Talk:Zionism

Length

This article is massively overlength, more than double the size identified at Wikipedia:Summary_style#Article_size. I propose, as a first step towards resolving this problem, reinstating this edit. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose wholesale specific diff, support some cuts. In my view it removes some things that are valuable while retaining things that aren't. However I do agree with some of the removals, such as the clause, "a term denoting the force needed to prevent Palestinian resistance against colonization", the Morris quote, the Herzl quote about antisemitism, the quotes in the section about Gandhi, the lengthy part about South Africa, and the lengthy quotes in the section about Chomsky and Finkelstein, the Sternhell and Busbridge parts. That should all be cut in my view. I'd leave the stuff about the declaration of independence and the framework of the Israeli government since I think that's fairly critical to Zionism, and I'd leave the stuff about the revival of Hebrew. Andre🚐 05:04, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

• Re: "retaining things that aren't": not proposing this be the only edit, just a first step. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, that's fair, I just meant that in an area where you chose to cut I saw other nearby things I might have cut instead and flowed it out different. Andre🚐 05:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

• Sure. I think that's a reason to restore the tag, as it will encourage continued work on the problem rather than just a one-and-done. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  Fine by me. I know other editors tend to reflexively revert the addition of maintenance tags to the article, citing the consensus required restriction. However I personally have no objection to a too long tag. Andre🚐 05:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  If an editor believes an article is too long, perhaps they'd be better of considering/starting a split discussion, rather than resorting to tagging. TarnishedPath^talk 06:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  The two big targets are the History and Anti Zionism sections, without any progress there, overall progress is unlikely. Selfstudier (talk) 10:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Some of the cuts make sense to me. Would be better to trim things one by one with an edit summary rather than in one swoop that will inevitably be contested. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

agreed, and also agree with self that we should focus on the longest sections. The antizionism section in particular seems excessively long and detailed. DMH223344 (talk) 16:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

The current word count is 17,732, well into the zone where a split is recommended.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:52, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

adding some justification in the edit summaries wouldnt hurt either DMH223344 (talk) 05:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

While I appreciate the effort you've put into this, it's important to be careful that our presentation here reflects that in RS. For example, the removal of "which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor" from the sentence "The development of Zionism and other Jewish nationalist movements grew out of these sentiments, which began to emerge even before the appearance of modern antisemitism as a major factor" gives it a different meaning, and minimizes the importance of antisemitism.

Also, there is now no mention in the article that Zionism was not the only form of Jewish nationalism. DMH223344 (talk) 05:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Overall, I think the work done in these edits to trim the article while also to strengthen has been an improvement.

I also quibble with some of the specific trims, e.g. I agree with DMH that a brief mention of other forms of Jewish nationalism is due. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Should we decide on a target length? Otherwise the tag will stick around forever. DMH223344 (talk) 18:12, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Should we mention Altneuland at all?

I agree that Altneuland is important, but it doesnt seem to have been important enough for this article for there to be more than 2 disconnected sentences about it. I suggest we remove them since they dont seem to be adding much at the moment. DMH223344 (talk) 16:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Chomsky shouldn’t be cited in the intro

He’s a linguist and polemicist, not a historian. The claim that “ Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance” isn’t true imo but that’s probably more than I want to bite off.Prezbo (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

That's a little reductive of Chomsky's career. Frankly there's a lot of people, particularly in Anthropology, who think Chomsky is at his weakest as a linguist. On the other hand Chomsky has been a political analyst since at least 1967 and he has published multiple very prominent books on world politics. Simonm223 (talk) 17:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Can we agree that he has, how can I put it, a very particular viewpoint? And Chomsky has had his share of self-owns in the political arena as well. It's like citing William F. Buckley or Friedrich Hayek (without attribution) in the lead of the Soviet Union article. I'm just saying, when I clicked on this footnote, I expected to see sources written by historians or political scientists. Seeing Chomsky makes me trust the statement less rather than more. Prezbo (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

