief section. But I think the content above is basically right. ] (]) 14:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:First of all, the "Beliefs" section in its current form should be more aptly titled "Core beliefs and goals", as its existing content is not strictly limited to beliefs. In particular, the "Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine" subsection, to which I suggest to add this passage, addresses goals and policies as much as it does beliefs.
*:Regarding the main thesis about substatist Zionist goals - below is a list of reliable sources with quotes supporting this thesis.
*:As to the {{tq| a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged}} sentence - I have no objections to modifying it, perhaps to something closer to how Laqueur, quoted below, frames it:
*:{{tq2|It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood.}} ] (]) 15:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*::"Up to the 1930s the Zionist movement had no clear idea about its final aim. Herzl proclaimed that a Jewish state was a world necessity. But later he and his successors mentioned the state only infrequently, partly for tactical reasons, mainly because they had no clear concept as to how a state would come into being. Two generations of Zionist leaders, from Herzl to Weizmann, believed that Palestine would at some fairly distant date become Jewish without the use of violence or guile, as the result of steady immigration and settlement, of quiet and patient work. The idea that a state was the normal form of existence for a people and that it was an immediate necessity was preached by Jabotinsky in the 1930s. But he was at the time almost alone in voicing this demand. It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood."
*::..is the complete section from Laqueur's missive. But the preceding sentences make it clear that such a state was ''desired'' which is what I keep saying, that it wasn't feasible for one reason or another does not negate the desire, this is straightforward to source (apart from the link I already provided):
*::"Baron James urged him to try and influence members of the British government and, further, to advocate to them more ambitious goals than practical Zionism had hitherto advanced. "One should ask for something which … tends towards the formation of a Jewish State." This remark only reinforced Weizmann’s developing approach, although he and his allies carefully avoided the word “state,” which they rightly deemed too controversial to introduce at the moment." That was in 1914 when there were elements of the British government quite keen on the idea of a Jewish state as part of a partition of the Ottoman empire. {{cite book|last=Schneer|first=Jonathan|title=The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict|publisher=Random House|year=2010|isbn=978-1-4000-6532-5|url=https://archive.org/details/balfourdeclarati00schn_0}} ] (]) 15:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::At the time, the Zionists basically had nothing except some sympathetic ears in the right places so they were out for whatever they could get and it is very clear from all the sources around that time that they were after a State "While Weizmann may say one thing to you, and while you may mean one thing by a national home, he is out for something quite different," replied Curzon (to Balfour). ] (]) 15:47, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::] worth a read. ] (]) 15:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::In the context of this discussion, it's important to remember that Laqueur's books was originally published in 1972, and the the sub-statist character of early Zionism has only started to be seriously examined in academic research in the last 20 years or so. And as several of the sources above clarify, early Zionists including Herzl himself, has used the term "Jewish State" in a sub-statist sense that is quite different from the national-state as we understand it today.
*:::Consider, for example, how the Jewish State is referred to in another passage in Schneer's book (emphasis mine):
*:::{{tq2|"...The purpose of the Committee was “to promote the ideal of an Anglo-Jewish Palestine which it is hoped the War will bring within reach.” They sent out a letter to likely supporters, asking them to lend their names as patrons:<br>"There are many Jewish nationalists in England who look forward to the establishment of a '''Jewish State in Palestine under the British Crown'''. There are many Englishmen who hold it to be a very important British interest that Palestine should be part of the British Imperial system in the East. Thus, not for the first time in history, there is a community alike of interest and of sentiment between the British State and Jewish people."
*:::In other words, the British Zionists were not talking about a fully sovereign nation-state, but rather about a sort of British protectorate, which is fully consistent with how the other sources mentioned above describe it. }} ] (]) 20:11, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::

*:::That refers to the setting up of a British protectorate. ] (]) 10:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::If we want to reorient Beliefs to Core Beliefs and Goals I don't mind doing so but will still insist that a Jewish state was a goal in that event. I also don't mind taking out of Beliefs anything that isn't, either way. ] (]) 15:59, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
*::Which part is about goals and not beliefs? ] (]) 20:04, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

:This is much more a part of history (and limited to a relatively brief period of time) than a part of zionist belief or ideology. It would make sense to trace this development in the history section, but editors have already complained about its length. The content was moved to the History of Zionism page where it fits better. ] (]) 19:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::According to Laqueur, quoted above, Zionist consensus about full statehood as the goal of the movement only formed around WWII and several other sources make similar evaluations, so "relatively brief period of time" is inaccurate.
::And like I said earlier, the "Beliefs" sections in its current form is not strictly limited to beliefs/ideology, but also discusses goals/policies, so it looks like the most natural place for a short overview of the the evolution of Zionist understanding of the "national home" concept. ] (]) 20:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Laqueur is only one source and I can provide many more than one refuting that. Recall that we had some reservations about adding Laqueur when discussing best sources. His treatment is sympathetic to say the least. ] (]) 21:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The section talks about selfdetermination, demographic majority and only at the end mentions a state and is clear that by the time of the revolt we can speak confidently about most groups wanting a state. As far as I can tell, the only aspect present in your paragraph that isnt already in this section is the emphasis on "diverse views" and mention of binational schemes. I think it would be a stretch to say there were diverse views in mainstream zionism about demography and selfdetermination. And binational schemes were only relevant briefly. ] (]) 22:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::In case you missed it, I'll repeat what I posted "Shumsky is the principal architect of the that "prior to World War II, the leaders of the Zionist movement did not aspire to a Jewish nation-state" in contradiction to "the conventional narrative, according to which the goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a Jewish nation-state." The '''conventional narrative''', that's the obstacle here. ] (]) 23:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

What's missing from the text is the public versus private aspect of it, which is related to the pragmatic aspect. Herzl approved of "home" in the Basel Declaration but in his diary he wrote "state" dozens of times. It looks like a contradiction but it isn't. The Zionists knew that any demand for sovereignty in Palestine would produce an immediate emphatic "no" from the Ottoman Sultan that would kill the project. So instead they proposed something less than a state with the intention of progressing in stages. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 01:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

{{reftalk}}


== Opening sentence of the "The Peel Commission transfer proposal" section ==
<blockquote>Proponents of Zionism do not necessarily reject the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist.</blockquote>


The section starts with the following sentence:
From the lead. Has any major proponents of Zionism describe it as "settler-colonial"? ] lived ''before'' the term was even coined. The listed sources (works by ] and ]) never make this claim either.
{{tq2|At this point, Jews owned 5.6% of the land in Palestine; the land allocated to the Jewish state would contain 40 percent of the country's fertile land.}}
The sentence has two issues:
* It's not directly related to the topic of this section and breaks the flow between the last sentence of the previous section, describing the partition proposal of the Peel Commission, and the second sentence of this section, which describes the population transfer proposal.
* The sentence is misleading, since it makes an apples-to-oranges comparison and juxtaposes the percentage of Jewish-owned land out of '''total''' land with the percentage of '''fertile''' land assigned to the Jewish State by the commission.


The statement comes across to me as ]. I can see how people can draw that conclusion from the sources. But I don't think supporters of Zionism would describe themselves as being 'settler colonalists'. ] (]) 06:06, 10 August 2024 (UTC) I suggest to remove it from this section, and if it's still needed at some other place in the article, it should be rewritten as either total-to-total or fertile-to-fertile percentages comparison. ] (]) 18:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::Actually throughout the first half century of Zionism, its leaders spoke of 'colonizing' Palestine by settlements. The concept of 'settler colonial' developed in part to explain the peculiarities of Zionist practice within the larger perspective of colonialism, however much contemporary Zionists (excepting settlement leaders in the West Bank who are quite explicit about their intention to extend Israel into non-Israeli land, i.-e. colonise it) might dislike this interpretation of Zionism's past. Extremely long discussions took place over this.] (]) 06:19, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
:What you think supporters of Zionism would describe themselves as is not pertinent. It is ] and we don't build WP articles on OR. If sources state it, we are entirely open to likewise stating it. '']''<sup>]</sup> 08:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)


:How is it misleading? It presents two statistics about the allocation of land, there's no comparison being made. ] (]) 19:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:The sentence could also be considered ] and non-neutral. Presenting criticism followed by defense, followed by defense accepting part of the criticism is not a balanced way to present conflicting viewpoints. Furthermore, considering the sources the "proponents of Zionism" being referred to by the sentence are early Zionists only. ] (]) 19:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
::The comparison is implied by the very fact that those two statistics appear one after another in the same sentence. ] (]) 20:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

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ConsensusCurrent consensus (January 2025):
  • In this RfC it was found that there was consensus that 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" is compliant with NPOV and should remain in the lead.

Section sizes
Section size for Zionism (58 sections)
Section name Byte
count		 Section
total
(Top) 19,336 19,336
Terminology 4,080 4,080
Beliefs 14 39,671
Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine 11,548 15,743
Zionism, antisemitism and an "existential need" for self-determination 4,195 4,195
Racial conceptions of Jewish identity 10,683 10,683
Conquest of labor 3,197 3,197
Negation of the life in the Diaspora 1,616 6,180
Zionism and secular Jewish identity 4,564 4,564
Revival of the Hebrew language 3,854 3,854
History 80 118,321
Historical and religious background 6,789 6,789
Forerunners of Zionism 3,505 3,505
Establishment of the Zionist movement 1,619 23,788
Jewish nationalism and emancipation 4,339 4,339
Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl and the birth of modern political Zionism 6,926 6,926
Territories considered 10,904 10,904
Early Zionist settlement 14,158 15,444
The Second Aliyah 1,286 1,286
The Balfour Declaration and World War I 2,569 4,900
King-Crane Commission 2,331 2,331
The British Mandate and development of the Zionist quasi-state 2,026 7,351
British policies and the development of Zionist institutions 5,325 5,325
Zionist policies and the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt 4,136 4,136
The Peel Commission transfer proposal 6,904 6,904
The concept of "transfer" 14,218 14,218
Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust 8,249 8,249
End of the Mandate and expulsion of the Palestinians 7,891 9,816
Hebraization of names 1,925 1,925
Post-World War II 9,935 9,935
Religious Zionism and the Six-Day War 3,206 3,206
Types 2,698 31,295
Early Zionist Strains 3,008 3,008
Labor Zionism 9,521 9,521
Synthetic and General Zionism 3,282 3,282
Revisionist Zionism 4,591 4,591
Religious Zionism 4,154 4,154
Liberal Zionism 2,391 2,391
Cultural Zionism 1,650 1,650
Non-Jewish support 950 18,330
Christian support 11,598 11,598
Muslim support 2,302 2,302
Druze support 1,327 1,327
Hindu support 2,153 2,153
Anti-Zionism 13,958 60,133
Catholic Church and Zionism 3,814 3,814
Characterization as colonialist and racist 29,880 29,880
Haredi Judaism and Zionism 5,208 5,208
Anti-Zionism or antisemitism 7,273 7,273
Zionism and colonialism 16,017 20,172
Zionism as settler colonialism 4,155 4,155
Violence 52 52
See also 345 345
Notes 47 47
References 30 35,002
Works cited 34,972 34,972
Further reading 2,877 2,877
External links 1,567 1,567
Total 351,228 351,228

RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism

This discussion has been open for more than a month, the last !vote was nine days ago, and a request for closure has been registered at WP:CR.

A pulse check done by means of headcounting finds that 18 editors do not find that the sentence in question violates NPOV, and 7 editors find that it does. The 18 editors who find it does not violate NPOV includes one editor who feels that, while it's NPOV, it has an inappropriate WP:TONE; and another editor who feels it's NPOV but would be better in the body than in the lead. Two editors, additionally, unambiguously expressed their sense that this was a bad RfC (one or two more expressed this in more ambiguous terms).

To take care of the low-hanging fruit first; while I'm cautiously inclined to personally agree with the editors who opined this was a bad RfC (in that, perhaps, it was not ideal), there was no consensus here supporting that position. Therefore, we can proceed with a full evaluation of the RfC.

As these things often do, this came down to a battle of WP:RS, with the "no" camp citing the breadth and quality of sources supporting the sentence. The "yes" camp (more or less) did not dispute the reliability of the sources being cited but how the language of the sources was being interpreted to arrive at this sentence and that "a Jewish majority" would be more accurate than "as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". This ultimately came down to a WP:SYNTH argument which was unconvincing as the "no" side effectively rebutted all the objections.

The "yes" camp also included a number of arguments that did not cite any of our policies or guidelines. While it's appreciated, it's not absolutely necessary for a !voter to explicitly state or link a policy or guideline they're referencing and the closer should make every effort to connect an argument with an underlying policy or guideline when there is ambiguity in the !voter's comment. That said, to not explicitly state or link a policy or guideline is an acceptance by the !voter that they are content to leave decoding their !vote in the hands of the closer, whose ability to do so may not always be perfect. Applying that maxim, here are a few of many examples of "yes" arguments I attempted to decode by linking to one of our policies or guidelines, as a full indexing of these types of arguments would be too long to recite here.

  • An editor stated that they had received 16 off-WP requests to have it removed. I liberally construed this to be an argument that those 16 requests should be considered when determining closure, however, our WP:RFC procedures make it clear that only "editors" can reply to an RfC; moreover, even if our procedures allowed this type of proxy commenting, discussions on WP are WP:NOTAVOTE and our WP:TALKDONTREVERT policy states "The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view."
  • An editor asserted that the sentence should be removed as it constituted something they referred to as a "blood libel", but such a concept does not appear to be covered by our WP:LIBEL policy.

These, and similar, "yes" !votes that did not invoke (or properly invoke) our policies and guidelines had to be discounted. As a reminder, per WP:DETCON, "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Misplaced Pages policy".

Anyway, to cut to the chase, there is a consensus that the sentence referenced in the OP is compliant with NPOV and should remain in "the lead and the body".

As a general reminder, WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE, and any decision the community has arrived at here is not etched in stone and may be revisited or adjusted in the future if there's a consensus to do so. And, should such revisitation occur, this closing statement is not itself a demonstration of anything other than what was reflected by the community's collective mind at this one moment in time. It should not be used as a reference point in the future as to why one position is more or less valid than any other. Chetsford (talk) 20:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Does this sentence violate NPOV and should it be removed from the lead and the body?

"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" Bob drobbs (talk) 18:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion/survey (RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism)

Please specify the RFCbefore discussions, thank you. Selfstudier (talk) 18:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Note that the text is preceded in the article lead by the following hidden comment "The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change." This hidden text was added by an admin as noted at User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish/Archive 38#Full protection at Zionism where RFC opener discussed this question previously. Selfstudier (talk) 18:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Yes an admin labeled this sentence as having consensus. That decision was made only after a few days of discussion with only a few editors weighing in on the topic.
This issue has been discussed heavily on the talk page with no resolution. You actually suggested creating a RFC to discuss it , and bringing in a bunch more voices on whether or not this sentence violates NPOV seems very appropriate. Bob drobbs (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I posted this and I strongly support removing it. 'Consensus' was rushed through without waiting a reasonable amount of time for comment and it has a huge number of issues:
1) It presents opinions as if they were fact
2) It presents opinions from authors who are hostile towards Zionists as if their views on Zionism were fact
3) Synth issues, combining things like "Zionist leaders" or "some zionists" into "Zionists"
4) Stripping important context away like "by 1948" to imply this was true of all Zionists throughout all of history
5) Cherry picking when an author says something which agrees with this claim, but ignoring when the same author contradicts.
I've only reviewed the very reference in depth depth, but here are some of the problems.
In the into to his book, Manna is pretty clear that he's hostile toward Zionists:
""This author hopes that the dis-comfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them to seek out the truth ...""
The claim which was put into the article has the time frame was stripped from it:
"...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"
In the same book the author say that some history "refutes" the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing, but this is ignored:
"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."
The second source Khalidi is presented as an opinion elsewhere in the article, but somehow in just this one place is presented as fact. I didn't review all of the other sources, these first two seem like more than enough reason to remove this sentence from the lead and body of the article.
This sentence seems to have some many issues it doesn't seem possible to fix it. It should be removed. Then it can be replaced relying on the 'best sources' which are being collectively compiled. Bob drobbs (talk) 18:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The sentence is currently sourced as follows Selfstudier (talk) 18:59, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Sources

    • Manna 2022, pp. 2 ("the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state"), 4 ("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"), and 33 ("The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers.") harvnb error: no target: CITEREFManna2022 (help);
    • Khalidi 2020, p. 76: "The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium—a majority Arab country—into a new state that had a substantial Jewish majority. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized during the war; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKhalidi2020 (help);
    • Slater 2020, pp. 49 ("There were three arguments for the moral acceptability of some form of transfer. The main one—certainly for the Zionists but not only for them—was the alleged necessity of establishing a secure and stable Jewish state in as much of Palestine as was feasible, which was understood to require a large Jewish majority."), 81 ("From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state"), 87 ("The Zionist movement in general and David Ben-Gurion in particular had long sought to establish a Jewish state in all of “Palestine,” which in their view included the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria."), and 92 ("As Israeli historian Shlomo Sand wrote: 'During every round of the national conflict over Palestine, which is the longest running conflict of its kind in the modern era, Zionism has tried to appropriate additional territory.'") harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSlater2020 (help);
    • Segev 2019, p. 418, "the Zionist dream from the start—maximum territory, minimum Arabs" harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSegev2019 (help);
    • Cohen 2017, p. 78, "As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCohen2017 (help);
    • Lustick & Berkman 2017, pp. 47–48, "As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). Ipso facto, this meant Zionism's success would produce an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLustickBerkman2017 (help);
    • Stanislawski 2017, p. 65, "The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFStanislawski2017 (help)
    • Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014, p. 6, "It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement—certainly to the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion, that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... Following Wolfe, we argue that the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRouhanaSabbagh-Khoury2014 (help);
    • Engel 2013, pp. 96 ("From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine ..."), 121 ("... the ZO sought ways to expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive ... Haganah undertook to ensconce small groups of Jews in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights ... their leaders had hoped for more expansive borders ..."), and 138 ("The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ in 1948: non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal. Israel’s leaders were thus not sad at all to see so many Arabs leave its borders during the fighting in 1947–48 ... the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.") harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEngel2013 (help)
    • Masalha 2012, p. 38, "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period the demographic and land policies of the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine continued to evolve. But its demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs' (Masalha 1992, 1997, 2000)." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMasalha2012 (help);
    • Lentin 2010, p. 7, "'the Zionist leadership was always determined to increase the Jewish space ... Both land purchases in and around the villages, and military preparations, were all designed to dispossess the Palestinians from the area of the future Jewish state' (Pappe 2008: 94)." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLentin2010 (help);
    • Shlaim 2009, p. 56, "That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShlaim2009 (help);
    • Pappé 2006, p. 250, "In other words, hitkansut is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPappé2006 (help);
    • Morris 2004, p. 588, "But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMorris2004 (help)

yes I've read through the hidden text and the visible text. The claim that "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" should be removed to restore NPOV. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 02:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Which hidden text? Bitspectator ⛩️ 03:20, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Some lists required expanding. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 00:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Allthemilescombined1 I'm not sure what this response is supposed to mean, so I'll echo @Bitspectator's question in hopes of understanding. What do you mean when you say that you've "read through the hidden text"? What "hidden text" are you referring to? Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 01:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
One example is: Note that the text is preceded in the article lead by the following hidden comment "The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change." This hidden text was added by an admin as noted at User talk:ScottishFinnishRadish/Archive 38#Full protection at Zionism where RFC opener discussed this question previously.) 18:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC) Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 01:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
LLM generated arguments and taking the bait. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Relying solely on sources that portray Zionism as aiming to minimize the Arab presence risks cherry-picking and oversimplifying a complex historical movement. While some scholars emphasize demographic goals, many prominent historians, including Benny Morris, Anita Shapira, Walter Laqueur, and Shlomo Avineri, highlight the diversity within Zionism. These historians show that Zionist leaders also pursued peaceful coexistence, economic cooperation, and cultural revival. Ignoring these perspectives skews the narrative and fails to meet Misplaced Pages's standards of neutrality and balance. A comprehensive view requires incorporating the full spectrum of scholarly interpretations.
1. Benny Morris
In Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001, Benny Morris discusses Zionist leaders’ views on coexistence:

“From early on, the Zionist leadership sought ways to coexist with the Arab population. They acknowledged the Arabs' attachment to the land but believed that a demographic Jewish majority was necessary for self-determination. This did not preclude peaceful relations with the Arab population.” Source: Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001. Vintage Books, 2001, pp. 45–47.

----
2. Anita Shapira
In Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948, Anita Shapira explores the transition in Zionist strategies:

“Initially, the Zionist movement sought peaceful coexistence, with an emphasis on agricultural development and cultural revival. The shift toward a more militant stance was a response to increasing hostility and rejection by the Arab leadership.” Source: Shapira, Anita. Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948. Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 118–120.

----
3. Walter Laqueur
Walter Laqueur, in A History of Zionism, highlights the diversity of Zionist attitudes:

“Not all Zionist leaders viewed the Arab population as an obstacle. Many believed in the possibility of coexistence and sought alliances with moderate Arab leaders. The idea of a shared future was integral to some streams of Zionist thought.” Source: Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism. Schocken Books, 2003, p. 78.

----
4. Shlomo Avineri
In The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, Shlomo Avineri discusses Herzl’s inclusive vision:

“Herzl envisioned the Jewish state not as a colonial outpost but as a refuge for Jews and a place where Jews and Arabs could coexist peacefully. He believed economic development would benefit all inhabitants of Palestine.” Source: Avineri, Shlomo. The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State. Basic Books, 1981, pp. 126–128.

----
5. Itamar Rabinovich
In The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, Rabinovich critiques one-sided interpretations:

“The Zionist leadership was divided over how to deal with the Arab population. While some leaders emphasized demographic dominance, others promoted coexistence and even federation with the Arabs.” Source: Rabinovich, Itamar. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 34–36.

----
These sources illustrate that while some Zionist leaders prioritized creating a Jewish majority, others emphasized peaceful coexistence and collaboration with the Arab population. Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
What diverse sources! Levivich (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
These sources make it clear that the Zionist leaders and thinkers had different opinions about this topic. The sentence in question presents opinions as fact and violates WP:NPOV. Alaexis¿question? 20:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
C'mon Alaexis. Look at the dates of the sources. Look at who's writing them. You know this doesn't represent modern scholarship. And let's not enable the obvious socks please with "I agree" statements. Levivich (talk) 20:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
No responsible editor can miss that these sources don't even come close to outweighing the 12+ modern authors in the citations. We've got to stop playing these bullshit games. Levivich (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
@Levivich Regarding those 12 modern authors in the citations, should their views be included in the article as opinion or as fact?
Start with the first source. Manna says he hopes his book will cause Zionists discomfort, so it certainly appears he has anti-Zionist bias. Can you explain why his views should be included in the article as if they were factual? Bob drobbs (talk) 23:42, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for your input, Levivich. I understand your concerns, but I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that the sources I presented do not represent valuable scholarship or that they are outdated.
On the Sources' Dates and Relevance:
The sources I referenced—Laqueur, Morris, and others—remain foundational to the historiography of Zionism. While some are not "modern" in the strictest sense, their contributions are widely cited and continue to influence contemporary scholarship. Moreover, more recent works, such as Anita Shapira’s Israel: A History (2012) and Shlomo Avineri’s Herzl's Vision (2014), build on these foundational sources and offer nuanced insights:
  • Anita Shapira emphasizes that Zionism's primary goal was self-determination, noting, "The goal of Zionism was not to displace Arabs but to create a refuge for Jews. While demographic concerns influenced policy, many Zionist leaders sought coexistence with the Arab population, particularly in the early stages of the movement" (Israel: A History, p. 102).
  • Shlomo Avineri clarifies that Herzl envisioned a model of mutual benefit, writing, "Herzl’s vision was one of mutual benefit and coexistence. He believed that economic development and modernization would serve both Jews and Arabs, rather than aiming to marginalize or exclude the Arab population" (Herzl's Vision, p. 147).
These works demonstrate that scholarship on Zionism is diverse, and earlier foundational texts continue to inform modern interpretations.
Balancing Modern and Foundational Sources:
While recent sources contribute new perspectives, Misplaced Pages's policies emphasize representing a range of views, including foundational works. Modern interpretations are essential, but they do not "outweigh" or negate the contributions of earlier, seminal scholars. Excluding these works risks skewing the historiographical balance.
Neutrality and Avoiding Cherry-Picking:
The current lead risks over-relying on critical perspectives from modern authors like Khalidi and Pappé, which frame Zionism as a colonialist movement. My intention in referencing sources such as Shapira and Avineri is to ensure balance and to reflect the diversity of Zionist motivations—self-determination, cultural revival, and responses to antisemitism—alongside its contested aspects.
Avoiding Personal Criticism:
I encourage us to focus on the substance of the sources and their interpretations rather than implying bad faith or dismissing arguments as "games." Constructive engagement helps ensure the article aligns with Misplaced Pages's neutrality and verifiability standards. Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
@Boutboul Apologies, but despite your citations, I seem to be having issues finding these quotes (It's probably on me, but I'd like to clarify regardless).
“From early on, the Zionist leadership sought ways to coexist with the Arab population. They acknowledged the Arabs' attachment to the land but believed that a demographic Jewish majority was necessary for self-determination. This did not preclude peaceful relations with the Arab population.”
I can't find a version of Anita Shapira's Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948 online, so I can't comment there.
“Not all Zionist leaders viewed the Arab population as an obstacle. Many believed in the possibility of coexistence and sought alliances with moderate Arab leaders. The idea of a shared future was integral to some streams of Zionist thought.”
“Herzl envisioned the Jewish state not as a colonial outpost but as a refuge for Jews and a place where Jews and Arabs could coexist peacefully. He believed economic development would benefit all inhabitants of Palestine.”
“The Zionist leadership was divided over how to deal with the Arab population. While some leaders emphasized demographic dominance, others promoted coexistence and even federation with the Arabs.” Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Regarding these 12 sources, how many (if any) should be treated as if their views are factual vs. given as opinion?
Again, starting with Manna, in the intro to his book he says hopes his book will cause Zionists discomfort. He certainly appears to have an anti-Zionist bias. Maybe he should be included as an opinion, but can anyone explain why his views should be included in the article as if they were factual? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
1. If we exclude anti-Zionists like Manna, does that mean we exclude pro-Zionists like Morris, too? 2. Fact/opinion is a false dichotomy. We state opinions in Wikivoice when they're mainstream opinions (eg Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players of all time). Levivich (talk) 03:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
From the references, do you think that Morris presents the mainstream opinion here?
"underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority"
The article has an entire section on "demographic majority", and I suspect that if we were to use the best sources on the topic, instead of a collection of biased sources synthensized into nonsense, we'd see the mainstream opinion is that Zionists, certainly by 1948, wanted a clear demographic majority, not necessarily "as few Palestinians as possible". Bob drobbs (talk) 03:42, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Responded on your talk page. Levivich (talk) 04:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
No. Levivich lays it out well. If we wanted to quibble, we could opt for something like At least by 1948, at the beginning of the sentence. But that would probably require a footnote to further explain what we mean by that and give the range of dates given by experts. At the moment the wording implies that anyway without the debate over when exactly it is/was/becomes true. Lewisguile (talk) 22:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Lacks impartial tone. While it's literally true that Zionists wanted to have a Jewish majority, and were concerned about the risk of a growing Arab minority as a potential threat due to the risk of conflict between the peoples and the clear antipathy between the peoples, not without plenty of history already, the phrasing continues to be awkward. The idea of "as few Arabs as possible" is not the clearest way to explain "the largest feasible majority Jewish state." It creates an implication that Zionists perhaps wanted that number to be 0, but we know that not to be the case. "Lowest possible" is not the best summary of the sources. I think we can do a better job of explaining that Zionists sought to create a Jewish majority state, without implying that expulsion was an express goal of Zionism. Andre🚐 06:20, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages says:
    • as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible
    The cited sources say:
    • maximum territory, minimum Arabs - Segev
    • maximum land and minimum Arabs - Masalha
    • the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible - Shlaim
    • as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible - Pappé
    • as few Arabs as possible ... the smallest possible number of Palestinians ... fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers - Manna
    • as much of Palestine as was feasible ... a large Jewish majority ... as few Arabs as possible ... a Jewish state in all of “Palestine,” ... appropriate additional territory - Slater
    • increase the Jewish population of Palestine ... expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive ... in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights ... more expansive borders ... the smallest possible minorities ... ‘Jewish’ ... by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants ... non-Jews ... numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal ... as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible - Engel
    • increase the Jewish space ... dispossess the Palestinians - Lentin
    • a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible - Cohen
    • as few Arabs as possible - Stanislawski
    • getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... demographic elimination - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
    • transformed most of Palestine from ... a majority Arab country—into ... a substantial Jewish majority ... the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas ... and the theft of Palestinian land and property ... There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority ... Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land. - Khalidi
    • on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions ... an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions - Lustick & Berkman
    • displacement of Arabs ... to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority. - Morris
    Misplaced Pages is using the same language as the cited sources. Levivich (talk) 00:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    IMPARTIAL: Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tones can be introduced through how facts are selected, presented, or organized. I'm not disputing the facts, just the tone. You'll note that many of the best sources refer to the "majority" and "minority" language, which is different from how the article does. Andre🚐 19:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    Note to closers, mine is a "yes" Andre🚐 22:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
  • yes no it does seem to be the case, so this looks very much like a blue sky situation, their own pronouncements stated they wanted a Jewish State (hell Israel is even called that now, sometimes).We have WP:FALSEBALANCE for a reason. So yes we can say this. Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Slatersteven: The way the RFC is phrased requires a No if you think the sentence should be kept? Selfstudier (talk) 11:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks I think the problem was trying to word "it is not neutral but does not violate NPOV, as it is what is said by zionists". It is almost an Ish question. Slatersteven (talk) 11:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Bad RfC as it fails to neutrally discuss the sources that support the statement and instead editorializes about the assumed politics of just one of the sources. Simonm223 (talk) 12:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what issues you see with rfc which is just a question. But one of the many issues, is that the text engages in a SYTH of different claims, and each case seems to cherry pick whatever paints the most number of Zionists to look as bad as possible.
    As a few examples, in the reference Morris says "overwhelming Jewish majority" but the text says "as few Palestinians as possible" Shlaim says "Most Zionist leaders" but the text just says "Zionists".
    Looking at this same set of references someone could have also written "Most Zionist leaders wanted a demographic majority". Bob drobbs (talk) 17:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    Well, you might write that, I wouldn't. Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    Not really, when we (and RS) say "Zionists" or "Zionism" we mean the mainstream movement and its leadership. DMH223344 (talk) 17:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages says:
    • Zionists ...
    The cited sources say:
    • the Zionist leadership ... Zionists of all inclinations ... The Zionists - Manna
    • the Zionists ... all the major leaders ... The Zionist movement in general ... Zionism - Slater
    • the Zionist movement ... the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion ... the Zionist project ... the Zionist movement - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
    • Zionist ideology ... Zionist praxis - Morris
    • the core of Zionism - Pappé
    • the Zionist dream - Segev
    • the Zionist Yishuv - Masalha
    • the Israeli desire - Stanislawski
    • Ben-Gurion ... 'Our ...' ... Zionism - Lustick & Berkman
    • political Zionism - Khalidi
    • Zionism ... the ZO ... Haganah ... their leaders ... Israel ... the state’s leaders ... most Zionists ... Zionist imaginations ... the bulk of the Zionist leadership ... Israel’s leaders ... Israel ... the state - Engel
    • many ... Zionist leaders and activists - Cohen
    • the Zionist leadership - Lentin
    • most Zionist leaders - Shlaim
    The word "Zionists" (or "Zionism") is the right word to summarize those sources. Levivich (talk) 00:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    The RfC was constructed, and advertised, non-neutrally. It's a bad RfC. Simonm223 (talk) 19:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No. This is not biased wording, since it is in marked agreement with the pertinent sourcing. I don't have a substantial objection to rewording it somehow anyway, but this present wording is not actually "broken" at all. I also agree that this was not really a proper RfC because WP:RFCBEFORE wasn't followed and the question posed is not neutrally phrased. But the horse is already out of the barn with the level of input so far, so we might as well proceed (especially since the evidence presented contradicts the RfC opener's apparent position against this language being used; that is, the non-neutrality of the OP has had no effect except perhaps short-circuiting their own proposal).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • This is a really badly formed RfC but I would say that the sentence, especially in the first para, is problematic. This is the comment I just wrote in what I guess is now the RFCBEFORE discussion, a couple of sections up this page: None of the 13 (actually fewer, as Sand and Engel aren't used for this point) sources are unreliable, although they are not all as strong as they could be. However, the key point is that in relation to this quote, many are talking about very specific moments in Zionist history (i.e. the Nakba and maybe the period leading up to it) and/or about some or many Zionist leaders (specifically the political Zionists in the case of Khalidi or of the Labour Zionists of Ben Gurion's generation in the case of Lustick and Berkman and Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury), and not about Zionism in general. A couple describe it as the esoteric, inherent or secret logic of Zionism rather than its explicit policy (Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury, Pappe, Morris, Lentin). So the only sources here that come close to saying this was generally true are Segev (we quote him as saying this is the Zionist dream from the start but I've not got the book and the google snippet is too small to see the context) and Slater (but he is a weaker source, not a historian, let alone of Zionism, who frames his book as a contrarian revision of what we know). BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think this is really the key problem with the current phrasing - it totally removes the context that is present in at least in some of the references and generalizes their claims to Zionism as a whole since its very inception.
    The overgeneralization also leads to ignoring the RSs that contradict this claim, if the chronology is taken into account - e.g., Rubin (2018). "Vladimir Jabotinsky and Population Transfers between Eastern Europe and Palestine", that talks about Jabotinsky's initial opposition to the idea of population transfer of Palestinian Arabs (i.e., the " as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part) and his change of heart around 1939. DancingOwl (talk) 20:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    The lead is a summary. Specifically, it is a summary of the mainstream Zionist movement with some brief coverage of dissident's within the movement. We summarize in the same way that RS do. You want the lead to cover jabotinsky's change in positions in the lead? That's obviously undue for the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 20:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    The summary should summarise accurately. If it says "all Zionists" when the sources say "some Zionists" (or even "most Zionists") then that's not accurate. If it says "Zionism want x" when the sources say "in the 1930s Zionists wanted x" then that's not accurate. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    The disputed content states "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" (Emphasis mine). Wanted, past tense, & as Levivich showed above, that is reliably sourced to cover the mainstream movements at the time. There will always be outliers in every category, but outliers are generally removed from summaries for succinctness, then described later in the more detailed analysis.
    We could have a separate line describing these outliers &/or that in modern times, some movements have diverged from the original mainstream, but that doesn't contradict the current line in question. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    it doesnt say "all zionists" DMH223344 (talk) 17:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No/Bad RFC - discussion has been had before, also no RFCBEFORE done and RFC is poorly formatted overall. I think SMcCandlish describes it best. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No - of the 14 sources are cited:
    1. All were published within the last 20 years
    2. All written by experts in the field (11 historians, 2 political scientists, 1 sociologist), including Palestinians and Israelis, left-of-center and right-of-center
    3. 10 are published by academic presses, 2 by "leftist" presses (Zed, Verso), 2 by mainstream publishers (Farrar, Oneworld)
    4. 1 expressly says all Zionists; 10 say "Zionists," "Zionist movement", "Zionism", or "Zionist activists"; 2 say Zionist leaders; 1 says "political Zionism" (see 2nd set of quotes I posted above)
    5. 10/14 convey the idea of maximum land
    6. 7/14 convey maximum Jews
    7. 10/14 convey minimum Arabs (which is just another way of saying maximum Jews)
    8. 12/14 juxtapose land and demographics (see 1st set of quotes above)
    9. 11/14 say "always", "from the start", "inherent" or similar (see third set of quotes below)
Other words could be used to express the same meaning, of course, but WP:NPOV means the article should say that Zionism sought maximum territory with minimum Arabs. Levivich (talk) 06:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC) ETA Levivich (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
...minimum Arabs (which is just another way of saying maximum Jews)..
No, those are two different claims - "maximum Jews" implies maximizing Jewish immigration, "minimum Arabs" implies population transfer of Palestinian Arabs - those are two distinct goals achieved using completely different means. DancingOwl (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Do please source that opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 12:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I will look for relevant sources, though I'm curious - what would you consider to be a source for "...minimum Arabs (which is just another way of saying maximum Jews)..."? DancingOwl (talk) 12:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
those are two distinct goals achieved using completely different means is what I would like to see sourced. Selfstudier (talk) 13:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes,I understand - I just asked whether you think that the opposite claim conflating those two goals also needs to be sourced, and if it does - what would be the best source for that. DancingOwl (talk) 13:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, we already have sources doing that but no sources doing what you suggest so I am asking for some. Selfstudier (talk) 13:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
You can't have Jewish immigration without Arab emigration. For just one example of a source saying this, here's Benny Morris:

The idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century. And driving it was an iron logic: There could be no viable Jewish state in all or part of Palestine unless there was a mass displacement of Arab inhabitants, who opposed its emergence and would constitute an active or potential fifth column in its midst. This logic was understood, and enunciated, before and during 1948, by Zionist, Arab and British leaders and officials ... Both before and during 1948 all understood the logic of transfer: Given Arab opposition to the very idea and existence of a Jewish state, it could not and would not be established, as a viable, lasting entity, without the displacement of the bulk of its Arab inhabitants.
— 

Levivich (talk) 15:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Morris doesn't mention Jewish immigration here, but rather links the idea of transfer to Arab opposition to the very existence of Jewish state. DancingOwl (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
OK, here's Morris in Birth (aka "Morris 2004", one of the 14 citations for the sentence under discussion in this RFC), which has an entire chapter (ch. 2) about 'transfer', and which specifically talks about Jewish immigration (bold added):
Pages 40-41:

The same persuasive logic pertained already before the turn of the century, at the start of the Zionist enterprise. There may have been those, among Zionists and Gentile philo-Zionists, who believed, or at least argued, that Palestine was ‘an empty land’ eagerly awaiting the arrival of waves of Jewish settlers.5 But, in truth, on the eve of the Zionist influx the country had a population of about 450,000 Arabs (and 20,000 Jews), almost all of them living in its more fertile, northern half. How was the Zionist movement to turn Palestine into a ‘Jewish’ state if the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants were Arabs? And if, over the years, by means of massive Jewish immigration, the Jews were at last to attain a majority, how could a truly ‘Jewish’ and stable polity be established containing a very large, and possibly disaffected, Arab minority, whose birth rate was much higher than the Jews’?

The obvious, logical solution lay in Arab emigration or ‘transfer’. Such a transfer could be carried out by force, i.e., expulsion, or it could be engineered voluntarily, with the transferees leaving on their own steam and by agreement, or by some amalgam of the two methods.

Page 43:

Rather, the Zionist public catechism, at the turn of the century, and well into the 1940s, remained that there was room enough in Palestine for both peoples; there need not be a displacement of Arabs to make way for Zionist immigrants or a Jewish state. There was no need for a transfer of the Arabs and on no account must the idea be incorporated in the movement’s ideological–political platform.

But the logic of a transfer solution to the ‘Arab problem’ remained ineluctable; without some sort of massive displacement of Arabs from the area of the Jewish state-to-be, there could be no viable ‘Jewish’ state.

Page 45:

To be sure, the Zionist leaders, in public, continued to repeat the old refrain – that there was enough room in the country for the two peoples and that Zionist immigration did not necessitate Arab displacement ... But by 1936, the mainstream Zionist leaders were more forthright in their support of transfer.

Pages 59-60:

What emerges from the foregoing is that the Zionist leaders, from the inception of the movement, toyed with the idea of transferring ‘the Arabs’ or a substantial number of Arabs out of Palestine, or any part of Palestine that was to become Jewish, as a way of solving the problem posed by the existence of an Arab majority or, down the road, a large Arab minority that was opposed to the existence of a Jewish state or to living in it. As Arab opposition, including violent resistance, to Zionism grew in the 1920s and 1930s, and as this opposition resulted in periodic British clampdowns on Jewish immigration, a consensus or near-consensus formed among the Zionist leaders around the idea of transfer as the natural, efficient and even moral solution to the demographic dilemma. The Peel Commission’s proposals, which included partition and transfer, only reinforced Zionist advocacy of the idea. All understood that there was no way of carving up Palestine which would not leave in the Jewish-designated area a large Arab minority (or an Arab majority) – and that no partition settlement with such a demographic basis could work. The onset of the Second World War and the Holocaust increased Zionist desperation to attain a safe haven in Palestine for Europe’s persecuted Jews – and reinforced their readiness to adopt transfer as a way of instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe.

* * *

But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.

Is that enough to establish that Morris says that Zionists believed "transfer" of Arabs was necessary to make room for Jews, that it was an inherent and inevitable part of Zionism? He wrote an entire chapter proving this point. It's one of the things Morris is famous for. Levivich (talk) 18:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Not quite - in all but one quote above the necessity of transfer is explained by Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state:
p. 41:

...how could a truly ‘Jewish’ and stable polity be established containing a very large, and possibly disaffected, Arab minority, whose birth rate was much higher than the Jews’?

The obvious, logical solution lay in Arab emigration or ‘transfer’.


on p. 43, immediately after the part you quoted Morris says:

The need for transfer became more acute with the increase in violent Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. The violence demonstrated that a disaffected, hostile Arab majority or large minority would inevitably struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state


on p.45, before the part you quoted, there is the following passage:

The outbreak of the Arab Revolt in April 1936 opened the floodgates; the revolt implied that, from the Arabs’ perspective, there could be no compromise, and that they would never agree to live in (or, indeed, next to) a Jewish state.

as a sidenote, the part you omitted from this page's quote says:

Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionist movement, had generally supported transfer. But in 1931 he had said: ‘We don’t want to evict even one Arab from the left or right banks of the Jordan. We want them to prosper both economically and culturally’; and six years later he had testified before the Peel Commission that ‘there was no question at all of expelling the Arabs. On the contrary, the idea was that the Land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan would contain the Arabs . . . and many millions of Jews . . .’ – though he admitted that the Arabs would become a ‘minority.’

which shows that the idea of population transfer was far from being a consensus among Zionist leadership.
on p. 59 Morris once again talks about

...the problem posed by the existence of an Arab majority or, down the road, a large Arab minority that was opposed to the existence of a Jewish state or to living in it.

This page's quote is the only place where he makes a connection between Jewish immigration and transfer, but notice that this connection appears only following the beginning of WWII and the Holocaust, that is, more than 40 years after establishment of the Zionist movement:

The onset of the Second World War and the Holocaust increased Zionist desperation to attain a safe haven in Palestine for Europe’s persecuted Jews – and reinforced their readiness to adopt transfer as a way of instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe.


One more quote that you didn't mention, but is highly relevant in context of the wider discussion about transfer:

The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives:
In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;...

In other words, according to Morris, the idea of transfer wasn't some "built-in" feature of Zionist ideology from its very inception, but an historical development that followed Arab violent response to the Zionist project. Moreover, Zionists were not the only ones who arrived at this conclusion; the same sentiment was equally shared by many within the British and Arab leadership:

By the mid-1940s, the logic and necessity of transfer was also accepted by many British officials and various Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah and Prime Minister Ibrahim Pasha Hashim and by Iraq’s Nuri Said. Not the Holocaust was uppermost in their minds. They were motivated mainly by the calculation that partition was the only sensible, ultimately viable and relatively just solution to the Palestine conundrum, and that a partition settlement would only be lasting if it was accompanied by a massive transfer of Arab inhabitants out of the Jewish state-to-be; a large and resentful Arab minority in the future Jewish state would be a recipe for most probably instantaneous and certainly future destabilisation and disaster.

DancingOwl (talk) 19:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
"In other words, according to Morris, the idea of transfer wasn't some "built-in" feature of Zionist ideology" is synth. Morris literally says: "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" DMH223344 (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps, "built-in" wasn't the best characterization and I should've used a different word - my point is that according to Morris the "inevitability" of transfer was a result of Arab hostility, rather some a priori ideology, and that it was a reaction, not a pre-planned action.
See the full passage, from which the "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" quote was taken:

My feeling is that the transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s was not tantamount to preplanning and did not issue in the production of a policy or master-plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion. But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure."

DancingOwl (talk) 20:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
"rather than some a priori ideology" what is this supposed to mean? That "transfer" was purely a practical solution, rather than an ideological one?
Morris:

The Zionists were intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs; their enterprise, however justified in terms of Jewish suffering and desperation, was tainted by a measure of moral dubiousness.

Indeed Arabs were hostile towards a movement which was "intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing" them. What you're saying is that if the Arabs had accepted their dispossession, then "transfer" would not have been a consideration of the Zionist movement? DMH223344 (talk) 21:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
The RFC is not about whether there was Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state Selfstudier (talk) 19:51, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I know - I brough up this point in response to the claim that, according to Morris, "you can't have Jewish immigration without Arab emigration", while the actual quotes above show he links the need for Arab emigration to Arab opposition to the existence of Jewish state, not to Jewish immigration. DancingOwl (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No I am keeping it short, since other editors have already argued about this above and in older discussions. This topic appears to have already reached consensus not too long ago. The content also seems to be very adequately sourced. Piccco (talk) 14:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd like to remind editors here of recent additions to WP:CT/A-I, specifically "Editors limited to 1,000 words per formal discussion – all participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion." - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 20:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
    FWIW, there was some discussion of not including quoted material in the word count limit. I tend to agree. @ScottishFinnishRadish, was this your understanding of the final outcome there? Valereee (talk) 12:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    This probably needs an ARCA (or wrap it up in the current case). At any rate, it seems unreasonable to include refs/quotes. Selfstudier (talk) 13:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    There's also this. I don't think anyone has to worry about quoted sources putting them over the limit. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that it isn't necessary to convince everyone in a discussion, just convince enough people to establish consensus. If consensus clearly favors your position there's really no need to go back and forth with someone who's likely never going to agree with you. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm generally sympathetic to the idea of rewording the lead, including the second part of that sentence. But I really don't see here any substantiated, good justification for it. Actually, the excellent comments left by Levivich have made me more in favor of keeping the current wording. Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No. The sourcing is clear-cut, high-quality, and covers authors writing from diverse perspectives; nor has anyone actually presented anything contradicting it to substantiate the idea that it's even controversial. The sources make it clear that it is simply not controversial to state that a core component of Zionism has historically been to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel at any cost, including keeping the Arab population to a minimum. Some aspects of the topic are esoteric or complex, but this one is extremely basic and uncontroversial - hence why it was so easy to find broad, high-quality sourcing for it. --Aquillion (talk) 03:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes, on net. Some issues have been well explained by Andre above. Additionally, this sentence, like others, makes a sweeping and politically contentious claim but fails to give context indicating what time period this applies to and doesn't mention change over time - for example, do modern-day Zionists, or all factions thereof, seek the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel? The sentence implies that they do, despite this being a completely novel claim as far as I can tell. Pointing to sources about historical Zionism isn't enough to address this issue since this isn't a purely historical subject. If it applies to the time period prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, it should say so and the lead should then say how modern-day Zionist factions relate to Arab people/Palestinians within and without Israel. Crossroads 22:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    fails to give context indicating what time period this applies to and doesn't mention change over time - Because the sources say it didn't change over time:
    • as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century (Morris 2002) and inherent in Zionist ideology ... in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise ... during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement (Morris 2004)
    • The history of Zionism, from the earliest days to the present - Shlaim
    • always - Lentin
    • From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period ... always - Masalha
    • From the outset of the Zionist movement ... During every round of the national conflict over Palestine, which is the longest running conflict of its kind in the modern era - Slater
    • From the outset - Engel
    • from its inception - Khalidi
    • from the start - Segev
    • for years - Cohen
    • an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury
    • the core of Zionism - Pappe
    • Lustick & Berkman are discussing pre-state Zionism specifically
    • Stanislawski is discussing 1948 specifically
    • Manna's book is about early Israel (1948-1956) specifically
    The Misplaced Pages article says Zionists wanted, past tense, not "want", present tense, but the sources support the meaning of "always" or "from the beginning", except for 3 that are talking about specific time periods (from the beginning to 1948, in 1948, and during the early Israeli state 1948-1956). The other 11 says "always" or "from the start" or "inherent" in the very idea or similar. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    A list consisting mostly of one-to-four word quotes is less than convincing that all the relevant sources are indeed imputing this POV to all of Israel's history and all factions of Zionism today. Again: do modern-day Zionists, or all factions thereof, seek the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel? The sentence implies that they do. And I still have yet to see a policy-based justification for the article failing to include how modern-day Zionist factions relate to Arab people/Palestinians within and without Israel and how they relate to the proposed solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict. You've clearly read a lot about this topic, so I ask directly: Why is this not being included? Crossroads 22:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    The statement is in past tense, so no it does not imply that. DMH223344 (talk) 22:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    It is immediately followed by a statement that Zionism is the state ideology of Israel, which is a present fact, so yes, it does imply that. Especially when there remains no mention of any subsequent change. Crossroads 01:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    But that isn't the right conclusion to make at all, especially considering that the next sentence starts with "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948," DMH223344 (talk) 01:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes - the current phrasing is problematic in several respects:
  1. Unlike the wide consensus that Zionists wanted to achieve significant Jewish majority, the claim about "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" is controversial and is contested, for example, by Morris in context of 1948 war.
  2. The use of past tense and sentence's placement before "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948" implies it supposed to be a general description of mainstream Zionism from its inception till 1948. However, it ignores major difference in attitude between different Zionist fractions (e.g., Jabotinsky's pre-1939 vehement objection to the idea of population transfer), as well as between earlier proposals for Arab-Jewish cooperation and later pragmatic approach formed in reaction to Arab violent opposition to the very existence of Jewish state.
  3. The qualifier "as much/few... as possible" does a lot of heavy lifting here, by masking the major differences mentioned above, and by allowing to dismiss every evidence of attitudes inconsistent with any part of the current phrasing by saying "well, that's what X considered to be possible". So, while formally true, the phrasing is misleading on substantial level.
Sources

  1. Gorny, Yosef (1987). Zionism and the Arabs, 1882–1948: A Study of Ideology. p. 2. Thus, the desire for a Jewish majority was the key issue in the implementation of Zionism...
  2. Morris, Benny (1999). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999. p. 682. Zionism had always looked to the day when a Jewish majority would enable the movement to gain control over the country...
  3. Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2007). Scars of War, Wounds of Peace. pp. 22–23. Zionism is both a struggle for land and a demographic race; in essence, the aspiration for a territory with a Jewish majority...
  4. Finkelstein, Norman G. (2003). Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict. p. 7. Within the Zionist ideological consensus there coexisted three relatively distinct tendencies—political Zionism, labor Zionism and cultural Zionism. Each was wedded to the demand for a Jewish majority, but not for entirely the same reasons.
  5. Morris, Benny (1991). "Response to Finkelstein and Masalha". Journal of Palestine Studies. 21 (1): 98–114. doi:10.2307/2537368. ISSN 0377-919X. Why is it, then - if a policy of expulsion was in place and being implemented - that more than half of the pocket's inhabitants, many of them Muslims, were left in place? Even in (Muslim) villages where atrocities had been committed - Majd al Kurum, Bi'na, Deir al Assad-the inhabitants were not driven out. Why is it - if there was an "overt" policy of expulsion, "executed with ruthless efficiency," according to Finkelstein - that Northern Front Command's brigades failed to order out onto the roads the (Muslim) villagers of Arrabe, Deir Khanam, Sakhnin, and so on?
  6. Benny Morris (January 21, 2019). "Gideon Levy Is Wrong About the Past, the Present, and I Believe the Future as Well". Haaretz. ...there was no policy of "expulsion of the Arabs," and so some 160,000 Arabs remained, about one-fifth of the country's total population.
  7. Rubin, Gil S. (2018). "Vladimir Jabotinsky and Population Transfers between Eastern Europe and Palestine". The Historical Journal. 62 (2): 1–23. When a paper misquoted Jabotinsky as speaking in favour of the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine, Jabotinsky quickly sent a letter of correction to the editor. 'I did not say those words or any words that could be interpreted along these lines.' 'My opinion', Jabotinsky emphasized, is the contrary 'that if anyone tried to push the Arabs out of Palestine, all or a part of them – he would be doing, first of all, something immoral and – impossible'.
  8. "Resolution Passed At The 12th Zionist Congress, Proposal For An Arab-jewish Entente, Carlsbad, 4 December 1921". Documents on Palestine, Volume 1 (until 1947) (PDF). pp. 97–98. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 Jul 2024. We do thereby reaffirm our desire to attain a durable understanding which shall enable the Arab and Jewish peoples to live together in Palestine on terms of mutual respect and co-operate in making the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which will assure to each of these peoples an undisturbed national development.
  9. Gorny, Yosef (2006), From Binational Society to Jewish State, Brill, ISBN 978-90-474-1161-1
  10. Morris, Benny (2003). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge Middle East Studies (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-521-81120-0. The need for transfer became more acute with the increase in violent Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. The violence demonstrated that a disaffected, hostile Arab majority or large minority would inevitably struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state.
DancingOwl (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the purpose of your first four citations are. No one here is disputing their desire for a Jewish majority. Your citations , , and are all to Morris, with the one most explicitly making the argument you're making being from 33 years ago. I have no idea what the purpose of is. Because "the need for transfer became more acute" in the 1920s, they didn't actually want as few Arabs as possible? I'm not sure what you want us to be looking at in . and are primary sources.
This is completely incomparable to Talk:Zionism#c-Levivich-20241202001000-AndreJustAndre-20241201062000 and Talk:Zionism#c-Levivich-20241202001500-Bob_drobbs-20241201171200. Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • The purpose of my first four citations is to show that the phrasing "wanted a Jewish majority" would be much more NPOV-compliant than the current one
  • Regarding the thesis that there haven't been any pre-planned coordinated campaign to leave "as few Arabs as possible", Morris is far from being the only one making this claim - here another example from Efraim Karsh.
  • shows that the idea of transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership before late 1920s - Morris explicitly talks about

    "...transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s..."

    and states that:

    The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives: In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;..

In other words, while the theoretical idea of minimizing the number of Arabs through population transfer was floated by some Zionists for some time, it only began to be seriously discussed by Zionist leadership and reached a consensual status in the 1930s.
  • and are not primary sources
DancingOwl (talk) 20:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of my first four citations is to show that the phrasing "wanted a Jewish majority" would be much more NPOV-compliant than the current one

They don't show that. Most BESTSOURCES say "Jewish majority" and "as many Jews as possible". You say we should remove "as many Jews as possible" because there are some sources that say "Jewish majority" without disputing "as many Jews as possible". Your is Finkelstein. Do you think he disputes "as many Jews as possible"? The argument doesn't make sense. And your is Morris again.

Morris is far from being the only one making this claim

Then find every BESTSOURCE that makes it, and we can compare to Talk:Zionism#c-Levivich-20241202001000-AndreJustAndre-20241201062000.

here another example from Efraim Karsh

This is an opinion article from a magazine from 24 years ago. This is not a BESTSOURCE.

shows that the idea of transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership before late 1920s

It literally doesn't. It says "the need for transfer became more acute". Became more acute. Not "wasn't seriously considered". It does not say that.

In other words, while the theoretical idea of minimizing the number of Arabs through population transfer was floated by some Zionists for some time, it only began to be seriously discussed by Zionist leadership and reached a consensual status in the 1930s.

Definitively answered by Talk:Zionism#c-Levivich-20241205175800-Crossroads-20241204223400.

and are not primary sources

I didn't say was. I said and were. is a direct quote from Jabotinsky with no commentary other than a straightforward description of the context the quote was said in.
I'm not interested in continuing this conversation unless you can provide an alternate wording citing secondary BESTSOURCES on Zionism in which they dispute the points the current wording is making, and it gets anywhere to the same level as Talk:Zionism#c-Levivich-20241202001000-AndreJustAndre-20241201062000. If you or anyone else can do that I will !vote yes. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Most BESTSOURCES say "Jewish majority" and "as many Jews as possible". You say we should remove "as many Jews as possible" because there are some sources that say "Jewish majority" without disputing "as many Jews as possible". Your is Finkelstein. Do you think he disputes "as many Jews as possible"? The argument doesn't make sense

The most non-NPOV part is "as few Arabs as possible" - I'll do my best to put together a list of RSs that talk about "Jewish majority" and yet refute the claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core Zionist goal throughout the pre-1948 period - hopefully will have the time to do it over the weekend. DancingOwl (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
That's exactly what I, and I think some others, are looking for. That would be appreciated. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Just finished compiling the list, along with analysis of the currently used sources - due to the length constraints, I posted it as a separate topic:
Talk:Zionism#"as few Arabs as possible" - sources contesting this framing + analysis of the existing sources DancingOwl (talk) 16:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. I will !vote Yes to reward you for this effort. I have some criticisms of what you've written, which I will leave in that thread, but I'm happy to keep the door open to a rewording. Bitspectator ⛩️ 17:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No, not as a matter of policy, but it may be best to reword anyway. Misplaced Pages is a website anyone can edit, and readers, knowing this, are likely to see such an accusatory claim in the lede as dubious. What may avert this is to move this language to the body, where it can be backed up with all the sourcing justifying it, and soften the tone in the corresponding lede sentence. ByVarying | talk 03:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    This sentence already appears verbatim in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section, in addition to the lead DancingOwl (talk) 12:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    so? TarnishedPath 15:33, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    @ByVarying suggested to move the current sentence to the body and rewrite the lede sentence - I just pointed out that the current sentence already appears verbatim in the body, in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section. DancingOwl (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    We could change what's in the body so as to more properly reflect the whole bunch of sources saying this one way or another and leave the lead as the summary, if you like. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm currently preparing an in-depth overview of the currently cited sources, showing that they DON'T support the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the current phrasing. In addition, I collected a list of RS, which haven't been cited yet and that contest this claim - I need a bit more time to write it up in a organized and readable form - it should be ready by tomorrow.
    Hopefully, it will convince you and the others that both the lead and the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section need to be rephrased, and I do agree that that section could be the right place to elaborate about the controversy and the different POVs. DancingOwl (talk) 17:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No the sentence is supported by the best sources, from authors having differing viewpoints. No one has presented sources with sufficient weight to contradict the sources used which support the sentence. Per WP:DUE, "neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. TarnishedPath 06:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Pinging @Selfstudier, @XDanielx, @Levivich, @DMH223344, @Dan Murphy, @Nishidani, @Jeppiz, @Theleekycauldron, @Mawer10, @IOHANNVSVERVS and @nableezy as editors who were involved in the discussion at Talk:Zionism/Archive 24#Revert where that sentence was discussed. TarnishedPath 07:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes I'm not sure if the same weight should be given to sources who are Zionist and sources who are anti-Zionist within the ideological definition of the movement. From a personal experience, the majority of the people I know are Zionists, and have in fact asked me as an editor to remove that blood libel (I received about 16 different requests, an amount I've never encountered before). None of them want to have as few Palestinians as possible in Israel, but Misplaced Pages says they do. I told them Misplaced Pages turned into a weapon for spreading propaganda and there's nothing I can do about it. Bar Harel (talk) 09:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Moreover, you have plenty of news articles spawning just about this sentence claiming it is a provocative propaganda. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are written by Zionists. How often do you have news articles spawning about "facts" in Misplaced Pages being non NPOV propaganda? At minimum it is highly controversial. But it's fine, Misplaced Pages knows better about Zionists than what the Zionists believe in, so carry on. Bar Harel (talk) 09:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Sensationalist reporting in the press doesn't dictate how we interpret our policies. TarnishedPath 10:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    No, but if you have heavy reporting in numerous reliable sources, it means that maybe our statements are not as mainstream as we claim they are. Discounting so many press reports and adding only the sources supporting one theory can be seen as POV-pushing. More so when it is brought at the opening paragraph as the actual definition. Bar Harel (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Those "reliable sources" haven't presented any evidence to the contrary either, just a lot of noise. Selfstudier (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what evidence is expected, that Zionism as an ideology does not strive for as few Palestinians as possible? If there are 10 papers over 130 years of the existence of the Zionist movement claiming such a thing, majority of them not by Zionists whatsoever, I highly doubt you'll find a research article claiming the opposite.
    In essence, a researcher can state that Zionists enjoy eating hamburgers. You will not find any research stating that Zionism has nothing to do with hamburgers. Does that make his statement true because there's no opposition? Bar Harel (talk) 14:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    These aren't 10 papers from the last 130 years, these are 14 books from the last 20 years written by the world's leading experts on the history of Zionism. You really think your Zionist friends know more than Benny Morris, Hillel Cohen, Tom Segev, and Avi Shlaim (and 10 others) about what happened in Israel before 1948? Levivich (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    +1 Selfstudier (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Seems like some were refuted below, and their quotes were actually WP:CHERRYPICKed, while the rest of the text stated the opposite. Bar Harel (talk) 13:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    We go with the best sources, not noise in what is often sensationalist reporting. TarnishedPath 12:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    So today's news media is more likely to write complimentary things about Zionism than the well-researched RS (e.g., academic books of history) used in this article. The latter are still better sources. ByVarying | talk 17:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No. The statement is well sourced and other sources can easily be added if needed. It literally took me seconds to find these reliable sources:

The objective of Zionism was and remains the exclusive control of historic Palestine through incremental removal of the Palestinians, replacing them with Jewish settlements.


From its inception the Zionist movement and ideology has been colonial and eliminationist in its essence aimed at the removal of the indigenous population and replacement of Palestinians with the exogenous colonial settler population from Europe.

M.Bitton (talk) 10:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I highly doubt it took you seconds to find these "reliable sources". Your second link is a journal from Kazakhstan ("Journal of oriental studies") that is not ranked or cited on any journal ranking system I have searched in, including SJR, JCR, and can't be found on Google Scholars either. Basically I couldn't have found it even if I wanted. In fact, not only it's not listed or cited anywhere, but if you'll go to the journal's main page it claims that they're listed on citefactor, but when you click the link they take you to a different journal of experimental biology claiming that it's the same journal. I don't know how you found that gem... Bar Harel (talk) 12:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
It did take seconds to find the first, I just forgot to adjust the statement for the second source that I added minutes later.
it claims that they're listed on citefactor they are.
can't be found on Google Scholars it's there. Search for "The historical-ideological roots of the Zionist-Israeli settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of Palestine" and you'll find it. Here's the journal's editorial team (if you're interested) and a list of books and papers that have been published by Gabit Zhumatay and indexed by Google Scholar.
Obviously, both sources are solid RS. M.Bitton (talk) 21:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The citefactor link is still a different journal and Google Scholar is well-known to be nonselective in what "journals" it includes, such as predatory journals. (e.g. ) Crossroads 20:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I repeat: the two sources are solid RS and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on this. M.Bitton (talk) 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm usually very accurate with what I write. Please show me the journal ranking in Google scholars. Bar Harel (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
So am I, and no, I don't need to prove anything to you. I said what I needed to say. If you still feel that the sources are unreliable, then WP:RSN is that way. Best of luck to you. M.Bitton (talk) 23:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No The latest claim based on sourcing produced well after this RFC began appear to be directed principally at excising the phrase "as few Arabs as possible" on the grounds that it would be more NPOV to say that "a state with a significant Jewish majority" was what Zionism/Zionistts wanted. It is difficult to see how in all the circumstances a significant Jewish majority could be obtained without Arab displacement and in fact this is what has actually occurred (and continues to occur for that matter). Can the wording of the lead be improved in regard to issues of temporality, perhaps but the RFC question addresses the removal of an entire sentence well supported in high quality sourcing. A subsequent RFC with less ambitious goals might produce a different outcome. Selfstudier (talk) 12:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Meh. The sentence tries to cram too much into a few words. I would stretch it out a little. After thinking for at least 30 seconds: "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land as possible and a substantial Jewish majority. The latter was to be achieved by massive Jewish immigration, removal of Palestinian Arabs, or both." I left out "as many Jews as possible" because almost all the early Zionists were selective in the type of Jew they wanted in the first generations. See Muscular Judaism for a hint of that large literature. Zero 13:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    +1. I think this phrasing both reads well & presents a proper level of nuance. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 17:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is a great alternative. DMH223344 (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    It's definitely better than the current phrasing - I'd suggest to add a word "partial" before "removal", because otherwise it can be read as implying "complete removal". DancingOwl (talk) 18:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    The phrase is "removal of Palestinian Arabs," not "removal of 'the Palestinian Arabs." DMH223344 (talk) 18:53, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I know, but if even someone as intelligent as Eduard Said managed to misquote "a land without a people for a people without a land" and turn it into "without people", there is a considerable chance some readers will similarly misinterpret the suggested phrasing. DancingOwl (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    The extent of the desired transfer varied between Zionists, so it is better to not insert words that imply an extent. As DMH wrote, the absence of "the" already indicates that "all" is not implied. It doesn't refer to "the Jews" either. Zero 00:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Right, the best we can do is to be precise and clear. Trying, in addition, to be robust to possible misinterpretations due to misreading the sentence will guarantee we make no progress. DMH223344 (talk) 17:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I also like this alternative. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
  • No, and I support the original phrasing, it accurately and concisely conveys what in the cited RS and what is the scholarly consensus. And frankly the continued attempts to have it altered or removed entirely following extensive and ongoing off-site canvassing (1 2, 3) after failing to gain consensus should not be rewarded. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 01:35, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I see no evidence those tweets have impacted this discussion. Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't believe there's any evidence that ties any editors to that, to be clear. But those viral posts are but a few of the many off-site attempts over the past months that have focused on altering or removing that line from the lede. The Jerusalem Post published an entire article on it, and there are many more that have focused on it. I find it very worrying that there are off-site attempts to have accurate, concise and RS-backed consensus content removed. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    1. I don't think public criticism of Misplaced Pages content (unlike targeted contacting of editors off-wiki) qualifies as WP:CANVASS
    2. The whole debate above is exactly regarding the questions whether:
    • the sentence accurately conveys what the the cited RS say
    the core criticism being about cherry-picking and using heavily truncated quotes that omit critical context, in some cases significantly distorting the claims actually made in the sources
    • the sentence reflects the broad scholarly consensus
    the discussion contains multiple examples of RS that contest the narrative promoted in this sentence
    However, for some reason, many of the responses to this RFC uncritically assume that the answer to those two question is affirmative, without examining the evidence to the contrary, presented in this discussion - for example, in this table analyzing the actual statements made in the sources, in the context of the "as many Jews/as few Arabs" part.
      DancingOwl (talk) 20:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No - I support the current phrasing, which reflects the academic consensus and the stated intention of early Zionist leaders. Firecat93 (talk) 04:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
  • No - like Raskolnikov.Rev, Levivich, and others, the current phrasing is fine as-is. I'm also skeptical of the off-site canvassing explicitly targeting this sentence and this page. I'm not accusing the editors in question of malfeasance (unless evidence arises to the contrary), but it's certainly interesting that, for example, we have this post (as flagged by Raskolnikov.Rev) about the lead to the article on 19 September, followed almost immediately by this discussion on this talk page. It's not the only time this has happened, either - just using the tweets already mentioned, we have this tweet followed by a rash of talk page requests about the same line, starting here, and then a few weeks later this tweet followed up by edit requests and various soon-reverted/arbitrated edits, e.g. this one. While canvassing here is difficult to prove with the information available, it's concerning to me that there appears to be a concerted off-wiki effort to... inspire, let's say, people to modify this specific sentence, often immediately or soon-after followed with relevant edits and edit requests. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    As I said above, public criticism of Misplaced Pages content, in and by itself, is not WP:CANVAS and unless there is a strong evidence indicating that those publications have been initiated by some of the editors, the canvassing insinuation sounds like an ad hominem argument collectively directed at the editors criticizing current phrasing.
    So, instead of addressing the actual arguments suggesting that the current phrasing does NOT accurately reflect the scholarly consensus, the discussion is deflected to some vague insinuations about the editors, which is regrettable, in my view. DancingOwl (talk) 20:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think it is regrettable that external criticism appears to lead to more or less immediate changes to content that has been agreed upon by consensus and is represented in a wide array of reliable sources. WP:NOTCENSORED only works if we apply it even in situations where we disagree with the content. I don't have anything new to add to the arguments around the content of the phrasing itself that I or others have not already said ad infinitum on here, let alone what has been said by countless reliable sources both primary and secondary. If there's a specific argument you'd like me to address, we can take this to the discussion section. Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:05, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
    There has been an ongoing debate about this line since the moment it was introduced on August 11, way before any of the tweets mentioned above, and trying to attribute any particular discussion or edit to some external criticism seems to ignore multiple other similar discussions/edits that happen some time before or after the external event.
    In any case, any external criticism should not be a factor either way - it neither should be a reason to change a well sourced content, nor should it prevent us from considering - on its own merits- internal criticism voiced by the editors.
    As to the previous discussions regarding this line - as far as I could see, none of them contained a systematic analysis of the actual quotes from RS allegedly supporting this line or a list of additional sources contesting the narrative it promotes, like the one I prepared as part of this discussion.
    I believe it's a substantially new argument that haven't been made previously, and if you, and other editors responding to this RFC, could address it, that would be very helpful. DancingOwl (talk) 20:04, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes I agree with Andre that it lacks an impartial tone. I would also like to add it conflates facts of history with stated beliefs. "Zionism" was a term that encompassed a broad set of ideologies, with some forms promoting binationalism or deprioritized statehood, so it feels imprecise to make this claim (even if the forms of Zionism I mentioned never became mainstream). Yes, the sentence provides many sources, but it still seems that, the beliefs of Zionism with regard to the desire to minimize the Palestinian population in Palestine (as a matter of ideology) is still very much in debate and no scholarly consensus has emerged on this topic yet (although it might in the future).
I still think it is critical to keep the content itself, but some simple rephrasing could make it impartial and more precise. Some suggestions:
- "Many critics and historians contend that Zionists ..."
- "Historians have found that Zionists organizations in Palestine campaigned to create a Jewish state ..."
- "Several Zionists leaders expressed a desire ..." too_much curiosity (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Factual but flippant While the current sentence is indeed factually accurate in one of its many possible meanings, it is so cramped and imprecise, that the reader would find half-a-dozen other misleading interpretations equally plausible. This is not the encyclopedic tone we should be aiming for in this context, and we can convey the same information by a better rephasing along the lines of what Zero0000 or I have suggested.--Pharos (talk) 18:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Comment: If this section is a properly formulated RfC that will eventually get closed, it is regrettable that the discussion of the relevant sources, started on 9 December, was placed in a separate section. I wonder if it would be sensible to move that discussion into this section, so it can be taken into account in closing this RfC? I would also urge !voters in the survey above who have not done so to review the evidence provided there. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:08, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    If this section is a properly formulated RfC that will eventually get closed Do you have some doubts about it? If so, raising it earlier on would have been wise, rather than waiting until the RFC has expired and waiting for a close.
    As was suggested above, a new RFC is possible but one thing at a time, please. Selfstudier (talk) 12:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    Not suggesting a new RfC, but I note a few !votes above say things like "bad RfC". My assumption is that somebody needs to close this mess, which will be difficult, but I also feel that the closer needs to take into account the discussion two items down this talk page, which occurred more or less concurrently and provided more detail on the bibliographic evidence, both ways. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    I don't think closing this RFC is at all difficult and I do think we should have another RFC that addresses only the "few Arabs as possible " thing, which is what those additional sources were aimed at. Those sources (which include sources not previously considered/discussed have not been subjected to anything more than a cursory scrutiny because of that and because they were introduced well after this RFC started, which btw managed perfectly well without a discussion section until you just opened this one, after the RFC has already expired. Selfstudier (talk) 13:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    I don't think closing this RFC is at all difficult and I do think we should have another RFC that addresses only the "few Arabs as possible " thing, which is what those additional sources were aimed at.
    I agree that this would be the best course of action. DancingOwl (talk) 18:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    While I agree with the first statement, I don't think a second RfC would be necessary given that the "few Arabs as possible" thing has been addressed in this one. M.Bitton (talk) 18:24, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    Well, the additional sources were not considered, only in passing because they were introduced later. And there was some delayed recognition that the RFC might have been a little ambitious in trying to do away with the entire sentence and editors were responding to that. Anyway, speaking for myself only, I have no objection to another RFC with a different idea. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2025 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"as few Arabs as possible" - sources contesting this framing + analysis of the existing sources

Following the "RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism" discussion above, I carried out a thorough analysis of the sources allegedly supporting current phrasing, and also compiled a list of sources contesting the claim that Zionists wanted "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible".

Due to the length constraints, I post this as a separate topic, rather than a response in the RFC discussion:

The current phrasing is "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible". - the use of past tense and sentence's placement before "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948..." implies that this is supposed to be a general description of mainstream Zionist core goals before 1948.

However, as I show below, about half of the sources quoted DON'T support the claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core Zionist goal since its inception till 1948, and several sources were quoted in a way that omits critical context or even completely distort actual author's position.

  • For example, in Cohen 2017, p.78, the following quote is used:

"As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years."


But immediately after that the author says:

"However, in the post–World War II political context, the Zionist leadership was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state and its declared position was that it would enjoy civil equality, collective rights, and the allocation of resources as outlined by the UN Partition Plan."


Moreover, on p. 73 he adds:

“ the Zionist leadership seriously considered following the guidelines stipulated by the Partition Plan and to enable the existence of a large Arab minority within the Jewish state”


on p. 75:

“Some historians, such as Ilan Pappé (2006) and Nur Masalha (1992), claim that the Zionist movement from the very beginning sought to expel Arabs from the Jewish national homeland, and that in 1948 the Jewish military forces followed an existing plan to implement this goal. One source that Pappé (2006) uses to support this argument in his book is a widespread survey of the Arab villages undertaken by the Haganah’s intelligence services between the end of the 1930s and the eve of the 1948 war. This does not, in my opinion, constitute an irrefutable evidence base, as armies are known to prepare contingency plans for worst-case scenarios without intending to implement them unless forced to do so. I would argue that the Zionist leadership had considered several possible scenarios and that an all-out war was only one of them. More important to our discussion is the fact that at the same time, the Jewish Agency prepared for the contingency of a large Arab minority and explored ways to integrate it into the future state. This is the conclusion we can draw from documents that are much less known to both the general public and historians; I will present them here briefly.”


and on p. 77:

“In my view, it would not be unrealistic to deduce that the Zionist leadership prepared itself – among other options – for a peaceful implementation of the partition resolution and for the existence of a significant Arab minority in the Jewish state. Moreover, in such a scenario, there were elements within the Jewish leadership who pushed toward improving Arab conditions and Arab-Jewish relations in the new state."


That is, Cohen is contesting the quoted claims made by Masalha and Morris, not agreeing with them, as the truncated quotation tries to imply.
  • The quote from Pappé 2006, p. 250 actually refers to the “Realignment plan” promoted by Ehud Olmert in 2006, not to pre-1948 Zionism goals (the truncated quote used in the reference is in italic):

“Ehud Olmert, now prime minister, knows that if Israel decides to stay in the Occupied Territories and its inhabitants become officially part of Israel’s population, Palestinians will outnumber Jews within fifteen years. Thus he has opted for what he calls hitkansut, Hebrew for convergence’ or, better, ‘ingathering’, a policy that aims at annexing large parts of the West Bank, but at the same time leaves several populous Palestinian areas outside direct Israeli control. In other words, hitkansut is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.”

  • in Manna 2022, p.2, the quote is taken from the part that says:

"It is clear that “non-expulsion” in northern Palestine was not arbitrary, but was the result of high-level orders and policy on the part of the Israeli leadership. Saying this does not contradict the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state, since the exception due to special reasons and circumstances proves the rule.”

In other words, the statement is made specifically in the context of 1947-48 war and not as a general characterization of Zionist goals.

The same applies to the second quote from Manna 2022, p. 4:

"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"

as well as the third quote from p. 33:

To spur Palestinians to leave their cities and villages was an objective that the Jewish side implemented as part of the Zionist operation to uproot and occupy. The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers. The argument between so-called extremists and moderates was not about fundamental differences, but rather a question of the timing and evaluation of the negative consequences of some terrorist activities carried out by Jewish organizations. Indeed, at the end of December 1947 there were several attacks on Arab villages in the middle of the country, particularly in the vicinity of major cities where there were concentrations of Jews.

and also to the quote from Stanislawski 2017, p. 65:

"...on the Israeli side there has been in recent years a dramatic revision of the interpretation of 1948, acknowledging that Palestinians had indeed been expelled from various parts of the country... ...what happened in Israel was a combination of forced expulsions, panicked flight, and utter chaos. The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony.

  • Several of the sources talk about "Jewish majority/Arab minority", not "as few Arabs as possible" (claiming that the two are equivalent would be a clear wp:synth):
Khalidi 2020, p. 76:

"The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium — a majority Arab country — into a new state that had a substantial Jewish majority. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized during the war; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land.";


Lustick & Berkman 2017, pp. 47–48:

"As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). Ipso facto, this meant Zionism's success would produce an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions."

  • Similarly, Engel 2013 talks about "desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine" and explicitly says that until the late 1930s, that is for most of the pre-1948 period, most Zionists just wanted "Jewish majority", not “as few Arabs as possible”, and the change only came following a suggestion coming from the Peel Commission:
p. 96:

"From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine

p. 138:

"The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ in 1948: non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal. Israel’s leaders were thus not sad at all to see so many Arabs leave its borders during the fighting in 1947–48 ... the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.")

  • Finally, while Morris 2004, p. 588, does say in the conclusion section:

"But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority."

a more careful reading of the book shows that his position is much more nuanced and that, in his view, this "underlying thrust of the ideology" only turned into an actual goal/"want" in the 1930s, that is in the second half of the pre-state period , and it only happened in response to external factors or initiatives:

p. 44:

“Hence, if during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional, by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea began to emerge among the movement’s leaders. Each major bout of Arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution.”

p. 59:

“The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives: In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;”

This, along with the fact that even when discussing "transfer", Morris still speaks in terms of "majority/minority" and never talks about "as few Arabs as possible/minimum Arabs" or any equivalent, shows that framing his position as support for the claim that Zionist core goal was "as few Arabs as possible" would be SYNTH.


Now, before I move to additional sources that not currently mentioned in the article and that refute the "as few Arabs as possible" claim, I just want to point out that two of the quoted sources - Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014, p. 6, and Lentin 2010, p. 7 - are actually citations from Pappé 2006 and a Hebrew article published by Pappé in 2008, respectively, hence they are, in fact, tertiary sources, and given the complex and controversial nature of this issue, shouldn't have been used in this context, as per WP:DONTUSETERTIARY.

Now, here are several additional sources that refute the "as few Arabs as possible" framing:

p. 232 (context: pre-WWI proposals of “limited population transfer”):

“...the idea of a population transfer was never official Zionist policy. Ben Gurion emphatically rejected it, saying that even if the Jews were given the right to evict the Arabs they would not make use of it. Most thought at that time that there would be sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs following the industrialisation of the country and the introduction of intensive methods of agriculture…”

p. 191:

“The extent to which the Zionists advanced the idea of population transfers during World War II is much disputed in the secondary literature. Palestinian authors such as Nur Masalha and advocates of “new history” in Israel have supported the argument that the Zionists had a master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from the start. There is little evidence to support this claim.”

p. 573:

“In spite of its realistic base we see a two-fold weakness in Morris’s thesis. First, it goes back to Herzl, the founding father of political Zionism, as the supposed creator of the idea of transfer. In reality, like everybody else in European politics in his day, Herzl was ignorant of the existence of Arab nationalism. At one point he noted briefly that transfer of the poor native population was possible for economic reasons, only to reject it a little later…
Until the Royal Commission, better known as the Peel Commission of 1937, proposed the partition solution, with its corollary of population transfer, the Zionist decision-making agenda was preoccupied with one theme: the consolidation of power in terms of demography, economics and culture, leaving the military responsibility to the British authorities. Since the British government adopted the transfer idea only for a short period of time, the Zionists, too, shelved it, adopting the other British option – partition."

P. 574-575:

“...one must conclude that it was the partition plan that was at the top on the Zionist agenda, and not transfer, even though both plans were inspired by the Peel Commission…

… ‘The fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions’. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of ‘operative ideology’ not of ‘fundamental ideology’. Arab ethnic cleansing was therefore not more than an option of last resort in the event of war."

P. 584

“Morris’s concept of transfer of the Arabs as the focus of Zionist decision making has no basis in political reality. “

pp. 179-180

“The commission investigated the possibility of voluntary populations and land exchanges and the prospects of finding solutions for those who would be moved and reached the conclusion that it is "impossible to assume that the minority problem will be solved by a voluntary transfer of population." Incidentally, the commission also concluded that the Jews opposed forced transfer. Transfer as a concrete political possibility never exceeded the bounds of the 1937 royal commission report - it was born and buried there. It was not even mentioned in the United Nations partition plan of 1947. Had transfer not been included in the Peel commission report, it would not have been placed on the political agenda of the Zionist movement, even though the idea itself had been mentioned occasionally in the past.”

“The truth is that, far from seeking to dispossess the Palestinian Arabs as claimed by Mr. Segev, the Zionist movement had always been amenable to the existence of a substantial Arab minority in the prospective Jewish state. No less than Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the faction that was the forebear of today’s Likud Party, voiced his readiness (in a famous 1923 essay) “to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone.” And if this was the position of the more “militant” faction of the Jewish national movement, small wonder that mainstream Zionism took for granted the full equality of the Arab minority in the prospective Jewish state… Ignoring these facts altogether, Mr. Segev accuses Ben-Gurion of using the partition resolution as a springboard for implementing the age-old “Zionist dream” of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs,” though he brings no evidence for this supposed behavior beyond a small number of statements that are either taken out of context or simply distorted or misrepresented.”

“...the recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British mandate and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record, and one that is completely at odds with the anti-Israel caricature that is so often the order of the day. They reveal … that the claim of premeditated dispossession is not only baseless but the inverse of the truth; and that far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the UN partition resolution. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place, for the simple reason that the Zionist movement was amenable both to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state on an equal footing, and to the two-state solution, raised for the first time in 1937 by a British commission of inquiry and reiterated by the partition resolution.”

p. 161

“Pro-Palestinian researchers present Plan D as the draft of a preplanned, total population transfer of the Arabs of Palestine. But as the plan text shows, while it did order commanders to destroy villages and expel the inhabitants if they resisted, it also instructed commanders to leave them where they were if they did not resist, while ensuring Jewish control of the village. There is a great difference between an order for total expulsion and a selective order, which assumes that Arab villages will be able to live in peace in the Jewish state."

To summarize, only about half of the currently used sources claim that "as few Arabs as possible" was a core goal of Zionism movement throughout the pre-1948 period and several of them actually refute this claim. In addition, there are multiple RS - some of which I listed above - that contest this claim.

This makes the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the current phrasing non-NPOV-compliant, and careful examination of the sources shows that a much more accurate reflection of the academic consensus would be to say "a state with a significant Jewish majority". DancingOwl (talk) 16:35, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay. There are 12 sources for the statement: Manna, Khalidi, Slater, Cohen, Lustick & Berkman, Stanislawski, Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury, Engel, Masalha, Lentin, Pappé, Morris. You are attempting to illustrate that about half of these sources don't actually support "as few Arabs as possible". I'll go through each.
Cohen:
You use was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state as evidence that they didn't want as few Arabs as possible. I don't quite buy this, because I interpret "as few Arabs as possible" as meaning as few Arabs as possible . That they reluctantly accepted some doesn't contradict that for me.
The p. 73 quote is about something they seriously considered, implying that this wasn't their main line of thought, not what they really wanted. This is actually validated by the p. 75 quote you share: the Jewish Agency prepared for the contingency of a large Arab minority. Contingency? It seems like they didn't want it. Same point for the p. 77 quote.
So, I think the Cohen quote of As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years is accurate. I don't see how he is "contesting" Masalha and Morris. I think Cohen supports "as few Arabs as possible".
Pappé:
I think you're right. "as few Arabs as possible" is about before the establishment of the state of Israel, this quote is imprecise and could be about modern Zionism. I don't think this should be used.
Manna:
I'm not seeing how p. 2 says the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible is only about 1947-48. In p. 4 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 doesn't imply to me that it wasn't the main opinion pre-1948, just that it became unanimous in 1948. And even if Manna was saying that the idea only came about in 1948, I don't think it couldn't be used to justify "as few Arabs as possible", which is about the period up to the establishment of the state of Israel. The primary expulsions took place in 1948, and Israel was founded in 1948.
I don't see your argument with p. 33: The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers... Indeed, at the end of December 1947. Okay, this just means they had the objective in 1947. So? I think Manna supports "as few Arabs as possible".
Stanislawski:
Again, you're just saying that Zionists wanted as few Arabs as possible in 1948, therefore they couldn't have wanted that before 1948? It doesn't say that. I think Stanislawski supports "as few Arabs as possible".
Khalidi:
Agreed, I don't think this should be used. "Majority" is not strong enough IMO.
Lustick & Berkman:
Agreed, I don't think this should be used. "Minority" is not strong enough IMO.
Engel:
This one is mixed. I think it can probably be used to support "as many Jews as possible", but it doesn't support "as few Arabs as possible". The p. 138 quote again brings up the issue of when expulsion became the consensus idea. It concedes that eventually it did. This is interesting, but really doesn't refute that Zionists wanted "as few Arabs as possible". I guess there could be a rewording to include this nuance, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.
Morris:
Again, the timing issue. See above. I do think displacement of Arabs from Palestine cannot be used support "as few Arabs as possible", but overwhelming Jewish majority is enough to support "as many Jews as possible" IMO.
Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury and Lentin:
I don't think these are tertiary just because they cite Pappé. I'm not sure if Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury is a BESTSOURCE though.
---
I will need a little bit more time to go though the new sources you brought. But to address your thesis:

a much more accurate reflection of the academic consensus would be to say "a state with a significant Jewish majority"

I don't see that. Your proposed new statement is weaker than Morris' overwhelming Jewish majority, and Morris clearly leans a certain way on this. And it replaces the part about Arabs with nothing, even though there are not yet addressed BESTSOURCES clearly saying it (Slater, Segev, Shlaim), in addition to Cohen, Manna, and Stanislawski, which I don't think you have nullified. I really do appreciate the effort though. This is a great thing for Misplaced Pages to have. Bitspectator ⛩️ 18:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback - looking forward for your comments regarding the newly added sources.
Regarding the chronology - I think the question of if and when the idea of transfer became more or less consensual within Zionist leadership is key in context of a correct phrasing in the lead, because the lead should reflect the core Zionist goals - what Heller refers to as "‘fundamental ideology" - throughout the whole of the pre-state period. If this idea was adopted only towards the end of the period, and if - as Heller describes it - it was only "operational", rather than "fundamental" - then this might be too specific to be mentioned in the lead, let alone in the opening paragraph, and should rather be deferred to the body. DancingOwl (talk) 18:59, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
This is a very detailed analysis. Based on this, I think "significant Jewish majority" would be a better framing. Andre🚐 19:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. Crossroads 21:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
@Bitspectator: I'm curious as to your and others' views of temporal sourcing of statements in Wikivoice: If some sources say this was the case from the beginning until the present (Morris, Shlaim, Lentin, Slater), some say from the beginning without specifying an end date (Engel, Khalidi, Segev, Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury), two say from the start until the creation of Israel (Masalha, Lustick & Berkman), one says "for years" without being more specific (Cohen), one says in 1948 (Stanislawski), one says in the first decade after the creation of Israel (Manna), and one says it's the "core of Zionism" until the present day (Pappe)... don't these, taken together, support the idea of "always"? Especially when not a single source says anything like "...until time period X, when it changed"? Levivich (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it matters for the lead. But you should clarify whether those temporalities are for "as many Jews as possible" or are for "as few Arabs as possible". I think @DancingOwl's arguments about this just relate to "as few Arabs as possible". Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the work you've put into this. This is conflating the notion of political consensus with the notion of desirability. To be clear, within the Zionist movement, the arguments made against transfer were made primarily on a practical basis, not because transfer was not desirable. The only quote put forward which denies the desirability of "as few Arabs" is Karsh 2019, a book review.

a more careful reading of the book shows that his position is much more nuanced and that, in his view, this "underlying thrust of the ideology" only turned into an actual goal/"want" in the 1930s, that is in the second half of the pre-state period , and it only happened in response to external factors or initiatives

This is synth, since morris does not say anything about the "want" developing in the 30s, only that the political consensus became strong during this period. The "external factors" are in this case fundamental to the situation which comes with, as Morris says, the zionist goal of "politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs." That's why transfer was "transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure" DMH223344 (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I think we're painting all Zionists with too broad of a brush. We know that many Zionists including Herzl had dismissive views toward the Arabs and were OK with a transfer - though they often thought the transfer would happen through economic means, for example. Others didn't consider the Arab inhabitants or thought there weren't many, and still others did know about them but thought they would welcome them. Consider Bregman 2002. While not one of the absolute best sources, it's a decent enough source and I happened across this passage while perusing it on p.3. (and p.1 Palestine was in fact a barren, rocky, neglected and inhospitable land with malaria-infested swamps.) The passage on p.3: scrutinizing the speeches and writings of Zionist leaders of the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that some of the Zionist leaders did truly believe that Palestine was derelict and empty – ‘A land without a people waiting for a people without a land’. This, it is worth noting, was not an unusual thought, for some early Zionists suffered from the common Eurocentric illusion that ‘territories outside Europe were in a state of political vacuum’. But there were also Zionists who did realize that an Arab community existed in Palestine – working the land, bringing up children, living and dying – however, they took it for granted that the native Arabs would welcome the new arrivals, whose zeal and skill and, of course, money would help develop the barren land for the benefit of all of its inhabitants. Andre🚐 01:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Again, this doesn't say anything about the desirability of "as few Arabs as possible" DMH223344 (talk) 02:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

This is conflating the notion of political consensus with the notion of desirability.

This is a fair point, but it, in turn, leads to several additional questions:
  1. Is the lead the right place to make this distinction?
  2. If it is, shouldn't we also make a distinction between what Heller refers to as operative vs fundamental ideologies:
'The fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions'. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of 'operative ideology' not of 'fundamental ideology'.
and let the lead describe fundamental ideology, while deferring the discussion of the operative ideology to the relevant section(s) in the body?

The only quote put forward which denies the desirability of "as few Arabs" is Karsh 2019, a book review

I've just added one more source that makes this point, and I also have a few more that talk about opposition to the idea on moral grounds - will hopefully have the time to add them tomorrow.

The "external factors" are in this case fundamental to the situation which comes with, as Morris says, the zionist goal of "politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs."

This is, indeed, how Morris describes this, but other sources - e.g. Gorny (2006) that I added today - offer a different perspective, and several other RS discussed above consider "as few Arabs as possible"/"transfer" ideas to be secondary in Zionist thinking. At the very least raises the question of whether discussing it in the opening paragraph is justified, as per MOS:LEADREL. DancingOwl (talk) 21:09, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Here's an additional source that provides an important perspective on Zionist ideology, in particular, in its fundamental approach towards Jewish-Arab relationships and Zionist demographic goals, and also clearly contradicts the "as few Arabs as possible" framing:
Gorny, Yosef (2006). From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought, 1920-1990, and the Jewish People. BRILL.
Two key points:
  • Zionism's goals included both Jewish majority and cooperation with Arabs
P. 6-7:

“Therefore, national values such as return to the soil, Jewish labor, the renaissance of Hebrew culture, and the aspiration to a Jewish majority became political fundamentals in Zionism...
Zionist policy from Herzl’s time to the establishment of the State of Israel had three dimensions…
The second dimension, the intercommunal, included Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine in all their senses. In an attempt to work out joint arrangements, if only partial and provisional, that would allow them to coexist with the Arab population of the country, the Zionists aspired to cooperation in municipal government, an arrangement for relations between Jewish and Arab labor organizations, general agrarian reform, and other matters.
The third dimension was reflected in the Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs, who were embroiled in struggle for the same piece of land. By the very fact of having such plans, the movement signaled its intention to replace side-by-side existence with coexistence. It is in this sense that Zionist policy was informed by a Utopian element tempered by political realism, a policy that recognized its limits as a national force and, usually, knew how to exploit political opportunities that the era created.
At first glance, our remarks here point to a material clash between the Utopian inclination and the pragmatic consideration in Zionist policy. It is not so. The entire intent of this study is to note that the Utopian element in Zionist policy was neither a marginal and unimportant appendage nor an artificial embellishment with which politicians could adorn themselves. In fact, it was a structural and intrinsic feature of the policy. It was embedded in the policymakers’ personalities; it played a role in long-term plans for the regularization of Jewish-Arab relations; it influenced the aspiration to align the political solutions with Jews’ and Arabs’ national ideals and rights; and it served as a moral yardstick for use in distinguishing between permissible and forbidden ways and means of prosecuting the armed conflict. It was this characteristic that gave the movement and its leaders the strength to cling to a political vision that clashed with the existing conditions.
Viewed from this perspective, the Zionist reality was charged with Utopian meaning. It is for this reason that I define the relationship between reality and vision as “Utopian realism.” This seeming oxymoron, in my opinion, is one of the keys to understanding Zionism as a national idea and as a social and political doctrine that fulfilled itself.


p. 11:

“I use the term “Zionist consensus” to denote the ideological common denominator among all Zionist Movement intellectual currents and political entities, which disagreed severely on all other topics. The consensus was made up of four basic principles: an unbreakable bond between the Jewish nation and the Eretz Israel; a Jewish majority in Eretz Israel; changing the socioeconomic structure of the Jewish people as part of a comprehensive national effort; and the revival of the Hebrew language and culture.“


  • Zionists viewed Jewish emigration as the primary vehicle for obtaining Jewish majority
p. 33:

“From the Jewish standpoint, the onset of the Fourth Aliya heralded the emergence of the Zionist Movement from the crisis that had engulfed it at the end of the Third Aliya. The Jewish masses that began to reach Palestine instilled hope, for the first time after the Balfour Declaration, of the possibility of attaining a Jewish majority in Palestine.”


p. 65:

“For Ben-Gurion, in contrast, the Fifth Aliya—which infused Zionism with new hope and made the Jewish majority a realistic goal — was a basis for a broad-based federal settlement between Jews and Arabs at both the local and the regional levels.”


Also, the words 'transfer/transferring,' in the sense of 'population transfer,' are mentioned only four times, and only in passing, and one of the four instances actually refers to Jewish immigration. On the other hand, actual long-term plans assumed continued growth of Arab population - for example, see description of Jabotinsky’s 1940 constitution proposal that talks about Arab minority of two million (twice its size in 1940).
p. 102:

“In his background remarks to the proposal, Jabotinsky based himself solely on examples of federative regimes that had passed the test of political durability and met human and social moral standards. He disputed the argument that the Arabs of Palestine would become a nationally oppressed group after they became a minority of two million amid five million Jews, as his proposal envisaged.”


  DancingOwl (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't have a copy of that book of Gorny's, but here is a relevant quote from his 87 book in the context of discussing the Zionist conception of the Arab question:

It was generally accepted among Zionists that the eventual solution, whether a Jewish state in all of Palestine, partition, or an international protectorate, would have to be imposed on the Arabs by force, because of their obduracy, which precluded negotiations and compromise for the foreseeable future.

Also, I'm familiar with Gorny's other writing on Zionist utopia, and his definition of "utopia" is certainly not "utopia, an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions.":

I am aware that utopias are not ideal regimes even when their intentions are the best, and that they are not free of totalitarian tendencies, which can lead at times to excessive and even abhorrent oppression of individuals. Zionist utopias have not escaped this flaw.

Lastly, these quotes are also not claiming that "as few Arabs" was not desired by the movement. DMH223344 (talk) 05:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a copy of that book of Gorny's, but here is a relevant quote from his 87 book in the context of discussing the Zionist conception of the Arab question:
"It was generally accepted among Zionists that the eventual solution, whether a Jewish state in all of Palestine, partition, or an international protectorate, would have to be imposed on the Arabs by force, because of their obduracy, which precluded negotiations and compromise for the foreseeable future.
When the war ended, and the full truth became evident, the Zionists clung to what remained of their political expectations: a Jewish state in a , divided Palestine."

The sentence preceding this quote is "When the war ended, and the full truth became evident, the Zionists clung to what remained of their political expectations: a Jewish state in a , divided Palestine.", that is the quote describes the Zionist attitude at specific point int time, after WWII.
 

Lastly, these quotes are also not claiming that "as few Arabs" was not desired by the movement.

The first quote talks about coexistence and cooperation and the last one talks about doubling of Arab population - the exact opposite "as few Arabs as possible".
  DancingOwl (talk) 10:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The first quote talks about coexistence and cooperation and the last one talks about doubling of Arab population - the exact opposite "as few Arabs as possible".

That's definitely not the same as wanting the opposite of "as few Arabs as possible". Did the Zionists accept an Arab minority, of course, did they want it? Also no. They specifically wanted as few as possible, as shown by the long list of quotes cited by the claim in the article. DMH223344 (talk) 02:52, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Only 2 of the sources - Slater and Shlaim - talk about "wanting" as few Arabs as possible.
To that we can add Stanislawski that uses the word "desire" and Segev, who talks about "dream". DancingOwl (talk) 12:32, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure any of the sources give different temporalities for the two; they say the temporality, they say the actor/subject, and then they say one, two, or three out of "more land/many Jews/few Arabs". Here's a table:

Source time who "as much land" "as many Jews" "as few Arabs"
Manna 2022 doesn't specify "The Zionists", "Zionists of all inclinations", "the Zionist leadership" "more land in the hands of the settlers" "as few Arabs as possible", "the smallest possible number of Palestinians", "fewer Arabs in the country"
Khalidi 2020 "from its inception" "political Zionism" "seizures of land", "theft of Palestinian land and property" "a substantial Jewish majority" "systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas"
Slater 2020 "From the outset of the Zionist movement ... During every round of the national conflict over Palestine" "the Zionists", "Zionism", "The Zionist movement in general", "all the major leaders" "as much of Palestine as was feasible", "a Jewish state in all of 'Palestine'", "appropriate additional territory" "a large Jewish majority" "as few Arabs as possible"
Segev 2019 "from the start" "the Zionist dream" "maximum territory" "minimum Arabs"
Cohen 2017 "for years" "many ", "Zionist leaders and activists" "without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible"
Lustick & Berkman 2017 doesn't specify "Zionism", "Ben-Gurion" "on both sides of the Jordan River" "not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" "an Arab minority in Palestine"
Stanislawski 2017 1948 "the Israeli desire" "as few Arabs as possible"
Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014 "an inherent component ... since the founding of the Zionist movement" "the Zionist movement", "the Zionist project", "the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion" "getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible ... demographic elimination"
Engel 2013 "From the outset" "most Zionists", "Zionist imaginations", "Zionism", "the ZO", "Israel", "the state", "their leaders", "the state’s leaders", "the bulk of the Zionist leadership", "Israel’s leaders", "Haganah" "expand the territory a partitioned Jewish state might eventually receive", "in parts of Palestine formerly beyond their sights", "more expansive borders" "increase the Jewish population of Palestine", "‘Jewish’ ... by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants", "as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible" "the smallest possible minorities", "non-Jews ... numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal"
Masalha 2012 "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period" "the Zionist Yishuv" "maximum land" "minimum Arabs"
Lentin 2010 "always" "the Zionist leadership" "increase the Jewish space" "dispossess the Palestinians"
Shlaim 2009 "from the earliest days to the present" "most Zionist leaders" "the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine" "with as few Arabs inside it as possible"
Pappe 2006 "the core of Zionism" "Zionism" "as much of Palestine as possible" "with as few Palestinians as possible"
Morris 2004 "inherent ... from the start of the enterprise" (Morris 2002: "as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century") "Zionist ideology", "Zionist praxis" Morris 2001: "Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement" "an overwhelming Jewish majority", "massive Jewish immigration" "massive displacement of Arabs", "instantaneously emptying the land so that it could absorb the prospective refugees from Europe"

I agree this could be expanded with more nuance in the body; it already is, but could of course be further expanded. Levivich (talk) 22:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with some of your points here. I am confused about some of these readings though.
First sources:
Are you sure that you have not reversed the intended "exception" and "rule" in the Manna p. 2 quote? I think more context is needed there about the "non-expulsion" in northern Palestine. I don't see how the other Manna quotes contradict the current wording in the article.
—
I also don't understand why Stanislawski 2017 p. 65 is supposed to help your argument. It's hard to see how that characterization of Israeli desires for the future state can be read to apply only to the "heat of the moment" of 1948.
—
For the sources supporting that "as few Arabs as possible" arose late in the pre-1948 period, what change in the wording of the article do these warrant? After all, if you're conceding that this was policy after sometime around then, that would mean it was policy from the beginning of the existence of the State of Israel.
New sources:
I had thought that the sentence in the lede was saying Zionists wanted as small an Arab minority as possible in whatever territory the state was to encompass. So Heller 2006, talking about "partitioning" the former mandate into a Jewish part and an Arab part, doesn't contradict that. ByVarying | talk 20:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

For the sources supporting that "as few Arabs as possible" arose late in the pre-1948 period, what change in the wording of the article do these warrant? After all, if you're conceding that this was policy after sometime around then, that would mean it was policy from the beginning of the existence of the State of Israel.

The lead section, and the opening paragraph, in particular, should provide a general description of the Zionism ideology as a whole, and not just its realization during a particular period. And since the sentence in question is formulated in past tense and appears immediately before "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948...", it is implied that this is supposed to be a general description of the core goals of Zionism since its inception and till 1948.
However, if those ideas became mainstream only towards the end of the pre-1948 period, this means that framing is as a general characteristic of the Zionism throughout that period would be inaccurate and misleading.
I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make.

I had thought that the sentence in the lede was saying Zionists wanted as small an Arab minority as possible in whatever territory the state was to encompass. So Heller 2006, talking about "partitioning" the former mandate into a Jewish part and an Arab part, doesn't contradict that.

Heller makes several important points:
1) First, he makes a critical distinction between ‘operative ideology’ and ‘fundamental ideology’, and argues that that both transfer and partition were expressions of the former. And the lead should be focused on the fundamental ideology, described by Heller as "the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas", and the discussion of operative ideology, that is the specific ways in which those "final goals and grand vistas" were realized in practice, should be deferred to the body.
2) Second, he -as well as several other sources I quoted above - disputes the framing of "transfer" (which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim) as the focus of Zionist decision making. Which means that even as "operative ideology" the transfer thinking wasn't as prominent in his view, as Morris and several other authors currently quoted in the article, claim it to be. So, again, while this is something that could be discussed in the body, the opening paragraphs is not the right place for this discussion. DancingOwl (talk) 21:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Levivich, since the discussed sentence is a synthesis of numerous statements dispersed across the cited sources, putting partial quotes in the table is misleading, because this obscures the different contexts to which those quotes belong - for example, several quoted temporal statements refer to the "as much land" part, but not to the "as few Arabs" part etc.

In order to get a clear understanding of what the sources are REALLY saying, one needs to look at the full quotes - I've prepared a table that does exactly that, while focusing on the two more controversial claims - "as many Jews" and "as few Arabs".

In the second part of the table I also put several additional sources that offer a significantly different perspective on those claims:

Source full quote time "as many Jews" "as few Arabs"
Manna 2022 P.2; ” It is clear that “non-expulsion” in northern Palestine was not arbitrary, but was the result of high-level orders and policy on the part of the Israeli leadership. Saying this does not contradict the principal objective of the Zionist leadership to keep as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish state, since the exception due to special reasons and circumstances proves the rule.”

P.4 “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.”

p. 33 "To spur Palestinians to leave their cities and villages was an objective that the Jewish side implemented as part of the Zionist operation to uproot and occupy. The Zionists had two cherished objectives: fewer Arabs in the country and more land in the hands of the settlers"

1947-1948 not mentioned checkY
Khalidi 2020 p. 75:

"The Nakba represented a watershed in the history of Palestine and the Middle East. It transformed most of Palestine from what it had been for well over a millennium—a majority Arab country—into a new state that had a substantial Jewish majority. This transformation was the result of two processes: the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country seized during the war; and the theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees as well as much of that owned by those Arabs who remained in Israel. There would have been no other way to achieve a Jewish majority, the explicit aim of political Zionism from its inception. Nor would it have been possible to dominate the country without the seizures of land."

  • "from its inception" refers to the goal of achieving Jewish majority
  • "ethnic cleansing" refers to 1948
 ☒N

the goal is formulated as "(substantial) Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"

☒N

no mention of "as few Arabs" (deducing it from "ethnic cleansing" is SYNTH)

Slater 2020 p. 49

"There were three arguments for the moral acceptability of some form of transfer. The main one—certainly for the Zionists but not only for them—was the alleged necessity of establishing a secure and stable Jewish state in as much of Palestine as was feasible, which was understood to require a large Jewish majority."), p. 81 ("From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state")

From the outset of the Zionist movement ☒N

the goal is formulated as "large Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"

checkY
Segev 2019 p. 418, "the Zionist dream from the start—maximum territory, minimum Arabs"; "from the start" not mentioned checkY
Cohen 2017 P. 75: “Some historians, such as Ilan Pappé (2006) and Nur Masalha (1992), claim that the Zionist movement from the very beginning sought to expel Arabs from the Jewish national homeland, and that in 1948 the Jewish military forces followed an existing plan to implement this goal. One source that Pappé (2006) uses to support this argument in his book is a widespread survey of the Arab villages undertaken by the Haganah’s intelligence services between the end of the 1930s and the eve of the 1948 war. This does not, in my opinion, constitute an irrefutable evidence base, as armies are known to prepare contingency plans for worst-case scenarios without intending to implement them unless forced to do so. I would argue that the Zionist leadership had considered several possible scenarios and that an all-out war was only one of them."

P. 77: “In my view, it would not be unrealistic to deduce that the Zionist leadership prepared itself – among other options – for a peaceful implementation of the partition resolution and for the existence of a significant Arab minority in the Jewish state. Moreover, in such a scenario, there were elements within the Jewish leadership who pushed toward improving Arab conditions and Arab– Jewish relations in the new state. Such an analysis would become even more plausible if we consider a parallel committee that was established by the Yishuv leadership to deal with the Jewish settlements situated in areas designated to be incorporated into the Arab state. This view should not come as a surprise, as it goes hand in hand with what remained official Zionist policy for years. In 1943, i.e., after the Jewish Agency had adopted the idea of a Jewish state as an urgent political demand, Ben-Gurion said that the Zionist aspiration was to reach a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel in the shortest period possible."

p. 78 "One should bear in mind, though, that the democratic, equality-oriented, inclusive position was not the only one considered by Zionist activists. As was suggested by Masalha (1992), Morris (1987), and other scholars, many preferred a state without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible, and plans for population transfers were considered by Zionist leaders and activists for years. However, in the post–World War II political context, the Zionist leadership was prepared to accept (though not happily) a large Arab minority in the Jewish state and its declared position was that it would enjoy civil equality, collective rights, and the allocation of resources as outlined by the UN Partition Plan"

"from the very beginning" and "for years" are not Cohen's own claims, but are attributed to Pappe/Masalha/Morris, and most of the article is dedicated to critically assessing their claims ☒N

the goal is formulated as "Jewish majority", not "as many Jews"

Question?

Cohen disputes Pappe/Masalha claims about existing plan to expel. He does recognize the fact the having a large Arab minority was not "ideal', as far as Zionist leadership was concerned, but at the same time points out preparations for existence of such large minority.

Lustick & Berkman 2017 pp. 47–48, "As Ben-Gurion told one Palestinian leader in the early 1930s, 'Our final goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community numbering millions" (Teveth 1985:130). Ipso facto, this meant Zionism's success would produce an Arab minority in Palestine, no matter what its geographical dimensions."; early 1930s ☒N

the goal is formulated as majority "numbering millions", not "as many Jews as possible"

☒N

"Arab minority", not "as few Arabs as possible"

Stanislawski 2017 p. 65, "The upper classes of Palestinian society quickly fled the fight to places of safety within the Arab world and outside of it; the lower classes were caught between the Israeli desire to have as few Arabs as possible remaining in their new state and the Palestinians’ desire to remain on the lands they regarded as their ancient national patrimony." 1948 not mentioned checkY
Rouhana & Sabbagh-Khoury 2014 p. 6, ""It was obvious to most approaches within the Zionist movement—certainly to the mainstream as represented by Labor Zionism and its leadership headed by Ben Gurion, that a Jewish state would entail getting rid of as many of the Palestinian inhabitants of the land as possible,³³”... (33. Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.) ...

Following Wolfe, we argue that the logic of demographic elimination is an inherent component of the Zionist project as a settler-colonial project, although it has taken different manifestations since the founding of the Zionist movement.";

not specified

("inherent component" doesn't provide a clear indication regarding temporality)

not mentioned checkY Question?

the authors quote Pappe, hence in context of this claim should be viewed as tertiary source

Engel 2013 p. 96 "From the outset Zionism had been the activity of a loose coalition of individuals and groups united by a common desire to increase the Jewish population of Palestine ..."),

p. 138 "To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested ... to leave both the Jewish state and Arab Palestine with the smallest possible minorities. That suggestion had fired Zionist imaginations; now it was possible to think of a future state as ‘Jewish’ not only by international recognition of the right of Jews to dominate its government but by the inclinations of virtually all of its inhabitants. Such was how the bulk of the Zionist leadership understood the optimal ‘Jewish state’ in 1948: non-Jews (especially Arabs) might live in it and enjoy all rights of citizenship, but their numbers should be small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal…")

Explicitly considers two distinct periods - before and after the Peel Commission (1937) ☒N Before the Peel Commission the goal was "any majority, no matter how slim".


checkY By 1948 - "virtually all of its inhabitants" 		☒N Before the Peel Commission the goal was just minority


checkY The Peel Commission proposed "smallest possible minorities"


checkY 1948 - " small enough compared to the Jewish population that their impact on public life would be minimal"
Masalha 2012 p. 38, "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period the demographic and land policies of the Zionist Yishuv in Palestine continued to evolve. But its demographic and land battles with the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were always a battle for 'maximum land and minimum Arabs' "From the late nineteenth century and throughout the Mandatory period" not mentioned "minimum Arabs"checkY
Lentin 2010 p. 7, "'the Zionist leadership was always determined to increase the Jewish space ... Both land purchases in and around the villages, and military preparations, were all designed to dispossess the Palestinians from the area of the future Jewish state' (Pappe 2008: 94)."; "always" not mentioned checkY Question?

the author is not a historian, but a sociologist and the claims are direct quotes from Pappe, hence in context of this claim should be viewed as tertiary source

Shlaim 2009 p. 56, "That most Zionist leaders wanted the largest possible Jewish state in Palestine with as few Arabs inside it as possible is hardly open to question."; not mentioned checkY
Pappe 2006 p. 250: “Ehud Olmert, now prime minister, knows that if Israel decides to stay in the Occupied Territories and its inhabitants become officially part of Israel’s population, Palestinians will outnumber Jews within fifteen years. Thus he has opted for what he calls hitkansut, Hebrew for ‘convergence’ or, better, ‘ingathering’, a policy that aims at annexing large parts of the West Bank, but at the same time leaves several populous Palestinian areas outside direct Israeli control. In other words, hitkansut is the core of Zionism in a slightly different garb: to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.” ☒N

talks about “Realignment plan” promoted by Ehud Olmert in 2006 - not relevant to the discussion of the pre-1948 period

Morris 2004 p. 588, "But the displacement of Arabs from Palestine or from the areas of Palestine that would become the Jewish State was inherent in Zionist ideology and, in microcosm, in Zionist praxis from the start of the enterprise. The piecemeal eviction of tenant farmers, albeit in relatively small numbers, during the first five decades of Zionist land purchase and settlement naturally stemmed from, and in a sense hinted at, the underlying thrust of the ideology, which was to turn an Arab-populated land into a State with an overwhelming Jewish majority"

p. 44: “Hence, if during the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century Zionist advocacy of transfer was uninsistent, low-key and occasional, by the early 1930s a full-throated near-consensus in support of the idea began to emerge among the movement’s leaders. Each major bout of Arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution.”

p. 59: “The bouts of Zionist reflection about and espousal of transfer usually came not out of the blue but in response to external factors or initiatives: In the early 1930s, Zionist meditation on the idea of transfer was a by-product of Arab violence and the frustration of efforts to persuade the British to allow Zionist settlement in Transjordan; in the late 1930s, it was triggered by the Arab revolt and the Peel Commission’s recommendation to transfer the Arab population out of the area designated for Jewish statehood;”

"inherent" or "underlying thrust"≠ explicit "want", therefore temporality of "want" is not defined in the currently used quote

On the other hand, two additional quotes from p. 44 and p. 59 point to early 1930s as the time when such explicit near-consensual "want" began to form

☒N

the goal is formulated as "overwhelming Jewish majority", not "as many Jews as possible"

☒N

- "piecemeal eviction" or "displacement" ≠ "as few Arabs as possible" - claiming they are equivalent would be SYNTH.

Additional sources
Morris 2009 p. 351 " the idea of transfer was never adopted as part of the Zionist movement's platform, nor as part of the programme or platform of any of the main Zionist parties, not in the nineteenth century and not in the twentieth century. And, in general, the Zionist leaders looked to massive Jewish immigration, primarily from Russia and Europe, as the means of establishing and then assuring a Jewish majority in Palestine or whatever part of it was to be earmarked for Jewish statehood. until 1929 ☒N

the goal is formulated as "a Jewish majority"

☒N

Jewish majority was expected to be established through massive Jewish immigration, not "transfer"

Laqueur 2009 p. 232: “...the idea of a population transfer was never official Zionist policy. Ben Gurion emphatically rejected it, saying that even if the Jews were given the right to evict the Arabs they would not make use of it. Most thought at that time that there would be sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs following the industrialisation of the country and the introduction of intensive methods of agriculture…” pre-WWI period ☒N

mainstream rejection of transfer proposals

"sufficient room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs"

Ther 2014 p. 191: “The extent to which the Zionists advanced the idea of population transfers during World War II is much disputed in the secondary literature. Palestinian authors such as Nur Masalha and advocates of “new history” in Israel have supported the argument that the Zionists had a master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from the start. There is little evidence to support this claim.” WWII Question?

This source casts doubt on the claims about "master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine", which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim

Heller 2006 p. 573: “In spite of its realistic base we see a two-fold weakness in Morris’s thesis. First, it goes back to Herzl, the founding father of political Zionism, as the supposed creator of the idea of transfer. In reality, like everybody else in European politics in his day, Herzl was ignorant of the existence of Arab nationalism. At one point he noted briefly that transfer of the poor native population was possible for economic reasons, only to reject it a little later…"

P. 574-575: “...one must conclude that it was the partition plan that was at the top on the Zionist agenda, and not transfer, even though both plans were inspired by the Peel Commission…

‘The fundamental dimension refers to the principles which determine the final goals and grand vistas in which the ideology is to be realized, while the operative dimension concerns the principles which guide concrete political actions’. I argue that both transfer and partition were expressions of ‘operative ideology’ not of ‘fundamental ideology’. Arab ethnic cleansing was therefore not more than an option of last resort in the event of war."

P. 584 “Morris’s concept of transfer of the Arabs as the focus of Zionist decision making has no basis in political reality. “

☒N

Heller disputes the framing of "transfer" (which is closely related to the "as few Arabs as possible" claim) as one of Zionist core goals

Galnoor 1995. pp. 179-180 “The commission investigated the possibility of voluntary populations and land exchanges and the prospects of finding solutions for those who would be moved and reached the conclusion that it is "impossible to assume that the minority problem will be solved by a voluntary transfer of population." Incidentally, the commission also concluded that the Jews opposed forced transfer. Transfer as a concrete political possibility never exceeded the bounds of the 1937 royal commission report - it was born and buried there. It was not even mentioned in the United Nations partition plan of 1947. Had transfer not been included in the Peel commission report, it would not have been placed on the political agenda of the Zionist movement, even though the idea itself had been mentioned occasionally in the past.” ☒N

According to Galnor, transfer wasn't seriously considered by Zionist leadership either before Peel Commission's proposal or after it, and it wasn't an inherent part of mainstream Zionist thinking.

Karsh 2010 p. 5: “...the recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British mandate and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record, and one that is completely at odds with the anti-Israel caricature that is so often the order of the day. They reveal … that the claim of premeditated dispossession is not only baseless but the inverse of the truth; and that far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the UN partition resolution. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place, for the simple reason that the Zionist movement was amenable both to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state on an equal footing, and to the two-state solution, raised for the first time in 1937 by a British commission of inquiry and reiterated by the partition resolution.” ☒N

"the Zionist movement was amenable ...to the existence of a substantial non-Jewish minority in the prospective Jewish state "

Gorny 2006 p. 6: “Therefore, national values such as return to the soil, Jewish labor, the renaissance of Hebrew culture, and the aspiration to a Jewish majority became political fundamentals in Zionism...

Zionist policy from Herzl’s time to the establishment of the State of Israel had three dimensions… The second dimension, the intercommunal, included Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine in all their senses. In an attempt to work out joint arrangements, if only partial and provisional, that would allow them to coexist with the Arab population of the country, the Zionists aspired to cooperation in municipal government, an arrangement for relations between Jewish and Arab labor organizations, general agrarian reform, and other matters.

The third dimension was reflected in the Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs, who were embroiled in struggle for the same piece of land. By the very fact of having such plans, the movement signaled its intention to replace side-by-side existence with coexistence." p. 102: “In his background remarks to the proposal, Jabotinsky based himself solely on examples of federative regimes that had passed the test of political durability and met human and social moral standards. He disputed the argument that the Arabs of Palestine would become a nationally oppressed group after they became a minority of two million amid five million Jews, as his proposal envisaged.” (description of Jabotinsky’s 1940 constitution proposal)

☒N

"aspiration to a Jewish majority"

☒N

"the Zionists aspired to cooperation" "Zionist Movement’s political plans and its ideas for the shaping of fair and enlightened relations between Jews and Arabs"

constitution proposal envisioning two million Arabs in future state - double their number in 1940, when the proposal was written

Rubin 2019 p. 497: "Jabotinsky’s commitment to minority rights in Europe also shaped his outlook on the future of Palestine. From 1917 until the outbreak of the Second World War, Jabotinsky envisioned a majority Jewish state in Palestine with elaborate guarantees for the protection of the Arab minority. This vision was premised on a major moral leap that characterized many Zionist leaders – conceiving of Palestine’s Arab majority as a future minority subject to minority protections"

p. 506 "...Jabotinsky also rejected the plan on moral grounds, fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine. Jabotinsky underscored this point in several letters and speeches from 1937..."

p. 508 "Zionist leaders had mocked Zangwill’s proposal for the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine during the First World War"

Jabotinsky's position until the outbreak of WWII ☒N

"a majority Jewish state"

☒N

"elaborate guarantees for the protection of the Arab minority"

"fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine"

"mocked Zangwill’s proposal for the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine"

Penslar 2023 p. 67 "There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism. Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation. Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?..." ☒N

points out that the narrative of "as few Arabs as possible" is just one side of the scholarly debate about Zionism and is far from being a consensus

As can be seen from the table, several of the existing sources don't support the "as many Jews, as few Arabs as possible" framing, and some of them support it only as description of a particular period, rather than a core Zionist goal throughout the pre-state period.

And the additional sources either dispute the "as few Arabs" part entirely, or at least acknowledge that there is no scholarly consensus about it. DancingOwl (talk) 10:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Levivich, i really like thinking about your table, am renaming columns and adding lots more. I am also deleting the "more Jews" and "fewer Arabs" columns tho and don't agree with the table's intent.

The result of the ideology and praxis, the movement, was not only moving Jewish people in but also moving Palestinian people out. "fewer Arabs" needs said somehow and prominently in the lead. I don't think there is any real question here except how to say it. fiveby(zero) 13:46, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

well, actually, if you consider the totality of different RS - like the ones described in the table above - it becomes clear that there is no consensus on this question.
There is a very wide spectrum of opinions, ranging from the claim that Zionists wanted to expel Arabs from the very start, through the views that this was considered only during particular periods in response to Arab violence and were never one of the Zionist core goals, and to the claims that from the early days of Zionism and till establishment of Israel Zionist were looking for ways to peacefully coexist with Arabs in Palestine.
The current phrasing only represents one extreme end of this spectrum, hence clearly violating the NPOV principle, so the question is what is the appropriate weight that the "fewer Arabs" thesis should receive in this article - in particular, whether it should be addressed in the lead at all, and if it should - what phrasing would reflect the spectrum of opinions in a most balanced way. DancingOwl (talk) 19:53, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I think DancingOwl has shown a reasonable enough doubt that we need to reflect minority and alternate POVs and address the lack of an impartial tone. Andre🚐 20:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

claims that from the early days of Zionism and till establishment of Israel Zionist were looking for ways to peacefully coexist with Arabs in Palestine.

This is not the opposite end of the claim that Zionists wanted to expel Arabs from the very start. DMH223344 (talk) 02:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
I didn't say that this claim is the opposite of the "always wanted to expel" claim, but that there is a spectrum of opinions and this claim is on the other end of the spectrum.
Or did you mean to say that you'd define the other end of the spectrum differently? DancingOwl (talk) 04:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
My point is that the movement planning for existing alongside an Arab minority does not mean that they did not want as small a minority as possible. The two are not mutually exclusive in any sense. DMH223344 (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
They are not mutually exclusive, if you interpret the "as few Arabs as possible" claim as a neutral statement about preferences, rather than a core goal determining the policy.
However, if you consider it in context and look at the sentence in its entirety, it's a clear expression of the "separatism/expropriation" end of the spectrum that Penslar talks about in the last quote in the table, and the other end of the spectrum is not represented at all. DancingOwl (talk) 05:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Certainly Zionism was not open to arab self-determination in Palestine at the expense of Jewish self-determination. No one argues that. And neither does Penslar actually argue that the mainstream Zionism perspective was that Arabs and Jews could have self-determination in Palestine. In Zionism, Palestine is for the Jews, and the Arabs can be at most inhabitants without national rights. DMH223344 (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
What you are describing is not "the mainstream Zionist perspective", but mainly Jabotinsky's views, and even his views evolved with time - for example, in the early 1920s he proposed a Jewish-Arab federative state. As a sidenote, for most of his life Jabotinsky's also vehemently opposed the idea of population transfer (i.e., "as few Arabs as possible") and only changed his position after the WWII broke out.
As to the rest of the Zionist movement, several models of bi-national or federalist state have been considered throughout the pre-1948 period (including several variants proposed by Ben Gurion) - Gorny describes them at length in his 2006 book and also gives an short overview here.
Also, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "actually argue that the mainstream Zionism perspective was that Arabs and Jews could have self-determination in Palestine", given the fact that most of Zionist leaders accepted the partition principle proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, as well as the UN Partition Plan in 1947. DancingOwl (talk) 06:28, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Are you sure? Finkelstein:

The cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am was (in Gorny’s words) ‘firm in his insistence that both peoples in Palestine be treated justly’, but he ‘saw the historical rights of the Jews outweighing the Arabs’ residential rights in Palestine’ (pp. 103–4). Max Nordau declared that Palestine was the ‘legal and historical inheritance’ of the Jewish nation, ‘of which they were robbed 1900 years ago by the Roman aggressors’; the Palestinian Arabs had only ‘possession rights’ (p. 157). Jabotinsky asserted that since the Arab nation incorporated ‘large stretches of land’, it would be an ‘act of justice’ to requisition Palestine ‘in order to make a home for a wandering people’; the Palestinian Arabs would still have a place to call their own, indeed, any of fully nine countries to the east and west of the Suez (pp. 166, 168–9). In Ben-Gurion’s view, Palestine had a ‘national’ significance for Jews and thus ‘belonged’ to them; in contrast, Palestinian Arabs, as constituents of the great Arab nation, regarded not Palestine, but Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula as their ‘historical’ homeland – Palestine was of only ‘individual’ importance to them, the locale where they happened to dwell presently. The Jewish people were therefore entitled to concentrate in Palestine whereas the Palestinian Arab community should enjoy merely those rights redounding on residents (pp. 210–12, 217–18).16

As for Jabotinsky, he was well within the mainstream Zionist movement (and Gorny treats him and his revisionists that way):

As a member of the Zionist Executive in 1921-3, he soon discovered that what divided him from his col­leagues in the Zionist leadership was not political differences, but mainly his style of political action

It's well established that partition was accepted to enable the eventual control of all of Palestine. Morris on the Peel commission partition principle:

But leaders like Ben-Gurion, while saying yes, continued to entertain in their hearts the vision of “the Whole Land of Israel” (“Greater Israel,” as it was later to be called). Ben-Gurion repeatedly declared (though not in front of the British) that the ministate London was offering would serve merely as the springboard for future Jewish conquest of the whole land: Palestine was to be taken over in stages.

DMH223344 (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, this all supports the existing wording too. Lewisguile (talk) 19:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure. (sorry for the delayed response - turned out that the text below, which I thought I published already, remained in drafts).
For example take the passage about Ahad Ha’am that Finkelstein is quoting from Gorny - the next sentence in Gorny's books is:

But his further claim that continued Jewish national existence depended on the creation of a Jewish majority in Palestine did not conflict with the Arab demand for justice. Moreover, in insisting on ‘historical rights’, Ahad Ha'Am was implying the superiority of spiritual aspirations over material existence.

and just before that, on pages 101-102, Gorny says:

We have seen that Ahad Ha'Am’s general outlook was based on the following principles: special political status for the Jews in Palestine as a small minority within the Arab population; recognition of the need to find ways of achieving peaceful co-operation with the Arabs;...
... He pointed to the fact that the phrase ‘building a national home in Palestine’ was not a mere question of semantics. The Government did not in fact intend to hand over all of Palestine to the Jews. It had guaranteed to respect the rights of the local population and hence its insistence that the granting of rights to the Jews did not annul the rights of other residents. We noted above Ahad Ha'Am’s emphatic demand that Weizmann stress the historical right of the Jews to Palestine. Here he attempts to explain the significance of this concept under prevailing conditions. ‘The historical right of a people to a country settled by others’, he explains, ‘means only one thing: the right to return to settle in the land of their fathers, to cultivate it and to develop its potential uninterruptedly.’ This right is not only theoretical but also practical, because it helps the returning people to withstand the opposition of the local population...
‘But’, Ahad Ha'Am cautions, ‘this historical right does not abolish the right of the other residents of the country, who have enjoyed the real right to reside and labour in the country for generations past. This country is their national home as well and they too have the right to develop their national powers to the best of their ability.’ The conclusion is unequivocal. ‘This situation renders Palestine the joint home of various peoples, each endeavouring to build its national home there.’

In other words, the sentence quoted by Finkestein doesn't mean that Ahad Ha’am thought 'historical rights' of the Jews negate Arabs' rights for self-determination, but only that they grants the Jews the right to build their national home in Palestine, side by side with Arabs, despite Arab opposition.
Similarly, the full quote about Nordau says:

The Jewish people, Nordau believed, had received international recognition as a nation, and this implied ‘the right to Jewish possession of their legal and historical inheritance, the land of their fathers, of which they were robbed 1900 years ago by the Roman aggressors’. His conclusion was that the term ‘national home’ could have only one meaning: ‘an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine, and nothing else’. As a positivist, he was aware, however, that if the ‘historical right’ was to become ‘historical reality’, some forceful ‘historic deed’ was required, i.e. mass Jewish immigration, accompanied by vast capital investment. As long as the Jews constituted the minority, their moral and historical proprietorship was in question. As for the Arabs of Palestine, they had ‘possession rights’ to Palestine, and their existence attested to the fact that they were a separate national and anthropological entity.

So the meaning of the full passage is exactly opposite to how Finkelstein tries to frame it using out-of-context truncated quotes - Gorny saya here that, for Nordau, the rights of Arabs of Palestine were self-evident, stemming from their very existence in this land as "a separate national and anthropological entity", whereas the right of the Jews, on the other hand, "was in question", as long as they remained a minority in Palestine.
In other words, for Nordau, "historical rights" were not superior to "possession rights", but on the contrary - the former were nothing more than a potentiality, while the latter was the real thing, and Arabs already had it as given, while Jews still had to "earn" it.
With Jabotinsky, again, Finkelstein misrepresents what Gorny is actually saying.
Here is the full quote from p. 167:

Requisition of an area of land from a nation with large stretches of territory in order to make a home for a wandering people is an act of justice, and if the land-owning nation does not wish to cede it (and this is completely natural) it must be compelled. A sacred truth, for whose realization the use of force is essential, does not cease thereby to be a sacred truth. This is the basis of our stand on Arab opposition; and we shall talk of a settlement only when they are ready to discuss it.

Now, notice what Gorny says just before that, on page 166:

To control Palestine through military might did not inevitably imply a perpetual struggle between the two peoples. According to Jabotinsky’s dialectical approach, the reverse was true. He was not suggesting that it was impossible to arrive at a settlement: ‘ What is impossible is voluntary agreement’, because ‘as long as there lingers in the heart of the Arabs even the faintest hope that they may succeed in ridding themselves of us, there are no blandishments or promises in the world which have the power to persuade them to renounce their hope — precisely because they are not a mob, but a living nation.’ Only when the wave of adamant opposition was shattered against the ‘iron wall’ would moderate response and more practical and measured elements come to the fore. When these forces took up the reins of power, the road would be open to negotiations based on mutual concessions, respect for the rights of the local population, and protection of this population from discrimination and dispossession.

and also what he says on p. 168:

In the political context, however, such indifference could not be maintained, because he was well aware that they were a permanent element in Palestine, and regarded their expulsion from the country as ‘totally unthinkable’. Thus, any solution of the Arab problem must be based on recognition of their national rights, and not only of their civil rights.

If you read this in its entirety, it becomes clear that Jabotinsky doesn't talk about dispossession of Palestinian Arabs or denial of their national rights, but about standing firm against Arab denial of Jewish national rights.
Finkelstein's presentation of Ben-Gurion's views is similarly full of omissions and distortions. For example, Finkelstein's implication that Palestine "belonged" to Jews and not to Arabs is directly contradicted by what Gorny says on p. 210, in the beginning of the passage on which Finkelstein allegedly bases his claims:

This plan was based on several underlying assumptions: (a) ‘Palestine belongs to the Jewish people and to the Arabs who reside therein’.

Moreover Gorny continues:

Ben-Gurion sought to establish a constitutional regime in Palestine in which Jews and Arabs as individuals and as communities would enjoy equal rights. It would be based on the principle that neither people had the right to dominate the other. ‘It is essential to establish just relations between Jews and Arabs, irrespective of majority-minority relations. It must at all times guarantee to both peoples the possibility of undisturbed development and full national independence, in such fashion that at no time will Arabs rule Jews or Jews Arabs.

The passage about "Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula", which Finkelstein misattributes to Ben-Gurion, in fact belongs to Moshe Beilinson, who said (p. 214):

"...The Arab community is not the sole proprietor of this country. It also belongs to the Jewish people, as their homeland...
...the Jewish people should not be deprived of their right to existence because of the need to guarantee the right to self-determination of the Arab inhabitants of the country ... There is a fundamental and decisive difference between the situation of the Arabs as a nation and that of the Jews as a nation. Palestine is not needed by the Arabs from the national point of view. They are bound to other centres. There, in Syria, in Iraq, in the ; Arabian Peninsula lies the homeland of the Arab people.

In other words, the context here is, once again, assertion of Jewish right to build a national home in Palestine, not a denial of Palestinian Arabs' rights.
Finally, here's the full passage about Jewish people's right "to concentrate in Palestine" (p. 218):

Palestine was important to the Jews as a nation and to the Arabs as individuals, and hence the right of the Jewish people to concentrate in Palestine, a right which was not due to the Arabs. This idea of inequality of status was partially amended in his constitutional plan through the self-administration he proposed, aimed at ensuring political equality for the Arab majority (which would some day become a minority).

Here again, Gorny talks about political equality for Arabs, contrary to what Finkelstein tries to imply using a truncated quote. DancingOwl (talk) 14:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
None of that contradicts that the Zionist perspective was that the Jews could not permit themselves to compromise or to make significant concessions, and thus the motives of the Arabs (whether base or noble) were of no moral or historical significance. (Gorny's words) DMH223344 (talk) 17:42, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Once again, you omit critical context:
1. Gorny is not making a general statement about Zionism, but talks specifically about Beilinson
2. The passage refers specifically to partition discussions following the Peel Commission proposal
3. The next paragraph reads:

Despite his gloomy, even tragic perception of the situation, Beilinson called for public avowal that the future Jewish state would grant the Arabs full equal political status through a constitutional regime based on parity.

DancingOwl (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
No he's not talking specifically about Beilinson, that's why the paragraph I quoted from starts with This was perhaps the ultimate expression of the theory of the necessity of force, accepted by most trends of Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
So this discussion applies to Zionism as a whole, not just Beilinson. DMH223344 (talk) 00:10, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Let's look at the full quote:

Two months after violence erupted (and shortly before his death), Beilinson asked:
Till when? Till when is the Zionist movement condemned to fight and to struggle for its existence? Until the might of the Jewish people in their own land will, a priori, spell defeat for any adversary who attacks us; until the most ardent and most daring within the enemy camp, wherever they may I be, realize that there is no means of breaking the spirit of the Jewish people in their own land, for theirs is a living need and a living truth and there is no alternative but to accept them. This is the meaning of the struggle.
This was perhaps the ultimate expression of the theory of the necessity of force, accepted by most trends of Zionism. It was accompanied by the assumption that the struggle of the Jewish people, for Palestine was a question of basic survival, ’while for the Arab people, whatever their motives, the fight is not a question of life or I death’. Consequently, the Jews could not permit themselves to compromise or to make significant concessions, and thus the motives of the Arabs (whether base or noble) were of no moral or historical significance. These remarks were based on belief in moral relativity in historical development, but their dangerous implications were tempered by Beilinson’s social democratic value system.
Despite his gloomy, even tragic perception of the situation, Beilinson called for public avowal that the future Jewish state would grant the Arabs full equal political status through a constitutional regime based on parity.

So while the sentence about "the necessity of force" does refer to Zionist views after the Arab Revolt in general, the part about "moral or historical significance" that you quoted initially is a Gorny's paraphrase of Beilinson's words he quoted earlier.
More importantly, as the last quoted sentence shows, this view didn't entail a negation of Arabs' political rights, but only an insistence on assertion of Jewish right to self-determination, despite violent Arab resistance.
This distinction is critical and, as I showed earlier, it also applies to all the passages that Finkelstein selectively quotes from Gorny - when you look at the full passages, it becomes clear that the discussion was never about negating Arab's right to self-determination, but about Jews also having the same right. DancingOwl (talk) 11:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Beilinson's quote does not even mention the arabs, so how could it be a paraphrase? DMH223344 (talk) 17:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
He wrote this two month after the Arab revolt broke out - whom do you think he refers to by "adversary who attacks us"? DancingOwl (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Also note that the comment about "full equal political status" is based on the assumption that the Arabs would be a small minority. DMH223344 (talk) 17:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
What in Gorny's text suggests that Beilinson was making this assumption as a pre-requisite for equal political status? DancingOwl (talk) 18:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
On parity:
The intention was to guarantee the civil status of the Arabs in the light of the future expansion of the Jewish population and to consolidate the national rights of the Jews in the face of the existing Arab majority. DMH223344 (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
And along those same lines, Ben-Gurion advocated a bi-national regime in which the Jewish people would have ownership rights over Palestine and the Arab community would have the right to reside therein DMH223344 (talk) 19:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
We were talking about Beilinson's ideas regarding parity - but the first quote is about Weizmann, the second - about Ben-Gurion, so it doesn't address my question. DancingOwl (talk) 16:32, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
No, I'm talking about Zionism as a whole. The leadership of the movement and its mainstream ideology. DMH223344 (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I know you do, but in order to analyze their positions in a meaningful way, we need to look at each of them in context, taking into account the evolution of their views.
Mixing quotes referring to different leaders at different time periods obscures important controversies within the Zionist movement, as well as the evolution of both the personal views of the leaders and of the general consensus. DancingOwl (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
We can make a section in the article about all the arguments Zionists had with each other (and when they had them). Selfstudier (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Discussion of editors rather than content

The DancingOwl account only got started on Nov. 4, 2024. Top 10 editors to this talk page, measured in bytes:

Levivich, 14.9%. AndreJustAndre, 14.5%. Nishidani, 14%. Selfstudier, 11.5%. BrandonYusufToropov, 11.2%. Jayjg, 8.6%. DancingOwl, 7.2%. DMH223344, 7.1%. 1.122.113.194, 6%. Vegan416, 5%.

I'm not even mad. This is frankly amazing. (On the substance, the DancingOwl account is wrong. Very, very wrong.)Dan Murphy (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

1. I started a year ago
2. Not sure what conclusions need to be drawn, in your view, from the fact that I made two large edits with thorough analysis of the referenced sources
3. Will be happy to hear which part of what I wrote is "very, very wrong" DancingOwl (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
The DancingOwl account's first edit to this talk page was not a year ago. It was on November 4 2024.. You appear to believe a blizzard of edits and swamping the talk page is the way to victory. But there are no gold stars for the prolix. You should give it a rest.
Any suggestion that it was not an existential issue for Zionists/Zionism to drastically limit the Arab/Palestinian population in Israel is nonsense, as the scholarly literature shows.Dan Murphy (talk) 20:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
There's a difference between the obvious cross-interests and animosity versus "as few as possible." This wording really suggests that Zionists were out to make that number 0, and we know that's not true. If they did want it to be 0 it would be by now presumably. Yet the Arab population of Israel is about 20% or over 2 million people. In 1948, that was like 150,000, so if Israel wants that number to be as low as possible, they're very bad at this aim. Andre🚐 20:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Not to get too FORUMy, but this kind of argument should also consider the pre-Zionism demography. If the Zionist movement reduced the Arab population in what would become Israel from (say) 95% to 20%, the 20% means something different. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Not FORUMy, a good point. Bickerton Klausner has diagrams of the land ownership changes. We know that the total population was changing and the relative populations of Arabs and Jews were changing. AFAIK, there were always many more Arabs, and the Jewish population small but increasing enough that it causes unrest. Actually, I was just reading Bregman and it talks about this somewhere in the first 4 or 5 pages. The number was changing because both groups were moving around prior to any of the formal displacement writ large, which was a discontinuous break. Andre🚐 21:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
I like DancingOwl's comments. Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks DancingOwl (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
The table I published earlier shows that the scholarly literature contains a very wide range of perspectives in this question.
You are welcome to address my argument on its merits, instead of taking the ad hominem route. DancingOwl (talk) 21:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, the Dan Murphy account's contribution is snarky and unhelpful. Andre🚐 22:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
An interesting read: “Karsh has a point,” Morris wrote to The Times Literary Supplement. “My treatment of transfer thinking before 1948 was, indeed, superficial.” He also acknowledged my refutation of his misinterpretation of an important speech made by David Ben-Gurion on December 3, 1947: " is probably right in rejecting the ‘transfer interpretation’ I suggested in The Birth to a sentence in that speech.”13 He also admitted elsewhere that “Karsh appears to be correct in charging that I ‘stretched’ the evidence to make my point.”14 Andre🚐 05:24, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Having spent some time reading all of the evidence presented here, I am very convinced that we cannot say in our voice that "Zionists wanted ...as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" especially in the very start of the lead. It is a gross over-generalisation that is at odds with the complex reality. We simply can't say "Xs wanted Y" if a significant non-fringe part of the literature says that's not true and if most of the sources say something like "Some Xs wanted Y" or "In some periods most Xs wanted Y". It is also clear to me that enough editors have the same view such that there is no longer a consensus for including this in the lead, so it should be removed.
Personally, I think the proposed alternative "with a Jewish majority" works well and is supported by the literature, so I hope we can get consensus for adding that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

We simply can't say "Xs wanted Y" if a significant non-fringe part of the literature says that's not true

Which BESTSOURCES say that it's not true?

I think the proposed alternative "with a Jewish majority" works well

Why would the compromise be weaker than Morris' overwhelming Jewish majority? Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Which BESTSOURCES say that it's not true?

Did you have a chance to look at the table of sources I published a few days ago?

Why would the compromise be weaker than Morris' overwhelming Jewish majority?

Morris uses this phrase as description of what he calls "underlying thrust of the ideology", which is substantially different from explicit goal/want. And if you look at all the BESTSOURCES listed in the table, you can see that most of them use similar descriptions of the goals/wants only with regard to the later part of the pre-1948 period (mostly forties and late thirties). DancingOwl (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
I saw the table. The basic problem is that there is a difference between a source making a weaker claim ("Jewish majority") and a source saying "as many" is not true. For the latter I only see Karsh, and Laqueur, who qualifies it as a pre-WWI position. The Laqueur book was also originally written in 1972. Bitspectator ⛩️ 15:32, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The basic problem is that there is a difference between a source making a weaker claim ("Jewish majority") and a source saying "as many" is not true

You are absolutely right about the difference, but explicit refutal is not required in order to show that the current phrasing is not the best reflection of the scholarly consensus.
If the statement in the lead makes a certain - very strong - claim, it needs to be supported by a clear consensus among ALL the BESTSOURCES, not just some of them. And if we have an alternative phrasing that is supported by a larger number of explicit quotes from BESTSOURCES, then the second phrasing is clearly preferable, as far as NPOV is concerned. DancingOwl (talk) 15:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
The tables above very clearly show that there are BESTSOURCES saying it's not true. There simply isn't a scholarly consensus for "as few Arabs as possible"; there IS a scholarly consensus for "a Jewish majority". I could live with "overwhelming Jewish majority" as closer to the scholarly consensus but it still exceeds it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Penslars Herzl and the Palestinian Arabs: Myth and Counter-Myth, Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, 24:1, 65-77, DOI: 10.1080/13531040500040263 is interesting:
"Intriguingly, very few scholars writing from a Zionist perspective have engaged Herzl’s diary entry of 12 June 1895, in which he writes:
We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. The property owners may believe that they are cheating us, selling to us at more than worth. But nothing will be sold back to them.
This text, we shall see, is central to anti-Zionist propaganda and even to respectable recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective. But it is not addressed in any of the standard biographies of Herzl5 and in most literature by Israeli scholars on early Zionism’s approach to the Arabs." Selfstudier (talk) 19:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
ibid, p. 70:

...The association between Herzl and transfer is not limited to polemics but has recently crept into the work of serious historians such as Lockman, who claims that Herzl’s diary entry specifically envisioned “dispossessing and displacing Palestine’s Arab peasantry,” although in fact at that time Herzl had not determined the location of the Jewish state...

Stewart admits that at the time of the writing of these passages Herzl was unsure where the Jewish state would be established and believes he was leaning towards Latin America...

p. 71-72:

Consider Herzl’s rationale for opposing in May 1903 the proposal, made by the Zionist opposition that favored immediate settlement activity, to purchase lands in the Jezreel Valley made available for sale by the Sursuk family. He displayed not only principled opposition to “infiltration” but also conviction that, according to his first biographer, Adolf Friedmann, “Poor Arab farmers must not be driven off their land.” Two months previously, after visiting the pyramids near Cairo, Herzl jotted in his diary that “the misery of the fellahin by the road is indescribable. I resolve to think of the fellahin too, once I have the power.” This statement could be easily dismissed as yet another puerile fantasy of power and control, but if one is going to approach the diaries in a fundamentally skeptical fashion, consistency should be maintained regardless of the orientation of the entry in question.

p. 74:

By 1901 Herzl had come to believe that in the interests of state building some native landowners might need to be coaxed to cede their property and move elsewhere. But this charter, drawn up after years of negotiation and politicking both within the Zionist movement and among the crowned heads of Europe, is a far cry from the program for total expropriation jotted down in the late spring of 1895, before Herzl had even effectively formulated a Zionist program.

DancingOwl (talk) 20:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Morris goes into it as well, linking it to transfer. Selfstudier (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
And Karsh goes to great lengths criticizing the fact that Morris also omitted critical context:

Morris’s only ‘evidence’ for this claim is a truncated paragraph from Herzl’s 12 June 1895 diary entry, which had been a feature of Palestinian propaganda for decades prior to its ‘discovery’ by Morris. But this entry is not enough to support such a claim, given contradictory evidence. There was no trace of such a belief in either Herzl’s famous political treatise The Jewish State (1896) or his 1902 Zionist novel Altneuland (Old-New Land). Nor for that matter is there any allusion to ‘transfer’ in Herzl’s public writings, private correspondence, or his speeches and political and diplomatic discussions. Morris simply discards the canon of Herzl’s life’s work in favour of a single, isolated quote.
But what did Herzl actually write in his diary? Here is the complete text, with the passages omitted by Morris in italics:

When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly ...
It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honour, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example ... Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas , we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us..

By omitting the opening sentence, Morris hides the fact that Herzl viewed Jewish settlement as beneficial to the indigenous population and that he did not conceive of the new Jewish entity as comprising this country in its entirety. This is further underscored by Herzl’s confinement of the envisaged expropriation of private property to ‘the estates assigned to us’ – another fact omitted by Morris. Any discussion of relocation was clearly limited to the specific lands assigned to the Jews, rather to the entire territory. Had Herzl envisaged the mass expulsion of the population, as claimed by Morris, there would have been no need to discuss its position in the Jewish entity.
Most importantly, Herzl’s diary entry makes no mention of either Arabs or Palestine, and for good reason. A careful reading of Herzl’s diary entries for June 1895 reveals that he considered Argentina, rather than Palestine, to be the future site of Jewish resettlement...
‘I am assuming that we shall go to Argentina’, Herzl recorded in his diary on 13 June. ... Indeed, as vividly illustrated by Herzl’s diary entries during the same month, all political and diplomatic activities for the creation of the future Jewish state, including the question of the land and its settlement, were conceived in the Latin American context...
In short, Morris based his arguments on a red herring. He not only misrepresents a quote to distort its original meaning, but he ignores the context, which had nothing to do with Palestine or Arabs.

DancingOwl (talk) 15:41, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Uh huh, I'm sticking with best sources tho, I can pull up any number of sources if we open it up to Karsh type sourcing (ie polemical). Selfstudier (talk) 15:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
1. Karsh is a professional historian and "Israel Affairs" is a peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis - so his article definitely qualifies for inclusion in BESTSOURCES.
2. Penslar says very similar things in the paper that you yourself quoted. DancingOwl (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
No objections to using Penslar, he was on the bestsources list we drew up a while back and I am not saying that Karsh cannot be used, Idk how reliable this is but I would at least start there if I was going to look into the matter. Selfstudier (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I find this characterization of Karsh rather ironic, in context of the ongoing RFC about the lead: :)

"...focusing on sources which support his argument, whilst failing to engage with the full range of evidence...

DancingOwl (talk) 16:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
More importantly, Penslar - whom you quoted as allegedly supporting the interpretation that Herzl wanted "as few Arabs as possible" - is actually disputing this interpretation, if you look at his article in full. DancingOwl (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Then why mention Karsh at all? Selfstudier (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
because you mentioned Morris using the same quote DancingOwl (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
So your idea is that Karsh refutes Morris? Selfstudier (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
He definitely disputes Morris' interpretation, and I don't think it's our job as editors to try determine whose interpretation is "better" - we just need to take into account the fact the such a controversy among the experts exists. DancingOwl (talk) 17:00, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
It depends, on what it is you want to cite Karsh for, I might not be disposed to accept what he says as due, whereas I would have much less difficulty in accepting what Morris says as being due. Selfstudier (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
could you elaborate why you consider that Morris' thesis is due and Karsh's is not? DancingOwl (talk) 18:35, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
That's not what I said either, I said it depends on what you want to cite Karsh for. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
whom you quoted as allegedly supporting the interpretation that Herzl wanted "as few Arabs as possible" That's not what I did, look again. Selfstudier (talk) 16:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
ok, perhaps I misunderstood - what was the point you wanted to make with this Penslar's quote? DancingOwl (talk) 16:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I will repeat a part of what I quoted already This text, we shall see, is central to anti-Zionist propaganda and even to respectable recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective. But it is not addressed in any of the standard biographies of Herzl and in most literature by Israeli scholars on early Zionism’s approach to the Arabs."
My interest lies more in this type of statement rather than (some historian) thinks (whatever they think), which is just the view of one historian. Selfstudier (talk) 16:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
ok, got it - I agree that such meta-statements are important, but first of all, after making this statement, Penslar himself undertakes the task of critically addressing this quote, hence - at least partially - filling the gap he pointed to.
And second, here is another meta-statement from his 2023 book, that is highly relevant to this whole discussion:

"There is a deep divide, however, between scholars who do and do not conceive of Zionism as a variety of colonialism. Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation. Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?..."

And, as I said earlier, this is the core point of my criticism of the current phrasing about 'as few Arabs as possible.' It's not that this perspective is not a valid POV held by several important scholars — it certainly is. However, it reflects just one side of the spectrum, rather than a broad scholarly consensus on the essence of the Zionist project. DancingOwl (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
And you have determined this broad scholarly consensus how, exactly? Selfstudier (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
1. Using Penslar's definition of the two side of the spectrum
2. By examining what multiple RS belonging to different parts of the spectrum have to say about core Zionist goals regarding Jewish-Arab relationships and demographic balance (see table above). DancingOwl (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Those sources you brought earlier are only to do with the few Arabs as possible thing not the "essence of the Zionist project". Penslar (again, one historian) says of the essence, return or colonialism, perhaps it is both and how much of each is open to debate, Idk. Then two key questions...inclusive or separatist? And ME integration (the continuation that you omitted). We are not going to get very far with this if all we do is pick out bits of quotes that we like. Selfstudier (talk) 19:03, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
It's a good point, here Penslar is talking about "essence" specifically, not about whether it is and has been "inclusive or separatist." DMH223344 (talk) 19:20, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
He talks about scholarly debates regarding this "essence", and then elaborates:

Two key questions run through the debate over Zionism and colonialism. First, is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land? And second, has Israel been willing to integrate into the Arab Middle East, or is it determined to dwell in isolation, buttressed by alliances and cultural ties with Western powers?"

The first of those question - ...is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land? - is directly related to the discussion we are having about the "as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part of the lead. DancingOwl (talk) 19:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
And the answer is? Selfstudier (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Those are the questions being discussed as part of the debate Penslar describes, and naturally each side of the debate gives a different answer to those questions. DancingOwl (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
The sentence being discussed in RFC describes core Zionist goal as "create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible".
My claim is that at least the "as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible" part is not a reflection of scholarly consensus, which why the table above focuses only on those two aspects, with particular emphasis on the "as few Arabs" part.
For the purposes of this discussion, the key observation Penslar makes is a meta-statement about existence of major controversies regarding the "essence of the Zionist project". In particular, he points out two key questions/dimensions, one of which is directly related to the "as few Arabs" claim - "... is Zionism inherently inclusive or separatist, open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land" - which is why I quoted this part and not the second one, which is irrelevant to this discussion.
So it's not a matter of "bits of quotes that we like", but of relevance to the topic being discussed. DancingOwl (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I have said what I wanted to say. Selfstudier (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I already cited that in an earlier debate about colonialism (see the archives). Selfstudier (talk) 18:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
This doesn't really tell us much. Plenty of colonial projects said that they would bring benefits to the natives. And the fact that Palestine had not been decided on at this point also does not mean much. The project required demographic homogeneity (Shafir: The goal of Zionism was to colonize Palestine and establish homogeneous Jewish settlements while suppressing Palestinian national aspirations.) which depended on the removal of the native population, regardless of its location. DMH223344 (talk) 16:35, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree that the "benefits" is the weaker part of Karsh's critique, and, in any case, as I said above, Penslar makes a much more thorough argument against interpreting this diary entry as evidence of Herzl's support for "as few Arab as possible" narrative. DancingOwl (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I think Masalha's treatment of this entry captures the main point well (as an early reference to the idea):

The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat . An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem”—the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land” and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.

DMH223344 (talk) 17:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
yes, this is pretty much how Penslar describes this thesis, as promoted in "anti-Zionist propaganda and ... recent scholarship that examines Zionism from a critical perspective".
but then the bulk of this article is dedicated to the question of whether this interpretation of a single diary entry is indeed justified, and he provides several examples contesting such interpretation and pointing to evolution of Herzl's views, concluding with (emphasis mine):

By 1901 Herzl had come to believe that in the interests of state building some native landowners might need to be coaxed to cede their property and move elsewhere. But this charter, drawn up after years of negotiation and politicking both within the Zionist movement and among the crowned heads of Europe, is a far cry from the program for total expropriation jotted down in the late spring of 1895, before Herzl had even effectively formulated a Zionist program.

DancingOwl (talk) 18:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
That can be read as saying that his thought (albeit less forceful) continued through 1901? Selfstudier (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I think that would be inaccurate, because the difference between "some" and "all" (or even "most") is a categorical one, it's not just a difference of degree. DancingOwl (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Putting it all together, Penslar acknowledges that most scholarly references to the diary entry are part of a discussion of the origins of "transfer" in Zionist thought. My understanding is that he doesn't think much weight should be given to that entry. So it's his assessment against most scholarly references. DMH223344 (talk) 19:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
On this particular question - it is, indeed, his (and Karsh's) assessment against proponents of the "as few Arabs as possible" narrative.
But if we look at the discussion about this narrative as a whole, and not only the question of importance (or lack of) of this particular diary entry - there is a multitude of scholarly voices contesting this narrative (again, see the table above) DancingOwl (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
A private diary from the 1890s definitely isn't the place where mainstream Zionist positions were publicly articulated for the 1900s to 1940s period. Again, it's clear there is no scholarly consensus for "as few Arabs as possible" being the broad Zionist position, particularly in this period, so we just need to agree a form of wording to replace it, e.g. "with a Jewish majority". BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:45, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't agree (lots of sources reference it) and it will need a new RFC for that once the current one is dealt with. Selfstudier (talk) 15:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Lots of sources reference it doesn’t mean it’s taken as a good gauge of mainstream Zionist opinion for all subsequent decades. BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Bob, but good look finding a consensus for an alternative text, or even a consensus to make any change. Despite I think a good argument being made above, we appear to still not be winning over the hearts and minds on this. Andre🚐 04:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Imo, we need to move away from the list (of those historians who agree with me) mentality and look for more meta type discussions, after all this is primarily a history article so those should exist. I realise the historiography is fraught and polarized so then we should reflect that but we should do it properly, at least to the extent possible. Selfstudier (talk) 11:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree that meta-level discussions would be extremely valuable, but apart from Heller 2006 and Penslar 2023, mentioned above, I haven't encountered any other attempts to provide a balanced bird-eye view of the topic. DancingOwl (talk) 15:27, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
The question is bound up with the idea of transfer. If we take The British Mandate in Palestine A Centenary Volume, 1920–2020 Ed by Michael J Cohen then
There is a contribution by Hillel Cohen, 9. Zionism as a blessing to the Arabs: History of an argument presented as "in contrast to the Zionist approach that focused on the Jewish people only, and believed that it was better to evacuate (“transfer”) the Arabs of Palestine in order to establish a homogenous Jewish state. Whereas the idea of transferring the Arabs has been discussed at length in the literature by supporters and opponents, 1", where the "1" is footnoted to these four:
Israel Shahak, A history of the concept of ‘transfer’ in Zionism, Journal of Palestine Studies, 18/3, 1989, pp. 22–37;
Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians:The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948, Washington DC: Institute for Palestinian Studies, 1992;
Chaim Simons, A Historical Survey of Proposals to Transfer Arabs from Palestine 1895–1947, Gengis Khan Publishers, Internet edition 2004;
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 39–64
Well we have Masalha and Morris in our Transfer section of the article (along with Gorny, Finkelstein, Ben Ami and Flapan) but I don't see the other two, nor in Dancing Owl list either, perhaps there is a reason for that. So there is part confirmation for our sourcing and a path to perhaps seek out more.
We should try to see if there are more such reference which pick out suitable sourcing on the issue of transfer in order to confirm that our sourcing constitutes a representative sampling. Selfstudier (talk) 17:33, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
So far I think only a single source (Karsh) denies the desirability of a "as few Arabs as possible" and we have a whole list saying that mainstream Zionism did indeed want "as few Arabs as possible." And Penslar says that there is a debate about the essence of Zionism: is it "inclusive or separatist?" While some authors cited do describe "as few Arabs as possible" as a fundamental, or essential aspect of the Zionist "ethos" (Ben-Ami's word), our statement is about the goals of Zionism, not necessarily about it's essence. DMH223344 (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
For some reason, you keep ignoring what Penslar says immediately after "inclusive or separatist":

"open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine, or determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land?

."determined to drive the indigenous Palestinians out of the land" is exactly the "as few Arabs as possible" part of the spectrum, and it's the only one that is being reflected in the lead currently, whereas the "open to the coterminous exercise of Jewish and Arab self-determination within historic Palestine" view is being completely ignored. DancingOwl (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree, and it's splitting hairs to claim the essence of Zionism is completely a different animal from the ethos of Zionism. Penslar clearly regards this as an issue and not a settled question. I also don't think Penslar and Karsh are standing alone. Well, Penslar's more in the middle, and Karsh on the conservative side. I'll offer some more quotes from Sachar in late 1930s: Evidently there was no way to divide Palestine without leaving a substantial Arab minority within Jewish borders... p.207, and late 40s summer of 1947, the Zionists had been explicit and emphatic in their assurances that the Arab minority of a projected Jewish state would enjoy full civil, national, and cultural rights p. 382, and from Laqueur about Jabotinsky (p.530) Revisionism recognised that there would be a substantial Arab minority in Palestine even after Jews became the majority. Or Engel, (p.138) Demographic issues worried Zionist leaders greatly after the UN partition plan left the Jewish state with an Arab minority of 400,000 – nearly 40 per cent of its population. The 1948 war mitigated those worries only somewhat. Three-quarters of the Arabs in question fled or were chased from areas designated for the Jewish state; several hundred thousand Arab residents of the additional regions Israel added in the course of repelling the invading armies became refugees as well. Nevertheless, 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel following the armistice, and international pressure for repatriating the refugees was considerable. The prospect that Israel would have only the barest Jewish majority thus loomed large in the imagination of the state’s leaders. To be sure, until the late 1930s most Zionists would have been delighted with any majority, no matter how slim; the thought that Jews in Palestine would ever be more numerous than Arabs appeared a distant vision. But in 1937 the Peel Commission had suggested that partition be accompanied by a negotiated ‘exchange of populations’....Still, the 150,000 who remained on Israeli territory seemed to many to constitute an unacceptably high proportion relative to the 650,000 Jews in the country when the state came into being. This perception not only dictated Israel’s adamant opposition to the return of Arab refugees, it reinforced the imperative to bring as many new Jewish immigrants into the country as possible, as quickly as possible, no matter how great or small their prospects for becoming the sort of ‘new Jews’ the state esteemed most.... Stanislawski, p.66: challenge to Zionism in the new state was resolved by a formal recognition of the equal rights of the Arab minority in Israel in the Declaration of Independence, combined with the imposition of military rule over Arabs in Israel... Shapira p.462, speaking of recent times The demographic growth of the Arab minority in Israel, which in the year 2000 numbered about 900,000, heightens its self-confidence. Paradoxically this growing self-confidence is evidence that Israeli Arabs are internalizing the Israeli democratic ethos, which enables them to use their numbers to achieve rights and equality. ... In addition government allocations to the Arab sector for education, development, and industrial projects are far lower than those for the Jewish sector. Discrimination is slowly but surely diminishing, and among Jews there is growing recognition of the need to prevent discrimination in the future. But the prospect of civil equality peace, war, and indecision in the future does not satisfy the Arab public, and a prominent sector of its elites demands a basic change in the identity of the state as a condition for them to accept it. The definition opposite to a "Jewish and democratic state" is, as suggested earlier, ‘‘a state of all its citizens’’—that is, a state that is neutral with respect to nationality and ethnicity, whose citizenship will be solely secular-Israeli. Within the framework of such a citizenship, the entire population would be subject to a single standard in the immigration laws. In fact this would be "a state of all its nationalities," since the Arabs demand recognition as a national group, partnership in decisions pertaining to them, regional autonomy, and equal status for the Arabic language. As an interim stage, the Arabs of Israel seek recognition as a minority with intrinsic minority rights, such as recognition of their organization as a national organization, their leaders’ right to represent them on the national stage, and cultural and educational autonomy. ...The Israeli Arabs see themselves as citizens of the state, and as such eligible for all the rights that status gives. But they do not recognize the Jewish state per se as their state, as representing them too. ...the Israeli Arabs bitterly oppose suggestions regarding repartition of the country, including transfer of Arab-populated areas on the Israeli side of the Green Line to the PA in return for the West Bank settlements; they accuse the Israelis of racism. The political, economic, and social instability of Palestinian society compared with Israeli democracy (despite all its shortcomings)... Also checkout the chapter "Zionist Thinkers and the “Arab Question" of Amar-Dahl about Zionism not being a monolith: The alternative approach to the Arab question was what Gorny calls the “altruistic-integrationist” one. Here, the realization of Zionism is predicated upon the Jewish capacity to integrate into the Orient. Yitzhak Epstein (1863–1943) is regarded as a major proponent of this position. In 1907, he published an essay entitled “The Hidden Question,” in which he addressed what he saw as the crucial problem of Zionism, namely whether it was able or willing to integrate into the region. He criticized the prevalent Zionist approach of blocking out the Arab question and advocated instead for its active integration into Zionism. Epstein believed this to be the right course for the Zionist objective, from the moral as well as the realpolitik point of view. A favorable reception of the Jews by the Palestinians would benefit both. It would mean progress for the latter while the Jews would be given a homeland. He saw the shared Semitic origins of both peoples as a basis for such cooperation and actually considered it counterpro- ductive to Zionist goals that the new immigrants to Palestine take a colonialist or repressive stance. Furthermore, Epstein didn’t think that the Arab nationalism of the early twentieth century was necessarily an adversary of Jewish nationalism. Rather, he endorsed a policy geared towards balance and compromise with the objective of advancing the national development of the Arabs, which would be in the interests of Zionism as well. Andre🚐 08:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Im not distinguishing between ethos and essence. I'm saying that for example Ben-Ami characterizes the desire for minimum arabs to be part of the essence of zionism. Other authors describe Zionism as wanting as few arabs as possible, but do not describe that as part of the essence of Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 08:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
But some Zionists thought that the Arab minority would remain and integrate. For example, Amar-Dahl: In the utopian novel The Old New Land (Altneuland, 1902), in which Herzl sketched his ideas of the new Jewish society in Eretz Israel, the author does ded-icate several pages to the Arabs who are already living in that region. But the main viewing directionof these passages remains fixated on the firm belief in the positive effects that a Jewish settlement would have on the development of the country, and thus presents a fixed conception that the Jewish presence would elevate the living standard of the Arab population. As such, Herzl thought that they would be grateful to Zionism Andre🚐 08:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Of course you can pick out statements and writings from zionist leadership along these lines. But here we are talking about the movement as a whole. At times when the movement was struggling or its success less clear, it was more open to compromise; that doesn't mean that the movement wanted to compromise. For example, recall that it was the arguments put forward against transfer were primarily on the basis of its practicality; Shapira: The mainstream viewed it as a good thing that one could, if need be, do without. I'm not saying that Shapira is the ultimate authority on this issue, what I'm saying is that the movement wanted one thing but felt it had to settle for another.
So the desirability of transfer was certainly there. And we have a wide range of scholars who state "as few arabs" explicitly when describing zionism as a whole: off the top of my head, Shlaim, Slater, Ben-Ami, Masalha. The presence of Ben-Ami in this list is a strong indicator that this is in fact a mainstream view. DMH223344 (talk) 18:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Since this whole dispute concerns the question of if and when population transfer was considered by the Zionist mainstream to be one of Zionism's core goals, the relevant meta-level discussion would be one that explores different views on this "if and when" question in a neutral and balanced way.
An article starting with unqualified assertion that Zionist approach was "focused on the Jewish people only, and believed that it was better to evacuate (“transfer”) the Arabs of Palestine in order to establish a homogenous Jewish state." is nowhere near that and is just another example of "the list (of those historians who agree with me) mentality" I thought we were trying to avoid. DancingOwl (talk) 07:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
As a sidenote, I find the following passage from the "Editor's introduction" to the volume you quoted from quite illuminating:

The second ‘absentee’ is Ilan Pappé, the Israeli expat who has become something of a popular cult figure, arguably the chief advocate of the Palestinian Arab cause on European University campuses. His absence here is due to his having crossed the clear line between academic integrity and propaganda. Fifteen years ago, he wrote:
My bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the ‘truth’ when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and preposterous.

This could be relevant in context of our previous discussion about BESTSOURCES, given the fact that Pappe is being quoted above both directly and indirectly (via Rouhana&Sabbagh-Khoury 2014, p. 6, and Lentin 2010, p. 7). DancingOwl (talk) 08:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
If you want to discuss bestsources again, best open a new section. Getting back to the transfer issue, we have Morris and Masalha sort of confirmed as being good sources on this subject and can we please find other sources that cite them and/or anyone else for this topic, individual quotes from individual historians are not that useful, there are hundreds of them. We need a list and then we can see what that looks like when we run it past what we think are our best sources. Selfstudier (talk) 10:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
It is alarming that editors have so-far succeeded in pushing edits that paint with a brush that portrays the most extreme extensions of Zionism as integral to it. keep In mind: people like Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Elijah Cummings identified with Zionism, which does not pare with how Zionism is now being portrayed in this article. 10:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SecretName101 (talk • contribs)
Idk what this is supposed to be about but it is unsourced personal opinion afaics and has nothing to do with the subject under discussion here.Selfstudier (talk) 10:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
portraying the most extremist strands of Zionism as integral core beliefs of all Zionists is a SERIOUS problem. This would be akin to portraying the views of jihadists as the integral core beliefs of all Islam SecretName101 (talk) 03:09, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree - this is exactly why multiple editors objected to this phrasing since it was introduced back in August, and also the reason for the RFC above DancingOwl (talk) 06:59, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
More unsourced personal opinion. The sentence first made it's appearance in the Nakba article a year ago, it was merely copied here. Multiple editors supported this phrasing, sufficient of them for it to gain a consensus (including over objections by socks) and the RFC above (seeking removal of the entire sentence) appears at present likely to reaffirm that consensus. Selfstudier (talk) 09:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
1. As I showed above, a large part of the cherry-picked sources allegedly supporting this phrasing do, in fact, talk specifically about 1947-1948 period, so in the Nakba article this sentence at least made sense period-wise, but it's very innacurate as framing of Zionist consensus during the whole pre-state period.
2. While the way the RFC was formulated is problematic, most if not all the editors supporting the change talked about rephrasing the sentence in question, not removing it.
3. Most of the editors supporting the phrasing accepted the list produced by @Levivich as evidence of scholarly consensus, without going back to the sources and checking the context from which the truncated quotes were taken. However, as I show above, when considered in full and within context, it becomes clear that most of the cited sources don't support this characterisation of core Zionist goals since movement inception, especially the "as few Arabs as possible" part. Moreover, the additional references I provided either explicitly contest parts of this narrative promoted in this sentence, or at least point to academic controversy around this narrative. DancingOwl (talk) 10:05, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
No objection to revisiting all sources in order to once again determine best sources. Editors have already commented on your list of sources (btw, why are only your sources not cherrypicked?). Look at semantic scholar stats below and see where Karsh, prominent in your list and who you posit as refuting Morris, comes in comparatively. We should do a similar exercise for all sources including those not in your list such as Zureik. Selfstudier (talk) 10:34, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
1. I didn't say that the sources currently used don't qualify as BESTSOURCES (apart from a couple of them who are tertiary sources and one that talks about 2006, the rest are perfectly ok), but that they only represent one side of the scholarly spectrum, and not the consensus, and that at least some of them don't really support the sentence in question.
2. Since all the currently used sources represent only one side of the academic debate, naturally the complementary list I shared contains sources from the other side of the spectrum. And since I don't suggest that those additional sources are the only ones that should be used, but rather propose to look at the entire spectrum of academic positions - including both the current sources and the ones I added - this is literally the opposite of cherry-picking.
3. Starting to compare scholars' stats, in order to determine where the needle of the academic consensus should point to exactly, would be WP:OR par excellence. DancingOwl (talk) 11:37, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
Determining the relative value of sourcing is something we actually do, see Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources#Scholarship "One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes or lists such as DOAJ." and "However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, controversial within the relevant field, or largely ignored by the mainstream academic discourse because of lack of citations." Selfstudier (talk) 11:50, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
1. The passage you quoted provides a secondary criteria for determining whether a particular publication should be considered a RS - not a ranking of authors holding opposite positions in academic debate.
2. Not sure where you got Karsh's stats from - the numbers I see on his Semantic Scholar page are 18/203/1416/42 DancingOwl (talk) 07:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
It is correct to look at citations and reception to determine how much weight a reliable source should be given. And Karsh represents an extreme and outsider position in the scholarly spectrum, so shouldn’t be given excess weight. But it’s also correct that looking at the range of perspectives from serious scholars, our current wording reflects one side of the debate rather than the academic mainstream. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
I agree that his position is extreme, but its inclusion is important in order to delineate the full width of academic spectrum of opinions on this issue. DancingOwl (talk) 17:14, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

If I just pick up raw data from semanticscholar:

Masalha - h-index 9, 42 publications, 335 citations, 19 influential

Morris - 15/87/1449/45

Those two are also cited by Zureik 19/102/1304/37 Demography and transfer: Israel’s road to nowhere

(cf Karsh 3/10/24/2 18/203/1416/42 Penslar 10/86/458/11) Selfstudier (talk) 10:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Slater (12/91/448/13) Mythologies without End pp 46-51 cites:

Morris, "A New Exodus for the Middle East?" This is a summary of the voluminous archival evidence developed by Morris in a number of his major works, including Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited and Righteous Victims. Other major works on transfer include Shlaim, Israel and Palestine, especially 54–61; Shahak, "A History of the Concept of 'Transfer' in Zionism"; Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; and Flapan, Birth, especially 103–6. See also the frank appraisal of Shlomo Ben-Ami, a Labor Party activist and minister of Internal Security and then foreign minister of Israel, who wrote, "The idea of population transfers had a long and solid pedigree in Zionist thought” (Ben-Ami, "A War to Start All Wars"). A number of Palestinian writers have discussed the concept of transfer in Zionist thought—and action. The most important is Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians.

Another mention for Shahak there. Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Slater is not a good source. He’s pretty fringe, turned to Israel-Palestine after retirement. His book is framed as contrarian and revisionist; almost nobody has cited it. Shahak, a chemist, is extremely controversial and polarising. They should be viewed as polemicists not as serious sources within the scholarly consensus. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:53, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Slater also explicitly admits that his book is "based on the existing literature rather than on original research in the primary documentary sources", which effectively makes is a tertiary source, that should be avoided in context of contentious topics, as per WP:DONTUSETERTIARY. DancingOwl (talk) 17:10, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
If you don't think Slater is an RS, take it to RSN. If Slater is an RS, then I don't see why we wouldn't include it in the bundle cite. WP:DONTUSETERTIARY is an essay, and it's wrong. WP:TERTIARY is the policy. WP:BIASEDSOURCES is also policy. We follow the policies not essays. Levivich (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
I didn't say Slater is unreliable. I believe he would be reliable for facts, but not the best source for identifying how scholars have interpreted the facts, which is what we are discussing here. There are a massive number of reliable sources which talk about Zionism, but in identifying what is due in the lead in particular we should be using the best sources and not just the weak reliable sources which fit a particular interpretation.
I don't think it matters whether he's tertiary or secondary. Good tertiary sources can be especially helpful in identifying which secondary sources are most noteworthy and I doubt any serious tertiary source would pay Slater much attention. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:36, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Yes but we can't seem to conclusively agree on which are the best sources and people keep introducing new ones and saying they must be considered as well. So it's a case of muddling along, I think, looks like we are going to have to do this issue by issue for most things. Selfstudier (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
You called him "pretty fringe" -- his book is published by Oxford University, do you seriously believe Oxford publishes WP:FRINGE? He's one of 18 sources cited for "the sentence". He's saying the same thing as the other 17 sources. All they all fringe? "turned to Israel-Palestine after retirement" - That's a new one. That makes a work less reliable, does it? That's a new one for me, haven't seen anyone make that argument before. He's saying the same thing as Manna and Morris--so which side is he on? Or are Manna and Morris both on the same side? And he's not one of the best sources... ok, so we're only using best sources for the lead? Or for the whole article? Because Karsh ain't a best source, either. Many sources brought up on this page, and used in this article, aren't. But during the "best sources" discussion, I remember many people saying we cannot limit the article to only using best sources. Now we are saying we shouldn't use a source if it isn't a best source. Which is it? And what's the damn point anyway? So you remove Slater... now we only have... 17 sources saying Zionists were territorially and demographically expansionist. Are we seriously going to keep going with this nonsense, or can we just finally all admit that, a yeah, Zionists wanted as much territory as they could get, and they wanted the largest Jewish majority they could get in that territory, and they were willing to--and ultimately did--accomplish both by kicking out Palestinians? Can we just stop pretending like that's basic historical backed up by over a dozen different historians, and move on with improving the rest of this article? Or do we need to still convince some that the RSes say what they are say? Levivich (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
I can understand your frustration, but I still think the current phrasing is a gross oversimplification and overgeneralization and is not really supported by the RSes - especially, the "kicking out the Palestinians" part.
I won't repeat all the detailed arguments I made previously to prove this point - it's all in the table. DancingOwl (talk) 18:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
...and Slater is a secondary source, anyway. Levivich (talk) 20:25, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

References

  1. Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-415-28715-9.

El-Haj 2

@Butterscotch Beluga pointed out to me on my talk page that the quote to El Haj isn't even an accurate summation of her views. I agree. It should be revised. El Haj "isn't saying that there will never be proof of shared genetics among Jews. Instead, she points out that, at the time, even when the science wasn't there yet to prove it, it was treated as a guaranteed truth" (quoting BB) and this is a much more nuanced claim than the present article text. Andre🚐 22:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a citation to El Haj rather than another editor? Or maybe some secondary and tertiary sources who reflect on what El Haj means? That would be helpful for reaching speedy consensus on what to replace the quote with. Lewisguile (talk) 09:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
The full quote can be read on p. 18 and I agree that this is about something in history, not current. She talks about the Ostrer stuff on p.123. It points out the research was widely acceptd and also says that Zoosman-Diskin was dismissed or widely ignored. This has only accelerated since then. Roughly what I'd want to do is add something from Ostrer's 2020 article or one of the other review or summaries (like Balter 2010, even though old) and attribute whatever critical El Haj quote. We could also use Kahn who summarizes both, or something like one of these Andre🚐 13:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
It's not just El-Haj, you have Weitzmann, Yardumian as well, apart from Falk and McGonigle, all saying much the same sort of thing, that genetics is not the be all and end all. So bashing El-Haj, which seems to be a popular sport, has it's limits. Selfstudier (talk) 14:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
First of all, that doesn't address that the current material in the article isn't even an accurate summary of El-Haj. Regarding the other sources,
  • it's true that McGonigle is also critical of "genomic citizenship" and "biologization of Jewish culture and historical narrative, but he doesn't deny that there are markers of Jewish ethnicity in DNA. In fact he's critical of the use of DNA tests to determine Jewishness but doesn't deny that they can. He's concerned more with the politics, not in claiming that genetic evidence of Jewishness is "elusive."
  • As I mentioned earlier, Falk is outdated. He also doesn't say what you are claiming he says. Falk also admits that there is a Middle Eastern component to Jewish ancestry: findings support the hypothesis that posits that European Jews are comprised of Caucasus, European, and Middle Eastern ancestries
  • Weitzman also doesn't support your argument. Weitzman 2017 on p. 275: I am not a geneticist and cannot claim any expertise... p. 308: El-Haj has convinced many readers that modern Jewish genetics research is a twenty-first-century race science...To accept the critique of genetics as a revived form of race science, there are a lot of things one has to downplay or ignore... p.314 I have read many reviews of Abu El-Haj's work, but scarcely any have been written by geneticists themselves, perhaps a sign that they do not take her argument seriously or are not even aware of it
  • Yarudumian also references the studies, and has a nuanced critique that doesn't support what you claim, writing:

    Population genetics research into this question has done much to clarify the related- ness of Jewish individuals and groups, but also fostered its own series of conflicts where geography and chronology are concerned. Of the numerous and varied studies published since the 1950s, some number of researchers have interpreted the genetic data as showing that Jewish people constitute a mostly homogeneous community that emerged from Hebrew-speaking tribes of the Levant, with or without limited European and North African admixture (Behar et al. 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2010; Hammer et al. 2000, 2009; Livshits et al. 1991; Ostrer and Skorecki 2013; Rootsi et al. 2013; Shen et al. 2004; Skorecki et al. 1997). Other researchers are more circumspect in their conclusions concerning a specific geographic origin or sim- ply have not been directly concerned with the issue, focusing instead on genetic ad- mixture between Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern men (Hammer et al. 2000), within Ashkenazi Jews (e.g., Behar et al. 2004a; Carmi 2014; Listman et al. 2010; Need et al. 2009), and between Jewish populations (Behar et al. 2010; Bray et al. 2010; Campbell et al. 2012; Zoossmann-Diskin 2010). Certain genome-wide stud- ies have yielded a view of Jewish populations as being tightly clustered and reasonably distinct from neighboring populations (Behar et al. 2010; Campbell et al. 2012), while very recent research into admixture history (Xue et al. 2017) has further re- vealed the complexity of Jewish (in this case, Ashkenazi) population history. Various other studies offer further valuable insights into the genetic composition of contempo- rary Jewish communities (Atzmon et al. 2010; Behar et al. 2003, 2004b, 2006, 2013; Feder et al. 2007; Haber et al. 2013; Hammer et al. 2000, 2009; Karlin et al. 1979; Kopelman et al. 2009; Livshits et al. 1991; Muhsam 1964; Nebel et al. 2001, 2005; Olshen et al. 2008; Ostrer and Skorecki 2013; Seldin et al. 2006; Shen et al. 2004; Thomas et al. 1998)..these findings suggest a common ancestry for Ashkenazi, North African, and Sephardi Jews, the analysis also revealed support for an Italian source in the autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, thus suggesting a southern European origin.....The most compelling evidence to date of a mosaic ancestry for contemporary Jews comes from the work of Xue et al. (2017). Their admixture analysis suggested a 70% European origin (and within this, 55% Southern Europe, 10% Eastern Europe, 5% Western Europe) and a 30% “Levantine” component in Jewish populations.

    These sources don't support the language that Jewish DNA evidence is "forever elusive." In fact, Yarudumian supports the idea of Middle Eastern heritage and has a nuanced take on whether Jewish ancestry is a mosaic versus more homogeneous, but doesn't in any way support the current claim of "elusiveness."
Andre🚐 20:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
I have some different quotes. Selfstudier (talk) 21:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
But surely you admit that Weitzman is not in El-Haj's camp, he threw a bit of shade at her currency even though he's sympathetic to some of what she says, but it can't be read as a full-scale endorsement. Yardumian doesn't mention El-Haj at all, unless I missed it, and he does like Xue. Yardumian is skeptical and critical, and I'd be happy to use him for some things. But he also isn't a geneticist nor is Schurr his co-author. Both are anthropologists. Anyway, I know there are definitely quotes in there that are skeptical, and that could be part of balancing the POVs and writing a balanced view of what disagreements there are in this field. But again, this is anthropologists adding nuance to a genetic field. And as mentioned, Yardumian likes Xue and Ostrer likes Xue, so what's the problem with Xue? Andre🚐 04:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
As I said, I'm not specifically referring to El-Haj bashing, just the general conclusions, whether by geneticists or not. So, for example, Weitzman writes
"The Jewish Genetic Narrative - The same may well be true of what genetics can tell us about the origin of the Jews. Genetic history is a developing field, and like most science, a self-correcting one, and perhaps someday, scientists will be able to resolve the ambiguities we have noted here. But even then, geneticists will always need to rely on non-genetic evidence to make any historical sense of the data—written texts, oral traditions, and interviews with people about where their ancestors come from. It is impossible to turn the testimony of DNA into a definitive account of the past. The process of assemblage, dot-connecting, and interpretation means there will also always be some degree of imagination involved in the construction of genetic history, and choices to make about which story to believe." Selfstudier (talk) 09:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't really see how that Weizman supports El-Haj except vaguely, I don't have any particular objection to including that though. It doesn't directly address anything that was at issue in my view. At any rate, since I added some material to Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism, , per your suggestion/request, can we balance it on this page now? Andre🚐 21:41, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Of those three additions, two of them are from 2010 supporting Ostrer/Behar even before the 2013 work. And the third one is just Ostrer confirming himself.
Properly, all we should be doing is picking up the lead of the Racial conceptions article as a summary for here. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Would you care to proffer a version, then? Would it replace or amend the current text sourced to El-Haj? Why don't you go first. I'm not wedded to the specific text. If we agree that the present text is imbalanced, that'd be progress. Roughly, the point is that Zionists wanted genetic confirmation of their traditional history, and in the 1930s a lot of science was tinged with problematic ideas. Today, though, we know that ethnicity is a more flexible concept than "race." There's no biological explanation of "white," but there are genetic markers that can tell me someone is Cajun. Right? Or wrong? Geneticists like Ostrer and Xue balance and add context to the view expressed by El-Haj currently ("biological self-definition"..."forever elusive" which is about history, not present-day) which ignores modern developments suitable for the general overview on Zionism. Modern research suggests a shared Jewish ancestry, though of course Jewish ethnicity is more than just that.... This counters Abu El-Haj's claim of a purely ideological pursuit; she is an anthropologist, so her expertise on the topic is bounded. Using her quote alone and unattributed may give undue weight to a minority viewpoint. She is a controversial voice in the field who has met with considerable controversy and criticism, such as her interpretation of archeology as well. I can offer more critical sources, but you said you wanted to move on from that. Andre🚐 02:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Maybe it seems not to you but to me the Weitzmann para and the El-Haj elusive thing are the same thing using different words but leaving that aside, is there any reason that we cannot just use the lead of Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism for the section here, which, given the earlier kerfuffle over the title, should probably just be renamed as I suggested at #Tag on Race and Genetics section to Racial conceptions of Jewish identity? @Fiveby:? Selfstudier (talk) 12:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Weitzmann definitely isn't saying the same thing at all, he's saying that we need non-genetic data to make sense of the genetic data, not that there's something elusive about the DNA evidence of Jewish ancestry. Could you propose the text? Andre🚐 20:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't matter since I am not suggesting that Weitzmann or El-Haj be in the text at all. I just did propose a text, didn't I? Selfstudier (talk) 20:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't understand. Use the whole lead? Or a specific part? And I guess that'd be an improvement. Andre🚐 21:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Right, just use the lead from there, it had a lot of eyes on it during the discussions over the title so it is likely a better summary than we have here, then any further tweaking of that would need to be done there first. Selfstudier (talk) 09:52, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
@Selfstudier:, i see that as an improvement, a step in the right direction at least. Thinking about this more, as you say: genetics is not the be all and end all; the way the content is presented could easily lead the reader down an essentialist path. Probably the ultimate fix here is better organization of the article sections and content, this should maybe flow from Jewish identity and Jewish assimilation? Reorganizing the body content is probably going to be a very complicated task tho so probably just incorporating the lead with some tweaks might be best for now. fiveby(zero) 14:23, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Seems we are agreed, I can't just copy paste it because all the harv refs, will copy it over at some point. Selfstudier (talk) 15:02, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
OK, I copied that in, this is what I took out, case we need to refer back to it:
Early Zionists were the primary Jewish supporters of the idea that Jews are a race, as it "offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent". According to Raphael Falk, as early as the 1870s Zionist and pre-Zionist thinkers conceived of Jews as belonging to a distinct biological group. This re-conceptualization of Jewishness cast the "volk" of the Jewish community as a nation-race, in contrast to centuries-old conceptions of the Jewish people as a religious socio-cultural grouping. The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow are largely credited with this creation of Zionism as a nationalist project. They drew on religious Jewish sources and non-Jewish texts in reconstructing a national identity and consciousness. This new Jewish historiography divorced from and, at times at odds with, traditional Jewish collective memory.
It was particularly important in early nation building in Israel, because Jews in Israel are ethnically diverse and the origins of Ashkenazi Jews were not known. Notable proponents of this racial idea included Max Nordau, Herzl's co-founder of the original Zionist Organization, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the prominent architect of early statist Zionism and the founder of what became Israel's Likud party, and Arthur Ruppin, considered the "father of Israeli sociology". Birnbaum, who is widely attributed with the first use of the term "Zionism" in reference to a political movement, viewed race as the foundation of nationality, Jabotinsky wrote that Jewish national integrity relies on "racial purity", and that "(t)he feeling of national self-identity is ingrained in the man's 'blood', in his physical-racial type, and only in it."
According to Hassan S. Haddad, the application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and the "Promised Land" in Zionism, particularly to secular Jews, requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of biblical Jews and Israelites. This is considered important to the State of Israel, because its founding narrative centers around the concept of an "Ingathering of the exiles" and the "Return to Zion", on the assumption that all modern Jews are the direct lineal descendants of the biblical Jews. The question has thus been focused on by supporters of Zionism and anti-Zionists alike, as in the absence of this biblical primacy, "the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people," whilst right-wing Israelis look for "a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return". A Jewish "biological self-definition" has become a standard belief for many Jewish nationalists, and most Israeli population researchers have never doubted that evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for the claim has "remained forever elusive".

References

  1. Hirsch 2009, pp. 592–609 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHirsch2009 (help): "The work of Jewish race scientists has been the subject of several recent studies (Efron 1994; R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000; Kiefer 1991; Lipphardt 2007; Y. Weiss 2002; see also Doron 1980). As these studies suggest, among Jewish physicians, anthropologists, and other 'men of science' in Central Europe, proponents of the idea that the Jews were a race were found mainly in the ranks of Zionists, as the idea implied a common biological nature of the otherwise geographically, linguistically, and culturally divided Jewish people, and offered scientific 'proof' of the ethno-nationalist myth of common descent (Doron 1980: 404; Y. Weiss 2002: 155). At the same time, many of these proponents agreed that the Jews were suffering a process of 'degeneration, and so their writings advanced the national project as a means of 'regeneration' and 'racial improvement' (R. Falk 2006; Hart 2000: 17)... In the Zionist case, the nation-building project was fused with a cultural project of Westernization. 'Race' was an integral concept in certain versions of nationalist thinking, and in Western identity (Bonnett 2003), albeit in different ways. In the discourse of Zionist men of science, 'race' served different purposes, according to the context in question. In some contexts 'race' was mainly used to establish Jewish unity, while in others it was used to establish diversity and hierarchy among Jews. The latter use was more common in texts which appeared in Palestine. It resulted from the encounter of European Zionists with Eastern Jews, and from the tension between the projects of nation-building and of Westernization in the context of Zionist settlement in the East."
  2. ^ Falk, R. (2014). "Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent". Frontiers in Genetics. 5 (462): 462. doi:10.3389/fgene.2014.00462. PMC 4301023. PMID 25653666.
  3. Masalha 2012, Chapter 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMasalha2012 (help)
  4. McGonigle 2021, p. 35 (c.f. p.52-53 of PhD): "Here, the ethnic composition of Israel is crucial. Despite the ambiguity in respect of the legal, biological, and social 'nature' of 'Jewish genes' and their intermittent role in the reproduction of Jewish identity, Israel is an ethnically diverse country. Many Jewish immigrants have arrived from Eastern Europe, North Africa, France, India, Latin America, Yemen, Iraq, Ethiopia, the US, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the ex-Soviet Union, not to mention Israel's indigenous Arab minority of close to 2 million people. And while Jewishness has often been imagined as a biological race—most notably, and to horrific ends, by the Nazis, but also later by Zionists and early Israelis for state-building purposes—the initial origins of the Ashkenazi Jews who began the Zionist movement in turn-of-the-century Europe remain highly debated and enigmatic." sfn error: no target: CITEREFMcGonigle2021 (help)
  5. Abu El-Haj 2012, p. 98 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAbu_El-Haj2012 (help): "There is a "problem" regarding the origins of the Ashkenazim, which needs resolution: Ashkenazi Jews, who seem European—phenotypically, that is—are the normative center of world Jewry. No less, they are the political and cultural elite of the newly founded Jewish state. Given their central symbolic and political capital in the Jewish state and given simultaneously the scientific and social persistence of racial logics as ways of categorizing and understanding human groups, it was essential to find other evidence that Israel's European Jews were not in truth Europeans. The normative Jew had to have his/her origins in ancient Palestine or else the fundamental tenet of Zionism, the entire edifice of Jewish history and nationalist ideology, would come tumbling down. In short, the Ashkenazi Jew is the Jew—the Jew in relation to whose values and cultural practices the oriental Jew in Israel must assimilate. Simultaneously, however, the Ashkenazi Jew is the most dubious Jew, the Jew whose historical and genealogical roots in ancient Palestine are most difficult to see and perhaps thus to believe—in practice, although clearly not by definition."
  6. ^ Baker 2017, p. 100-102. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBaker2017 (help)
  7. Morris-Reich, Amos (2006). "Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race". Israel Studies. 11 (3). Indiana University Press: 1–30. doi:10.2979/ISR.2006.11.3.1. ISSN 1084-9513. JSTOR 30245648. S2CID 144898510. Archived from the original on July 11, 2023. Retrieved July 11, 2023.
  8. Olson 2007, pp. 252, 255. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOlson2007 (help)
  9. Falk 2017, p. 62. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFalk2017 (help)
  10. Haddad, Hassan S. (1974). "The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism". Journal of Palestine Studies. 3 (4). University of California Press, Institute for Palestine Studies: 98–99. doi:10.2307/2535451. ISSN 0377-919X. JSTOR 2535451. The Zionist moveinent remains firmly anchored on the basic principle of the exclusive right of the Jews to Palestine that is found in the Torah and in other Jewish religious literature. Zionists who are not religious, in the sense of following the ritual practices of Judaism, are still biblical in their basic convictions in, and practical application of the ancient particularism of the Torah and the other books of the Old Testament. They are biblical in putting their national goals on a level that goes beyond historical, humanistic or moral considerations... We can summarize these beliefs, based on the Bible, as follows. 1. The Jews are a separate and exclusive people chosen by God to fulfil a destiny. The Jews of the twentieth century have inherited the covenant of divine election and historical destiny from the Hebrew tribes that existed more than 3000 years ago. 2. The covenant included a definite ownership of the Land of Canaan (Palestine) as patrimony of the Israelites and their descendants forever. By no name, and under no other conditions, can any other people lay a rightful claim to that land. 3. The occupation and settlement of this land is a duty placed collectively on the Jews to establish a state for the Jews. The purity of the Jewishness of the land is derived from a divine command and is thus a sacred mission. Accordingly, settling in Palestine, in addition to its economic and political motivations, acquires a romantic and mythical character. That the Bible is at the root of Zionism is recognized by religious, secular, non-observant, and agnostic Zionists... The Bible, which has been generally considered as a holy book whose basic tenets and whose historical contents are not commonly challenged by Christians and Jews, is usually referred to as the Jewish national record. As a "sacrosanct title-deed to Palestine," it has caused a fossilization of history in Zionist thinking... Modern Jews, accordingly, are the direct descendants of the ancient Israelites, hence the only possible citizens of the Land of Palestine.
  11. ^ McGonigle 2021, p. 36 (c.f. p.54 of PhD) harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMcGonigle2021 (help): "The stakes in the debate over Jewish origins are high, however, since the founding narrative of the Israeli state is based on exilic 'return.' If European Jews have descended from converts, the Zionist project falls prey to the pejorative categorization as 'settler colonialism' pursued under false assumptions, playing into the hands of Israel's critics and fueling the indignation of the displaced and stateless Palestinian people. The politics of 'Jewish genetics' is consequently fierce. But irrespective of philosophical questions of the indexical power or validity of genetic tests for Jewishness, and indeed the historical basis of a Jewish population 'returning' to the Levant, the Realpolitik of Jewishness as a measurable biological category could also impinge on access to basic rights and citizenship within Israel."
  12. Rich, Dave (January 2, 2017). "Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel". Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. 11 (1): 101–104. doi:10.1080/23739770.2017.1315682. ISSN 2373-9770. S2CID 152132582. Archived from the original on July 8, 2023. Retrieved July 11, 2023.
  13. McGonigle 2021, p. (c.f. p.218-219 of PhD): "The biobank stands for unmarked global modernity and secular technoscientific progress. It is within the other pole of the Israeli cultural spectrum that one finds right-wingers appropriating genetics as a way of imagining the tribal particularity of Jews, as a way of proving the occupation is legitimate, of authenticating the ethnos as a natural fact, and of defending Zionism as a return. It is across this political spectrum that the natural facts of genetics research discursively migrate and transform into the mythologized ethnonationalism of the bio-nation. However, Israel has also moved towards a market-based society, and as the majority of the biomedical research is moving to private biotech companies, the Israeli biobank is becoming underused and outmoded. The epistemics of Jewish genetics fall short of its mythic circulatory semiotics. This is the ultimate lesson from my ethnographic work in Israel." sfn error: no target: CITEREFMcGonigle2021 (help)
  14. Abu El-Haj 2012, p. 18 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAbu_El-Haj2012 (help): "What is evident in the work in Israeli population genetics is a desire to identify biological evidence for the presumption of a common Jewish peoplehood whose truth was hard to "see," especially in the face of the arrival of oriental Jews whose presumably visible civilizational and phenotypic differences from the Ashkenazi elite strained the nationalist ideology upon which the state was founded. Testament to the legacy of racial thought in giving form to a Zionist vision of Jewish peoplehood by the mid-twentieth century, Israeli population researchers never doubted that biological facts of a shared origin did indeed exist, even as finding those facts remained forever elusive... Looking at the history of Zionism through the lens of work in the biological sciences brings into focus a story long sidelined in histories of the Jewish state: Jewish thinkers and Zionist activists invested in race science as they forged an understanding of the Jewish people and fought to found the Jewish state. By the mid-twentieth century, a biological self-definition—even if not seamlessly a racial one, at least not as race was imagined at the turn of the twentieth century—had become common-sensical for many Jewish nationalists, and, in significant ways, it framed membership and shaped the contours of national belonging in the Jewish state."

Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

§ Terminology

There are some undue claims in the terminology section. The first attested usage of 'Zionism' should appear with higher priority, and terms and usages should be presented in their original language with accompanying English translations. إيان (talk) 18:22, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

While I certainly agree with de-emphasizing the Biblical term, I think Lovers of Zion should have priority over Birnbaum, as the 1890 formal coining is clearly just an evolution on the 1880s terminology. Pharos (talk) 20:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree that 'Hovivei Zion' should have greater prominence than it does now. I haven't read thoroughly about this period, but my impression of the sources is that these groups—not as politically oriented and lacking the focus on a state that would come to characterize Zionism—are treated as proto-Zionist more than Zionist proper. While there is a clear connection, my impression is that Lovers of Zion and Zionism are distinct. Starting the section with Hovivei Zion might emphasize continuity more than it should.
I would suggest starting with the formal first attestation of 'Zionismus' and working backwards etymologically, with a statement about Hovivei Zion immediately after the first attestation and eventually referring to the Biblical content on Zion. What do others think? إيان (talk) 03:45, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
Proto-Zionism should rightly have a continuity with Zionism; why wouldn't it? Andre🚐 16:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Dictionaries typically give the etymology from the first attestation and trace the evolution of the term back in time. Oxford English Dictionary gives first attestation of 'Zionism' as 1890s, and coming from German. I'm not saying there's not connection, but proto-x is not x ; x is x and proto-x is proto-x. My argument is not that Hovevei Zion should not be addressed in the terminology; my argument is that to start the terminology section with it might over-emphasize that connection, and it seems to be out of step with the sources. إيان (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't know why you're bringing up dictionaries. Dictionaries are some of the worst sources and this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. We prefer scholarly journal articles, books, and maybe other reliable sources by reliable experts. Citing the dictionary is a clear tell that your argument doesn't have a strong grounding in policy or en.wikipedia norms. Andre🚐 04:59, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Citing the dictionary is a clear tell that your argument doesn't have a strong grounding in policy or en.wikipedia norms.—this is nonsense. OED is a perfectly valid source for this section.
We prefer scholarly journal articles, books, and maybe other reliable sources by reliable experts—such as? If you want your argument to be taken seriously, you need to actually cite specific sources instead of vaguely gesturing to their existence somewhere in the ether. إيان (talk) 16:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
No, the OED isn't a valid source to use here. And the history of Zionism predates the 1890s. Such as Shaftesbury and Montefiore in the 1840s. Shaftesbury wrote about 'recall of the Jews to their ancient land' in 1840. Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1885. We have plenty of good sources for proto-Zionism and Zionism, we don't need the OED and it doesn't meet the agreed-to principles of WP:BESTSOURCES for this article. Andre🚐 19:41, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Even if we were to use a specialist etymological dictionary, or a specific technical dictionary (the OED is neither of which), they are still poor sources compared to academic sources which are dedicated to whatever point you believe we should include. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Feel free to cite some. إيان (talk) 01:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
I see that Hibbat Zion have been removed from the lead and reduced back down to one paragraph in the history section. Surely they should get a little bit more prominence? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I agree. إيان (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I think Pharos's contribution is good. إيان (talk) 00:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

My main concern with the section at the moment is the claim numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland given in Wikivoice. إيان (talk) 03:49, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre: Although Birnbaum and "Zionism" in 1885 appears in some prominent sources, I believe this is clearly an error. 1885 was actually the year of founding of Selbst-Emancipation (Q131629624) itself. More detailed sources actually give the exact dates he coined "Zionist" (which came first, April 1, 1890), and "Zionism" (May 16, 1890). Incidentally, he seems to use these terms quite casually, and doesn't really treat them as the introduction of a new concept.--Pharos (talk) 00:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
It is definitely possible that this is an error, but Shindler is a very good source. I'll look into it a bit more. Andre🚐 01:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Pharos, might you have those sources handy? These details would be nice to add in a footnote. إيان (talk) 01:57, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Sure, I figured I might as well add them to Wikidata too: d:Lexeme:L901860#P3938 Pharos (talk) 18:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you Pharos, and also for fixing the title of Pinsker's pamphlet. But shouldn't we render it as 'Autoemancipation!' as appears on the cover? إيان (talk) 19:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

A bibliographic summary of German literature published in 1886 has this:

Jeschurun. Herausg. von Isaac Hirsch. N.F. 4. Jahrg. Nr. 16 u. 17. Inh.: Die heilige Sprache und der moderne Zionismus. — Aus der amsterdamer Gemeinde 1795–1812. (Fort.) — פרקי אבות (Fort.) — Wandelungen. (Fort.) — An die Juden Rumäniens. — Stöcker, die Juden und die Anarchie. (Schl.) — Bücherschau. — Erkannte Errungen. (Fort.) — Correspondenzen und Nachrichten.

This is an entry for a periodical "Jeschurun" which I'll look for next. The translation is as follows (Pirket Avot is a talmudic tract):

Jeschurun. Edited by Isaac Hirsch. New Series, 4th Year, Nos. 16 and 17. Contents: The Holy Language and Modern Zionism. — From the Amsterdam community, 1795–1812 (continued). — Pirkei Avot (continued). — Transformations (continued). — To the Jews of Romania. — Stöcker, the Jews, and Anarchy (concluded). — Book Review. — Recognized Achievements (continued). — Correspondences and News.

Zero 04:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

A request

Can we go back to the old definition of Zionism because the one here is full of bias

I propose reverting it back to this version

https://archive.ph/L50Cr Comores 123 (talk) 20:01, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I trust I can be forgiven for assuming that an editor that has clearly not read the talk page nor any of the archives must be non EC.
At any rate, even if EC, this is just a waste of editorial time. Selfstudier (talk) 21:46, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
They are implementing the task assigned externally here. Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
@Comores 123, I think you might want to weigh in here as this RfC deals with one of the changes introduced recently. Alaexis¿question? 21:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Non-Jewish support

This section also describes support for the state of Israel rather than specifically for Zionism. I don't think these discussions belong in this article unless RS describe said support in the context of Zionism specifically, not just the Israeli state. DMH223344 (talk) 06:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? What do you think doesn't belong to it? Alaexis¿question? 09:20, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
For example

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the Druze have demonstrated solidarity with Israel. Israeli Druze citizens serve in the Israel Defense Forces. The Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred to as "a covenant of blood" (Hebrew: ברית דמים, Error: {{Langx}}: transliteration of latn script (help)) in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.

This discussion is about Israel, not about Zionism specifically and should be removed or replaced with a discussion about Druze support for Zionism specifically. DMH223344 (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
Just take the Israel related ones out. Selfstudier (talk) 17:14, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. Nisan, Mordechai (Autumn 2010). "The Druze in Israel: Questions of Identity, Citizenship, and Patriotism". Middle East Journal. 64 (4): 575–596. JSTOR 40926501.
  2. Stern, Yoav (23 March 2005). "Christian Arabs / Second in a series – Israel's Christian Arabs don't want to fight to fit in". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 10 December 2007. Retrieved January 7, 2006.
  3. Firro, Kais (August 15, 2006). "Druze Herev Battalion Fights 32 Days With No Casualties". Arutz Sheva. Archived from the original on December 24, 2018. Retrieved August 15, 2006.
  4. Rogan, Eugene L. (2011). The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge University Press. p. 73. ISBN 9780521794763.
  5. Nisan, Mordechai (2015). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd ed.). McFarland. p. 284. ISBN 9780786451333. This Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred to as a "covenant of blood," in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.
I think perhaps a more basic flaw in this section is the division of all supporters by religion. Certainly the history of pro-Zionist (as well as anti-Zionist) sentiment in the Western world is driven not just or even primarily by flavors of Christianity, but rather by a number of secular ideologies that span the political spectrum.--Pharos (talk) 19:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, and the RSes say that Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism, or at least the modern political version. Levivich (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Lede

Lede is becoming progressively worse and long; less encyclopaedic as in less factual and more philosophical/editorial, and less structured. Makeandtoss (talk) 17:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I suggest to remove the last paragraph - discussion about various Zionists fractions and the controversy about Zionism characterization as "national liberation movement"/"settler-colonialism" are too specific for the lead section, in my view.
I'd also remove the sentence about "the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" that already appears verbatim in the "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" section and also seems to be too specific for the lead.
Finally, I suggest to move the mention of antisemitism to the opening sentence, since it's widely considered to be a primary motivation behind the emergence of the Zionist movement, so it would make more sense to place it in the beginning. DancingOwl (talk) 19:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Appearing in the body is absolutely not a reason to exclude from the lead. The lead summarizes the body, the point is to contain the same material.
Your position is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a key aspect of Zionism as a topic? That's certainly not consistent with the coverage in RS. DMH223344 (talk) 19:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
The reason I suggested to remove it from the lead is not because of its appearance in the body, but because this particular claim, placing the start of the conflict at 1880s is too specific for the lead, in my view. DancingOwl (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
But it doesn't state a specific year. It just says zionists arrived and the conflict began--that's a pretty high level statement, not something specific or detailed. DMH223344 (talk) 21:24, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Although some critics argue that choosing 1882 as starting point unduly accentuates the antagonism between the parties by ignoring centuries of earlier Jewish–Muslim and Arab–Jewish amity and collaboration, this is the timeframe adopted by most historians of the conflict ... - Caplan 2020, The Israel-Palestine Conflict, Wiley
This is not an “age-old” conflict. Its origins lie in the 1880s, when Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe began settling ... - Dowty 2023, Israel/Palestine, Polity
What triggered this conflict was an event thousands of miles away in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire (which then included the Baltic states and most of Poland and was home to more than half of the world’s Jewish population). On March 1, 1881, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated ... It was the arrival of these Jewish immigrants in Palestine from 1882 onward that sowed the seeds of what eventually became the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. - Waxman 2019, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Oxford
Thousands of books have been written on various aspects and periods of the conflict; this one attempts to relate the entire story in an integrated fashion, covering Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states from the 1880s to the present. - Morris 2001, whose book is, of course, called Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001.
I disagree that placing the start of the conflict at 1880s is too specific. The First Aliyah of the 1880s is where historians place the start of the conflict. Levivich (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Definitely, 1880s/late 19th century is universally accepted as the beginning of the conflict. Historians note that this is because the first Aliyah -emphasis on first- was the first wave of Zionist, not first wave of Jewish settlers to Palestine, as noted on the First Aliyah article page. There had been several waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, including those fleeing the Spanish inquisition during the Ottoman period for example. So of course this is due for the lede of the article on Zionism. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
I’d remove the following sentences: “The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.” I’d keep the last para though, which summarises quite a lot of the body. I’m not sure it’s longer than MoS prescribes is it? BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
These are factual sentences, the least I would consider removing. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
"widely seen" in this instance can be somehow removed to paraphrase it in a factual style. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:20, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
The claim to the land is a key component of Zionist ideology, represented across the spectrum from left to right within the movement. DMH223344 (talk) 19:55, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
As we discussed earlier, this framing of the claim to the land misrepresent what sources actually say - not that Jewish historical rights outweigh that of the Arabs, but rather that they outweigh Arabs claim to *exclusive* rights to the land. DancingOwl (talk) 20:51, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
The claim is well sourced in the body from a wide range of authors:
  • Gorny 1987, p. 210: "This set of assumptions was intended to stress the equal status of the Jews vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and to provide the basis for their superior right to Palestine."
  • Shapira 1992, p. 41-42 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShapira1992 (help): "The basic assumption regarding the right of Jews to Palestine—a right that required no proof—was a fundamental component of all Zionist programs. In contrast with other prospective areas for Jewish settlement, such as Argentina or East Africa, it was generally believed that no one could deny the right of the Jews to their ancestral land... The slogan 'A land without a people for a people without a land' was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth, century. It contained a legitimation of the Jewish claim to the land and did away with any sense of uneasiness that a competitor to this claim might appear."
  • Slater 2020 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSlater2020 (help): "According to the standard Zionist and then the Israeli narrative, for a number of reasons the land of Palestine rightfully belongs to the Jewish people—and no others, including today's Palestinians."
  • Khalidi 2006 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKhalidi2006 (help): "he Zionist claim to Palestine, which since even before the establishment of the state of Israel had depended in some measure on arguing that there was no legitimacy to the competing Arab claim"
  • Alam 2009 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAlam2009 (help): "Zionism was a messianic movement to restore Palestine to its divinely appointed Jewish owners... Conversely, the Palestinian, whether his ancestors were the ancient Canaanites or Hebrews, would forfeit all rights to his lands; he had become a usurper."
  • Sternhell 1999 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSternhell1999 (help): "Like all Zionists, Gordon did not recognize the principle of majority rule, and he refused to acknowledge the right of the majority to 'take from us what we have acquired through our work and creativity.' Moreover, he had confidence in the spiritual vitality of the Yishuv, its energy and motivation, and believed it was supported by the entire Jewish people. In 1921, he spoke in much stronger terms than he had between 1909 and 1918: 'For Eretz Israel, we have a charter that has been valid until now and that will always be valid, and that is the Bible, and not only the Bible.'... And now came the decisive argument: 'And what did the Arabs produce in all the years they lived in the country? Such creations, or even the creation of the Bible alone, give us a perpetual right over the land in which we were so creative, especially since the people that came after us did not create such works in this country, or did not create anything at all.' The founders accepted this point of view. This was the ultimate Zionist argument."
    • DMH223344 (talk) 21:33, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    What does it even mean to not have exclusive claim to Palestine? That Palestinians had to accept Jewish immigration to Palestine? Of course Zionism entails a lot more than just immigration. The factions in the Zionist movement pushing for a binational state were fringe, small and "ultimately marginal" (morris on brit shalom). DMH223344 (talk) 21:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    If you look at the quotes in the passage I added yesterday that you reverted, you'll see that the discussions about binational federalist models wasn't limited to Brit Shalom, and included major leaders like Ben-Gurion, Katznelson
    Hopefully, I'll have the time later today to expand it somewhat to make it suitable for the body - still not sure which section would be the best place for it - will be happy to hear you suggestions. DancingOwl (talk) 12:06, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Sure they were involved in discussions around such models, but when describing the mainstream Zionist perspective, do RS say that binational federalist models were a goal of Zionism? No they dont. DMH223344 (talk) 18:41, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    The RS show evolution of the mainstream Zionists views regarding the practical realization of the national home concept, and show that "nation state" in its modern sense wasn't a consensual Zionist goal in the first decades of the movement's existence. DancingOwl (talk) 19:22, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I disagree and will bring RS to demonstrate, Zionists may not have have found it practicable or desirable to press for a state but they certainly desired it, starting with Herzl "Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter." Selfstudier (talk) 19:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Right, this is a key point and a theme that appears repeatedly when looking at the history of the movement. DMH223344 (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Shumsky (2018) explicitly addresses this point (emphasis mine):

    "It is extremely important to realize the fact that Herzl’s clear misgivings about the separatist Greek model of a unitary linguistic-cultural nation-state in no way contradicts the contents of The Jewish State or of the term Judenstaat. Indeed, most of the neighboring non-Jewish national movements of the Habsburg imperial space in Herzl’s time used the term Staat with explicitly substatist intentions in their national political programs and positions... Herzl clearly states that Altneuland is a district of the Ottoman Empire, just as the Transylvania envisioned by Popovici and the Czech lands envisioned even by the radical Czech nationalists were imagined as districts of the Habsburg Empire."

    DancingOwl (talk) 20:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Shumsky is a very good source. Andre🚐 20:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Shumsky is the principal architect of the "provocative thesis" that "prior to World War II, the leaders of the Zionist movement did not aspire to a Jewish nation-state" in contradiction to "the conventional narrative, according to which the goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a Jewish nation-state." Selfstudier (talk) 18:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    When RS talk about Zionism, they talk about a Jewish state. Yes the movement took time to consolidate around that goal and that should be covered as part of the history of the movement (as you've done). But "Zionism" still entails a Jewish state. DMH223344 (talk) 20:17, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    The claim to land is mentioned earlier in the lead. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    I disagree with your three points. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    Less factual? please be specific. DMH223344 (talk) 19:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    "The support of a Great Power was seen as fundamental to the success of Zionism and in 1917 the Balfour Declaration established Britain's support for the movement." is too editorial and can be replaced with something fully factual and concise such as: "In 1917 the Balfour Declaration by Britain established imperial support for the movement." Makeandtoss (talk) 19:56, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    again, the support of a great power was a key component of zionist ideology which is heavily emphasized in RS covering Zionist ideology. The point had a very widespread and clear consensus. So no, this is not "too editorial" DMH223344 (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    I agree with Makeandtoss on this one. It’s an interpretation, even if widely shared. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:16, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    How is it an interpretation? DMH223344 (talk) 23:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    "was seen" clearly defines it as a perspective/interpretation, which is more appropriate for an editorial article rather than an encylopaedic entry; at least, not in the lede as a concise summary, it could be added in body with attribution. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    We aren't supposed to describe the Zionist movement's perspective in the lead? DMH223344 (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I agree as well with Makeandtoss and BobFromBrockley. Keep it simple and succinct. Andre🚐 16:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    +1 to being succinct. See also below re: not introducing new synth in the lede. – SJ + 22:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    "state ideology" claim

    The last sentence of the first paragraph read:

    Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology.

    That's confusing and a bit misleading: the linked article on state ideology provides a definition that doesn't include Israel (citing Piekalkiewicz and Penn saying that 'only religious settlers and ultranationalists seek ideocratic solutions'); the Zionist movement and meaning of the term changed after the establishment of a state; the Knesset includes non- or anti-Zionist parties such as Hadash–Ta'al and United Arab List.

    The lead sentence of politics in Israel offers different language: "Politics in Israel is dominated by Zionist parties." Earlier versions of this lede were also clearer in conveying the change over time. "Following the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism became an ideology supporting the development and protection of the state." – SJ + 22:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    Thanks for fixing that. a good edit. I think there is still other unresolved synth. Andre🚐 22:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    sources for "Some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist."

    None of the sources quoted actually support this claim:

    • Masalha talks about Zionist use of the term "colonization" - claiming this implies that "some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial" would be wp:synth
    • Same for Jabotinsky's quotes that uses of the word "colonization" and Morris' quote that uses the word "settlers"
    • Tony Judt misquoted Avraham Burg, who didn't say "colonial state" - in the referenced French version of the article he says "un Etat qui développe des colonies" and in the English version - "a state of settlements". Moreover, Burg didn't talk about Zionism in general, but specifically about Israel in 2003
    • Similarly, Finkelstein's quote contains criticism of Shapira's book and doesn't contain any evidence that Shapira, or any other "proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist"

    Accordingly, either better sources need to be provided, or this sentence should be removed altogether. DancingOwl (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

    Agree. Would just delete sentence. I always found it clunky and odd. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:42, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    Tony Judt misquoted Avraham Burg they didn't as a "state that develops colonies" is by definition a "colonial state". If you believe otherwise, then you need to find a reliable source that supports your statement. M.Bitton (talk) 21:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    French "colonies" can be translated to English as either "colonies" or "settlements", and in the English version of his article Burg himself says "a state of settlements".
    Also, as I said above, Burg was talking specifically about 2003 Israel, not Zionism in general. DancingOwl (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    Your WP:OR contradicts what the RS says. As for the irrelevant English version (not the one used by the source), "a state of settlements" is by definition a "settler colonial state". M.Bitton (talk) 21:55, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
    1. Quoting a primary source is not wp:or
    2. Your "by definition" inference is wp:synth
    3. In both French and English versions of his article, Burg talks specifically about Israel in 2003, not Zionism in general. DancingOwl (talk) 10:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    1. Quoting a source is not OR, but interpreting it (like you did) is most definitely OR.
    2. It's not (it's perfectly in line with what the cited RS says).
    3. Irrelevant to the claim that you made about the inexistent misquote. M.Bitton (talk) 10:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    3. If you read my initial comment, you'll see that I said two things about this quote, and the second was that Burg talked specifically about Israel in 2003, not Zionism in general.
    So even if you insist on justifying Judt use of "colonial state", this quote still cannot be used as evidence for the claim that "some proponents of Zionism accept the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial or exceptionalist" DancingOwl (talk) 11:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I did read it, and more important than that, I read your edit summary (used as a justification for the removal of the content). I haven't checked the others. M.Bitton (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I agree with BobFromBrockley and DancingOwl. It's not supported by the material. Andre🚐 16:30, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    The sentence has now been added to the body. I don't object to its presence in the body, but we need to address the sourcing concerns raised here. The primary Jabotinsky and secondary Masalha very adequately source the "colonisation" claim. I don't understand how Morris or Finkelstein support any part of the claim. No source now present supports "settler-colonialism", a term I doubt any Zionist has used positively. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    I agree. It's always been synth and has never been justifiable. Andre🚐 02:00, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    Duplicate sections

    The section 'The concept of "transfer"' is duplicated under both "Beliefs" and "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict". The part in "Role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" is also duplicated (though rephrased) under the section header itself. For example, the sentence 'transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day"' appears three times in the article. KimiNewt (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

    There has been a bit of back and forth on this, to my way of thinking, transfer/colonialism/IP conflict (and the few Arabs business) are all related things, I don't much like the way the article tries to separate them, tbh. Selfstudier (talk) 16:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Colonialism also has two sections, one in "anti-Zionism" (where it doesn't really belong) and then one tucked right at the end of the article. It might be sensible to create a single section that covers colonialism, transfer and the conflict together (perhaps as three sub-sections) and place it either before or after the "History" section. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I would move all of the material into the second section (within "Role in the conflict") as it's not a "belief" of the movement. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:22, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I agree, it could use some tightening up and removing of duplicative material. Andre🚐 16:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    Agree - it makes much more sense to put it under "Role in the conflict" DancingOwl (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

    King-Crane quote

    Can someone explain to me what the recently added quote from the King-Crane commission adds to the article? It seems better to add a brief one-sentence analysis/summary of the commission in the body rather than adding an out of context quote from the commission. DMH223344 (talk) 20:20, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

    It's not out of context altho it might be out of position. It relates to the Jewish home material recently added, which in turn relates to the Balfour material in the History section which does mention the King Crane commission. And then it further relates to the Mandate (which included the Balfour Declaration within it) and what Zionist views were on statehood, territory and whatnot from 1917 to 1948 (Balfour to Mandate end). Selfstudier (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
    I fixed up the scattered material so it is all together as part of the history. Still needs tweaking tho. Selfstudier (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    Types of Zionism

    I disagree with and don't understand this revert by DMH223344. Yes, the material is largely unsourced; as I said in my edit summary it comes from the lead of the linked main article, Types of Zionism and the leads of the main articles for those specific types with their own articles, e.g. socialist Zionism, where there are sources given in the body. I can easily address this issue by adding sourcing. In the literature, political Zionism is universally presented as a different stream of Zionism from labour Zionism, as is very clear in the Types of Zionism article. Again, that can easily be shown with sources. I'll have another go at an edit with sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

    Would you agree that the strain currently in the ascendancy is religious Zionism? But of a different character than the earlier version. Selfstudier (talk) 12:56, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    Good question. My sense is you're right on both counts: the religious Zionism incubated in the settler movement is ascendant now, but it differs sharply from "classical" forms of religious Zionism, due to the influence of far right movements, such as Kahanism, that perhaps draw more from the Revisionist tradition. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks for adding sources. The content fits better under the history section where we can discuss the movement at various points in time. This new section discusses "Practical Zionism", "Political Zionism" and "Cultural Zionism" as various strands during the beginning of the movement's development. Such a discussion would fit much better in the history section where we can place the factions in context and also link out to other pages for more detail. I do think Cultural Zionism deserves to be mentioned under "types" since it remained its own distinct strain for several decades and also is consistently treated as a distinct strain by RS.
    Lastly, see this comment from Finkelstein: Labor Zionism thus represented less an alternative than a supplement to political Zionism. which I dont think is a controversial claim. DMH223344 (talk) 18:37, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks. I have created basic sourced versions of each of these subsections but they obviously need a little more work to strengthen the referencing, so good to flag any unsourced or dubious content. I can see an argument for merging them into the history, and wouldn't totally oppose that if the reader could still easily identify the main currents and types of Zionism, but personally I think it's helpful on this top level page to have at least a one para intro to each of the main currents (although some of the detail for labor Zionism, general Zionism and liberal Zionism might be currently too much so easier to move leaving introductory paras in place). The literature as a whole overwhelmingly distinguishes between these currents so I think we should too.
    I am wary of putting too much interpretation, e.g. by Finkelstein or Gorny, into these sections. If we do, it should be in the interpreter's voice not ours. See talk section below for example on Gorny's take not necessarily being the final one. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:05, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    I’d also add that we need to be careful to avoid over emphasising yishuv/Israeli politics in this section (as some of the material I inserted might have). In the pre-1948 period (and perhaps always?) the majority of Zionists didn’t live in Palestine. Socialist Zionism was a major force in the Russian empire for example (see John Klier) long before it came to
    dominate yishuv and then early Israeli politics. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Having initially expanded this section based on the under-referenced main article, Types of Zionism, but then adding more material as a result of the sourcing work, many sub-sections are now longer than the parent sub-sections at the main article. Given concerns lower down this talk page about the excessive length of this article, I am going to copy the longest versions (which still need more sourcing) to the Types article and strip the content here somewhat. I assume that is non-controversial.

    Heterogeneity of Zionism/Historiography

    Not sure how to use it, but just came across this striking quote:

    Once we discard the assumption one can speak of a Zionist “idea,” “doctrine” or “ideology” in the singular, we will be able to reassess Zionist thought in a new light and produce a more critically and historically grounded narrative.Footnote16 Most significantly, instead of searching in vain for “germs” or “sprouts” of this Zionist core-doctrine, we might offer an alternative view of the “family resemblance” of Zionist ideas, which (to allude to Wittgenstein's metaphor) are connected by a series of overlapping similarities, and which show no one feature common to all.

    And from the footnote:

    Relatively recent examples of the search for this “core” idea in Zionism (which tends to label ideological diversity as “heresy” or “deviation”) can be found in Gorny and Netzer, “‘Avodat ha-hoveh ha-murhevet’”; Halpern and Reinharz, Zionism and the Creation of a New Society; and Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology. Older studies which are based on a similar presupposition include Heller, The Zionist Idea, and most famously Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea.

    BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

    I think that's an interesting quote. I mean whether its the early Practical, Cultural, and Political Zionists, or whether its the contemporary Zionist right, center, left, and messianic nationalist factions of the Zionist movement, there always seems to have been immense diversity of thought as to what Zionism is and should be. Everything from the utopian socialist Zionism of Nachman Syrkin to the uber-capitalist revisionist Zionism of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, from the bi-nationalism of Martin Buber, Henrietta Szold, and Reuven Rivlin to the religious ultranationalist fundamentalist supremacist terrorism of Meir Kahane. Zionism as an ideology has always been diverse. MagyarNavy1918 (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    "Concept of Transfer" belongs under Beliefs

    The "concept of transfer" is a key aspect of Zionist thought as discussed in RS. The section as written belongs under the Beliefs section and not under the History section (it is a discussion of zionist thought). Morris, for example, describes transfer as "one of the main currents in Zionist ideology from the movement’s inception."

    We should move the section "concept of transfer" back to where it was under the beliefs section after the discussion on the claim to a demographic majority. It flows well after this section.

    Tagging @Selfstudier for visibility (I believe you had moved these sections around). DMH223344 (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    Already discussed at #Duplicate sections and consensus was to move it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    I know Morris has jumped around a bit on various matters, including this one apparently, see Explaining Transfer: Zionist Thinking and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
    "Second, the idea of transfer was never adopted as part of the Zionist movement's platform, nor as part of the programme or platform of any of the main Zionist parties, not in the nineteenth century and not in the twentieth century. And, in general, the Zionist leaders looked to massive Jewish immigration, primarily from Russia and Europe, as the means of establishing and then assuring a Jewish majority in Palestine or whatever part of it was to be earmarked for Jewish statehood." Selfstudier (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    But that doesn't contradict at all what I quoted from Morris. The beliefs section discusses thought and ideology. Transfer is studied specifically in the context of "zionist thought/thinking" and is directly relevant to the idea of demographic majority; this is how RS describe transfer, as a mechanism to achieve and maintain a demographic majority. DMH223344 (talk) 18:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    and while that discussion was happening I deleted the duplicated section, so there was no longer an issue with duplicates at that point, making the discussion irrelevant. DMH223344 (talk) 18:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    In any case, editors agreed to move it to "role in the conflict" not into "history" where it does not flow well with the other content. DMH223344 (talk) 18:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    I had originally moved it once without discussion but you reverted it so I let it go. Then the issue came up again and I still have the same view I had originally, it sits better where it is now and other editors seem to agree. If they have changed their minds, would they please say so?
    Which is not to rule out further rearrangements of material as matters progress (I have already done some of that, too). Selfstudier (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    Can you explain why you think it fits better under the history section? The current placement gives the reader whiplash going from a chronological discussion about events in 1938 to a general discussion of the Zionist perspective on the concept of transfer.
    I do agree that some of the content would make more sense under the history section:
    Points which would flow well under the history section:
    • perspectives on the peel commission partition proposal
    • discussions around population transfers in the 20's setting a precedent
    Points which I think belong under the beliefs section:
    • The zionist perspective on the morality and practicality of transfer
    • The breadth of support for transfer across factions of the movement
    • The motivation behind transfer and its relevance to maintaining a demographic majority
    DMH223344 (talk) 21:32, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    I already explained before to my way of thinking, transfer/colonialism/IP conflict (and the few Arabs business) are all related things, I don't much like the way the article tries to separate them, tbh and your asking me to explain it again serves no purpose, atm, afaics it is only yourself with this idea, I would rather see if other editors agree with you. Selfstudier (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    Well to be clear that quote doesn't explain to me why it all should go under the history section. DMH223344 (talk) 01:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Because originally, transfer was discussed in two separate places and I thought it should all be in one place, at that time I chose to put it in the separate section that was there for the role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But you reverted that. Then when the issue came up again, I first moved it per talk page discussion but then subsequently folded that section into the History section because it didn't look right sat there by itself. If you want to have all the related things under a different section, that's possible, I said that too, right? I do not agree that this should be discussed completely separately as a belief, I cannot be plainer than that, I'm afraid. Selfstudier (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Although open to persuasion, I very much lean to selfstudier position. It works well to explain the shifting approaches and positions to transfer and demographics historically in the history section. Putting it in the beliefs section either leads to an overly simplistic generalised claim about Zionist essence (see Arie Dubnow quote elsewhere on this talk page on why that’s a bad idea) or an overly convoluted discussion if it’s caveated properly.
    incidentally, morris said: “The transfer idea goes back to the fathers of modern Zionism and, while rarely given a public airing before 1937, was one of the main currents in Zionist ideology from the movement's inception.” Even in that strongest version, the “while” clause shows why giving it too central a role is problematic. Many earlier Zionists had no position on the issue or a barely thought through position and a few important exceptions opposed transfer at key moments. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Would you describe the current section as "overly simplistic?"
    Transfer is directly related to demography, and demography is unquestionably part of the essence of Zionism. RS cover transfer both when explaining the history, but also when describing Zionist ideology; we should follow the same pattern here. The details of discussions on transfer can still be covered in the history section, but transfer as part of Zionist thought should still be covered under "beliefs."
    As for the use of "while" in that quote, it doesn't actually qualify the statement about transfer being a main current of zionist ideology (or belief), it just specifies what was shared openly by the movement. DMH223344 (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
    No I think the current version, with the transfer concept discussed in the history section, is not overly simplistic, which is one reason I'm inclined to think it works there. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:43, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    The section as it is discusses transfer as a belief/part of zionist ideology. And as you say it is not overly simplistic. So why include it in the history section rather than under beliefs? After all, RS tend to discuss transfer as a part of zionist ideology rather than just something that was considered at times during the movement's development. DMH223344 (talk) 19:54, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    I think part of the problem here is just language, to me "belief" suggests something like "believe in X" with no evidence for X.
    Whereas ideology suggests goals that might or might not be based on a belief.
    Timewise, I tend to associate historical belief as going back a ways in time (in this case, way way back and quite possibly part mythical) and ideology as something more recent (actually historical).
    Maybe if we call it just Goals, the problem goes away? Selfstudier (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    I had originally titled the section "beliefs" since i thought it was strictly broader than "ideology", but I guess that's not true. "Ideology" still seems to fit better than "goals" since the other subsections dont make sense as "goals" and the "existential right and need" aspect is discussed as part of zionist ideology in RS. DMH223344 (talk) 22:50, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    Yishuv support for European Jews during the war

    Removing this comment about "little Zionist resources being deployed", which is controversial in the literature and presented out of context here.

    The Zionist war effort focused on the survival and development of the Yishuv, with little Zionist resources being deployed in support of European Jews. (quoting Morris 99)

    The Morris cite talks about selective quotes from Ben-Gurion, who is not representative of the whole Yishuv or how it spent resources, which in turn was not representative of the whole movement. Other scholars such as Frilling addressed this at length reaching different conclusions, more appropriate for inclusion on David Ben-Gurion, which already addresses related claims in some detail (support for rescue, and for enlistment drives to support the war effort). – SJ + 23:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

    It looks like some citations may have been mixed around. This statement should reference Pappé 2004 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPappé2004 (help): "Little Zionist energy was invested in saving Jews, as the priority in those difficult days remained the survival of the Jewish community in Palestine.".
    There's also Sternhell 1999 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSternhell1999 (help): "The labor elite thus concentrated its efforts on what had always seemed to them, and which from their point of view remained, of greatest importance: the protection of the Yishuv, the last bastion of the nation. They did not wish to use their resources for purposes for which they would be ineffective. The Zionist movement and the Yishuv knew that the financial and political resources they devoted to helping the Jews of Europe were insufficient or even ludicrous. Yet they did not wish to enter into open conflict with governments or public opinion.".
    Can you share the Frilling reference you mentioned? DMH223344 (talk) 02:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Sj pinging in case you missed the comment above: can you share the Frilling reference? DMH223344 (talk) 20:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    History section needs properly splitting

    There is a separate history child, but the history section here is still gargantuan and contributing significantly to the overgrown page size. Just noting this here as a background task that the material here should be copied over the child if it isn't already and then better summarised here. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    +1. Selfstudier (talk) 19:03, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Check the section sizes in the page header. Despite being "split", the history is still 1/3+ of the page. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    Thanks to DMH223344 for trimming the History considerably, which I think has improved the article. I support the "agressive" trim of the Russian detail. From the previous discussion on this page, though, I wonder if some editors might want to retrieve some of the material in this trim: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?diff=1267808344&oldid=1267807865&title=Zionism BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:00, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

    Can I ask if editors still
    think History is too long? It seems fine to me now, and it’s proper that it’s one of the longest parts of this encyclopaedia article BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

    Guys...The Irgun Weren't Labor Zionists

    Irgun was founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and led for most of its history by Menachem Begin and Hillel Kook, three leaders of the Revisionist Zionist movement, the main rivals to the labor Zionists. The main labor Zionist attitude during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine was Havlagah, or "restraint," i.e. nonviolence towards Palestinians, maintaining only self-defense if Kibbutzim were attacked. It was the position of Ben-Gurion, it was the position of Ben-Zvi, it was the position of Katznelson. MagyarNavy1918 (talk) 21:52, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    I haven't looked into this, but I suggest you strike the last portion. I do think there's a legitimate point to be made about the pluralism and multifaceted nature of Zionism, and how the article sometimes conflates different strains, but let's not accuse anyone of active malice, that's a good way to get your account blocked. Andre🚐 21:56, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    If that is a Misplaced Pages bureaucracy thing I will gladly do that. Just let me know how to file a complaint for a moderator of some kind to look it over. MagyarNavy1918 (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks. Striking mine since you removed yours. I suggest you review WP:NPA and WP:AGF. As far as complaining or moderation, there is an active case already on related topics, WP:ARBPIA5. It's closed now, though, awaiting decisions from arbitrators. This isn't the venue to discuss that, though, but we can discuss the issues about Revisionist Zionism and the Irgun for sure. Keep it unemotional and logical and focus on the material. Andre🚐 22:04, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks! MagyarNavy1918 (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

    The article says The Irgun, the military arm of the revisionist Zionists so what's the actual problem here? Selfstudier (talk) 10:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

    References

    1. "A Rebel with a Cause: Hillel Kook, Begin and Jabotinsky's Ideological Legacy". JStor. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245768?searchText= ignored (help)
    2. "Between Ideology and Reality: The Right Wing Organizations, the Jerusalem Question, and the Role of Menachem Begin 1948–1949". JStor. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.21.3.06?searchText= ignored (help)
    3. "THREE The Irgun". JStor. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt1mtz7b4.6?searchText= ignored (help)
    4. "3 The Birth of the Symbolic Systems of Labor and Revisionist Zionism". JStor. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7zt60k.7?searchText= ignored (help)
    5. Kessler, Oren (2023). Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-4881-5.
    6. Kessler, Oren (2023). Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-4881-5.

    A subsection about evolution of the "national home" concept

    This subsection, which I wrote a few days ago, has been moved around the article several times and eventually removed altogether.

    I strongly object to this removal - the exact nature of the "national home" envisioned by the Zionist movement is a key part of its ideology and belongs to the "Beliefs" section.

    I would like to restore this subsection and put it under the "Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine", and would also suggest to replace the "Jewish state" in the name of the subsection with "home for the Jewish people" or with "national home", in order to reflect the initial ambiguity of the concept.

    Below is the proposed phrasing, that includes all the edits made by me and other editors, before the section was removed, as well as several minor changes that take into account the proposed location of the section:

    "Home for the Jewish people" - evolution of the concept

    The Zionist concept a "home for the Jewish people", as articulated, for example, in the Basel Program, or a "national home for the Jewish people", as it was later referred to in the Balfour Declaration, initially encompassed diverse views on its nature and scope. Early Zionists initially envisioned a limited autonomy within a larger multinational framework. During the British Mandate, these aspirations evolved into discussions that considered binational federalist models that sought to reconcile Jewish national goals with coexistence and shared governance with the Arab population in Palestine. However, as the political landscape hardened — marked by growing Arab opposition and shifting British policies — a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged. According to historian Walter Laqueur, the bi-national solution was advocated in only a "half-hearted way" by the Zionist movement. In Laqueur's analysis, the proposed relied on the unrealistic expectation of gaining Arab agreement. Arabs rejected bi-nationalism and parity, feeling no need to compromise on Palestine's Arab identity and were particularly concerned that increased Jewish immigration would threaten their status in Palestine. DancingOwl (talk) 09:04, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    • I would support something like this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    • I have some question about this, mainly because it goes beyond "belief". I accept that there is an argument that the concept of a Jewish homeland going back into history, exile, return and all that jazz, even if it partly has the tenor of foundational myth and that should go in the belief section. Where I part company is with the idea that the amiable Zionists were not really that interested in a Jewish state until somewhere late in the Mandate era, where does the statement a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged come from, btw? If one consults this document (for instance), the sections starting "The historical background of the Jewish national home» concept", it gives a quite different impression. So my thought would be that sure, the actual belief part can go into that section but that the rest of it has nothing to do with any belief as such and more to do with Basel and after events ie history. Selfstudier (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      On reflection, I agree with Selfstudier. The detail should be in the History section, with a more concise summary of the belief in the Belief section. But I think the content above is basically right. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      First of all, the "Beliefs" section in its current form should be more aptly titled "Core beliefs and goals", as its existing content is not strictly limited to beliefs. In particular, the "Claim to a Jewish demographic majority and a Jewish state in Palestine" subsection, to which I suggest to add this passage, addresses goals and policies as much as it does beliefs.
      Regarding the main thesis about substatist Zionist goals - below is a list of reliable sources with quotes supporting this thesis.
      As to the a broad consensus favoring the establishment of a fully independent Jewish state gradually emerged sentence - I have no objections to modifying it, perhaps to something closer to how Laqueur, quoted below, frames it:

      It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood.

      DancingOwl (talk) 15:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      "Up to the 1930s the Zionist movement had no clear idea about its final aim. Herzl proclaimed that a Jewish state was a world necessity. But later he and his successors mentioned the state only infrequently, partly for tactical reasons, mainly because they had no clear concept as to how a state would come into being. Two generations of Zionist leaders, from Herzl to Weizmann, believed that Palestine would at some fairly distant date become Jewish without the use of violence or guile, as the result of steady immigration and settlement, of quiet and patient work. The idea that a state was the normal form of existence for a people and that it was an immediate necessity was preached by Jabotinsky in the 1930s. But he was at the time almost alone in voicing this demand. It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood."
      ..is the complete section from Laqueur's missive. But the preceding sentences make it clear that such a state was desired which is what I keep saying, that it wasn't feasible for one reason or another does not negate the desire, this is straightforward to source (apart from the link I already provided):
      "Baron James urged him to try and influence members of the British government and, further, to advocate to them more ambitious goals than practical Zionism had hitherto advanced. "One should ask for something which … tends towards the formation of a Jewish State." This remark only reinforced Weizmann’s developing approach, although he and his allies carefully avoided the word “state,” which they rightly deemed too controversial to introduce at the moment." That was in 1914 when there were elements of the British government quite keen on the idea of a Jewish state as part of a partition of the Ottoman empire. Schneer, Jonathan (2010). The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6532-5. Selfstudier (talk) 15:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      At the time, the Zionists basically had nothing except some sympathetic ears in the right places so they were out for whatever they could get and it is very clear from all the sources around that time that they were after a State "While Weizmann may say one thing to you, and while you may mean one thing by a national home, he is out for something quite different," replied Curzon (to Balfour). Selfstudier (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      Balfour Declaration#The "national home for the Jewish people" vs. Jewish state worth a read. Selfstudier (talk) 15:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
      In the context of this discussion, it's important to remember that Laqueur's books was originally published in 1972, and the the sub-statist character of early Zionism has only started to be seriously examined in academic research in the last 20 years or so. And as several of the sources above clarify, early Zionists including Herzl himself, has used the term "Jewish State" in a sub-statist sense that is quite different from the national-state as we understand it today.
      Consider, for example, how the Jewish State is referred to in another passage in Schneer's book (emphasis mine):

      "...The purpose of the Committee was “to promote the ideal of an Anglo-Jewish Palestine which it is hoped the War will bring within reach.” They sent out a letter to likely supporters, asking them to lend their names as patrons:
      "There are many Jewish nationalists in England who look forward to the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine under the British Crown. There are many Englishmen who hold it to be a very important British interest that Palestine should be part of the British Imperial system in the East. Thus, not for the first time in history, there is a community alike of interest and of sentiment between the British State and Jewish people."

      In other words, the British Zionists were not talking about a fully sovereign nation-state, but rather about a sort of British protectorate, which is fully consistent with how the other sources mentioned above describe it. DancingOwl (talk) 20:11, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    This is much more a part of history (and limited to a relatively brief period of time) than a part of zionist belief or ideology. It would make sense to trace this development in the history section, but editors have already complained about its length. The content was moved to the History of Zionism page where it fits better. DMH223344 (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    According to Laqueur, quoted above, Zionist consensus about full statehood as the goal of the movement only formed around WWII and several other sources make similar evaluations, so "relatively brief period of time" is inaccurate.
    And like I said earlier, the "Beliefs" sections in its current form is not strictly limited to beliefs/ideology, but also discusses goals/policies, so it looks like the most natural place for a short overview of the the evolution of Zionist understanding of the "national home" concept. DancingOwl (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    Laqueur is only one source and I can provide many more than one refuting that. Recall that we had some reservations about adding Laqueur when discussing best sources. His treatment is sympathetic to say the least. Selfstudier (talk) 21:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    The section talks about selfdetermination, demographic majority and only at the end mentions a state and is clear that by the time of the revolt we can speak confidently about most groups wanting a state. As far as I can tell, the only aspect present in your paragraph that isnt already in this section is the emphasis on "diverse views" and mention of binational schemes. I think it would be a stretch to say there were diverse views in mainstream zionism about demography and selfdetermination. And binational schemes were only relevant briefly. DMH223344 (talk) 22:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    In case you missed it, I'll repeat what I posted elsewhere "Shumsky is the principal architect of the "provocative thesis" that "prior to World War II, the leaders of the Zionist movement did not aspire to a Jewish nation-state" in contradiction to "the conventional narrative, according to which the goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a Jewish nation-state." The conventional narrative, that's the obstacle here. Selfstudier (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    What's missing from the text is the public versus private aspect of it, which is related to the pragmatic aspect. Herzl approved of "home" in the Basel Declaration but in his diary he wrote "state" dozens of times. It looks like a contradiction but it isn't. The Zionists knew that any demand for sovereignty in Palestine would produce an immediate emphatic "no" from the Ottoman Sultan that would kill the project. So instead they proposed something less than a state with the intention of progressing in stages. Zero 01:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

    References

    1. Brenner 2020, p. 89 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrenner2020 (help): "What was a "national home"? The truth is that nobody really knew. This formula reached back to the First Zionist Congress, when "a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine" became the central demand of Herzl's new movement. Even then it was not clear if this meant an independent state or a cooperative as in Herzl's "Society of the Jews," a spiritual center as envisioned by Ahad Ha'am and his followers or an autonomous region within a multi-national empire based on the Habsburg monarchy."
    2. Kedar, Nir (2002). "Ben-Gurion's Mamlakhtiyut: Etymological and Theoretical Roots". Israel Studies. 7 (3): 120. ISSN 1084-9513. JSTOR 30245598. The Zionists argued whether to fight for a sovereign state in Palestine first (as some of the General-Zionists and later the Revisionists demanded) or to concentrate on a Jewish socio economic infrastructure. Others questioned whether a Jewish sovereign state should be Zionism's final goal or an alternative type of polity was preferable. As opposed to the "statists" who favored of sovereign statehood, some Zionists advocated an autonomous Jewish canton affiliated either with the Ottoman or British Empire, or in alliance within a future Middle-Eastern federation or confederation. Still others endorsed the vague concept of a Jewish "Homeland" or "National Home" that would flourish under the aegis of the British Empire. In sum, Zionists not only lacked a Hebrew rendering for the terms "state", "commonwealth", "republic" and "polity", but were also divided upon the type of polity they wished to create in Palestine. Only in 1942, at the Biltmore Conference in New York, did the Zionist Movement finally abandon the ambiguous concepts of "National Home" and "Homeland," officially declare Jewish statehood as its ultimate goal, and adopt the word "medinah" as Zionism's formal rendering for "state".
    3. Laqueur 2009: "Up to the 1930s the Zionist movement had no clear idea about its final aim. Herzl proclaimed that a Jewish state was a world necessity. But later he and his successors mentioned the state only infrequently, partly for tactical reasons, mainly because they had no clear concept as to how a state would come into being. Two generations of Zionist leaders, from Herzl to Weizmann, believed that Palestine would at some fairly distant date become Jewish without the use of violence or guile, as the result of steady immigration and settlement, of quiet and patient work. The idea that a state was the normal form of existence for a people and that it was an immediate necessity was preached by Jabotinsky in the 1930s. But he was at the time almost alone in voicing this demand. It took the advent of Nazism, the holocaust and total Arab rejection of the national home to convert the Zionist movement to the belief in statehood."
    4. Gorny 2006: pp. 41-42: "The idea of national autonomy within a federative state structure was related to the tradition of political liberalism and, especially, Eastern and Central European social democracy. They were brought to Palestine by members of Po’alei Tsiyyon who settled in the country during the Second Aliya years and found expression in the early writings of Ber (Dov) Borochov. However, the ideas had been publicized first in the Ottoman era, in a "Manifesto" put out by four socialist parties, including Po'alei Tsiyyon, during the first Balkan War (1912)... Following the traditional attitudes of social democracy on the eve of World War I, the authors expressed staunch opposition to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire into independent nation-states. Instead, they proposed a federative political structure, based on national autonomy, that would preserve the integrity of the state and satisfy just national aspirations as well." harvnb error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFGorny2006 (help)
    5. Penslar 2023: p. 47: "Initially, Statist Zionism did not necessarily demand a sovereign state for Jews in Palestine. The ZO’s Basel Program, affirmed at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, called for a Jewish “national home, secured by public law,” not a state. Herzl himself was willing to accept alternate arrangements for Palestine, such as a designated Jewish province of the Ottoman Empire or a Great Power protectorate... harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPenslar2023 (help)
    6. Shumsky 2018: pp. 79-80: "It is extremely important to realize the fact that Herzl’s clear misgivings about the separatist Greek model of a unitary linguistic-cultural nation-state in no way contradicts the contents of The Jewish State or of the term Judenstaat. Indeed, most of the neighboring non-Jewish national movements of the Habsburg imperial space in Herzl’s time used the term Staat with explicitly substatist intentions in their national political programs and positions... Herzl clearly states that Altneuland is a district of the Ottoman Empire, just as the Transylvania envisioned by Popovici and the Czech lands envisioned even by the radical Czech nationalists were imagined as districts of the Habsburg Empire."
      p. 152: "During the imperial period, as we saw in his programmatic 1909 article “The New Turkey and Our Chances,” Jabotinsky considered the term “state” to be totally irrelevant to Zionism’s political purpose, whose realization he envisioned as part of a wider sovereign-political framework in the form of an autonomous district in a federative Ottoman nationalities state."
      pp. 173: "it is well-known that shortly after immigrating to Palestine (1906), and particularly on the eve of and during World War I, Ben-Gurion, along with his friend and Poalei Zion party comrade Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, clearly espoused the political vision in favor of turning Palestine into a Jewish national district under an Ottoman nationalities state" harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShumsky2018 (help)
      • Brenner 2020p. 93: "Even for David Ben- Gurion, the emerging leader of the Yishuv (the Jewish population in Palestine), an independent Jewish state was by no means his only future vision during the 1920s... In a speech to the Assembly of Representatives of Palestine’s Jewish community in 1926, he stressed that there could not be a single legal system in a territory with so many different national and religious groups as Palestine. He demanded far-reaching autonomy for all groups and a decentralized government. Ben-Gurion and other Labor leaders drafted several proposals for a future Jewish society based on autonomous rights for both the Jewish and the Arab communities, and they developed federalist plans for the region as well"
        pp. 111-112: "Jabotinsky never doubted the necessity of granting Arabs equal rights in a future Jewish state and, throughout almost his entire life, he opposed plans to expel them from their native lands. His agenda called for both individual and collective rights for the Arab population... In 1918 he wrote an unpublished treatise, over 100 pages in length, suggesting a bi-national administration of Palestine, and in 1922 presented a federalist proposal for a Middle Eastern federation consisting of Muslim (Syrian and Mesopotamian), Muslim- Christian (Lebanese), and Jewish (Palestinian) cantons, each with a high degree of autonomy. A year later he presented another federation plan together with Chaim Weizmann." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrenner2020 (help)
      • Gorny, Yosef (2006). From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought. Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-1161-1.
      • Chaim, Gans (2008). A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State. Oxford Academic. p. 54. At the beginning of the 1920s, even Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the right‐wing Revisionist faction within Zionism, still spoke in terms of a binational "Jewish‐Arab federation.
      • Shumsky 2018: p. 200: "Ben-Gurion was not the only figure in the Mandate-era Zionist Labor movement who spoke in autonomist terms about the Jewish nation's self-determination in Palestine. Berl Katznelson, the ideological mainstay of the Zionist Labor movement, gave a long political lecture in the Third Mapai Congress, February 5–8, 1931, only days before the MacDonald Letter was published, in which he argued that Zionism must work toward an equitable model of joint binational sovereignty in Palestine, and to do so as a matter of principle." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShumsky2018 (help)
    8. Laqueur 2009: "The bi-national solution (parity), advocated by the Zionist movement in a half-hearted way in the 1920s and, with more enthusiasm, by some minority groups, would have been in every respect a better solution for the Palestine problem. It would have been a guarantee for the peaceful development of the country. But it was based on the unrealistic assumption that Arab agreement could be obtained. Bi-nationalism and parity were utterly rejected by the Arabs, who saw no good reason for any compromise as far as the Arab character of Palestine was concerned. They were not willing to accept the yishuv as it existed in the 1920s and 1930s, let alone permit more Jewish immigration and settlement. They feared that a further influx of Jews would eventually reduce the Arabs to minority status in Palestine."

    Opening sentence of the "The Peel Commission transfer proposal" section

    The section starts with the following sentence:

    At this point, Jews owned 5.6% of the land in Palestine; the land allocated to the Jewish state would contain 40 percent of the country's fertile land.

    The sentence has two issues:

    • It's not directly related to the topic of this section and breaks the flow between the last sentence of the previous section, describing the partition proposal of the Peel Commission, and the second sentence of this section, which describes the population transfer proposal.
    • The sentence is misleading, since it makes an apples-to-oranges comparison and juxtaposes the percentage of Jewish-owned land out of total land with the percentage of fertile land assigned to the Jewish State by the commission.

    I suggest to remove it from this section, and if it's still needed at some other place in the article, it should be rewritten as either total-to-total or fertile-to-fertile percentages comparison. DancingOwl (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

    How is it misleading? It presents two statistics about the allocation of land, there's no comparison being made. DMH223344 (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
    The comparison is implied by the very fact that those two statistics appear one after another in the same sentence. DancingOwl (talk) 20:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)


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