For the nth time this week a person being left wing does not make them unreliable as a source. I also don't agree with everything Chomsky ever said. For instance I think he decidedly lost his debate with Foucault. I've also been critical, in this thread, of his work on language acquisition. I am not suggesting Chomsky is infallable. However to suggest that citing possibly the most prominent Jewish anarchist political commentator in the world about Zionism is like citing Hayek without attribution for the Soviet Union is such a bizarre simile that I'm actually having trouble parsing it. For the record I do think statements from Chomsky should be attributed. I just think, considering his prominence as a political commentator over the last 60 years, his opinions are highly due inclusion, even in the lede. Simonm223 (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Anarchism is an unpopular ideology, I'm not impressed by the "most prominent Jewish anarchist political commentator in the world" descriptor. He's a prominent left-wing commentator who has opinions on many subjects, not a widely acknowledged expert on this particular topic. If it was Edward Said instead of Chomsky I probably would have let it go. But if we agree that it's inappropriate to cite him in the lede without attribution then I suppose that's progress. Prezbo (talk) 18:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Sadly Said has been dead for more than 20 years which leaves him unable to speak to the suffering of Palestinians today. And, frankly, your personal opinions of anarchism are entirely irrelevant to matters of WP:DUE. Simonm223 (talk) 18:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The Chomsky quote we're discussing is from 1999. Prezbo (talk) 18:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Wait so this is just about bundled citation 9? No that's obviously WP:DUE. It's from a very widely cited book produced by a venerable publishing house and, just to put a ribbon on top, Said wrote the foreword. Simonm223 (talk) 19:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Your claims of WP:ONUS are entirely backward. WP:BRD is pretty clear - you were bold. I reverted. Now you are edit warring. Simonm223 (talk) 19:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Please provide some justification better than disliking anarchists for cutting the Chomsky book. Simonm223 (talk) 19:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree with what Simon wrote. Your personal opinion is not grounds for deletion. DMH223344 (talk) 19:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

To explain my edit summary a bit further: this just seems like an outlandish claim to me, no matter how many citations are alleged to back it up. The differences between Hashomer Hatzair and Irgun were stylistic? It's flattening a huge range of political opinions over a broad expanse of time. I don't expect to win this one bc my commitment to the topic isn't that great but it's not an appropriate statement for the lead. Prezbo (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Your instincts are not an appropriate measure - nor is your opinion of Chomsky's political ideology. This is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT only now you've created two threads about it. Chomsky is due inclusion for his attributed opinion. There are very few living people more prominent in this space. Simonm223 (talk) 19:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Forget about Chomsky. Can you defend the claim that "Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance"? Prezbo (talk) 19:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't need to. A reliable source said it. Simonm223 (talk) 19:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Flatly you're now asking that we conduct WP:OR rather than include a reliable source and, in fact, are asking us to forget the source is reliable and just look at the words you dislike that the reliable source said. Simonm223 (talk) 19:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Spoken like a true Wikipedian. I'm sure I could dig up some sources for the counterclaim that "there is a wide range of opinion in the Zionist movement." Here's one.[1] Of course it has a distinct POV but that doesn't mean it's unreliable, right? Here's another one from a University Press.[2] This isn't really about sources. There's editorial discretion involved in which sources we cite and how we paraphrase their claims. I think this is not a good hill to die on but I'll try to make this my last comment on the issue. Prezbo (talk) 19:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Unlike Chomsky the ADL is not a reliable source for Israel / Palestine conflict discussions. Simonm223 (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

On the other hand Zionism and the Creation of a New Society would appear to meet WP:RS criteria and would likely be due inclusion. Though neither of the authors have the significant reputation of Chomsky. Simonm223 (talk) 19:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

In any case, there being a wide range of opinion in the movement does not contradict the statement that the differences between the mainstream groups were primarily differences of style. DMH223344 (talk) 23:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The range of scholars cited for this claim is very wide: Shapira, Gorny, Ben-Ami, Shlaim, Chomsky, Penslar, Sternhell DMH223344 (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I’m not going to track down all of those citations to see how much they really support this sentence. I’ll note that Chomsky and Sternhell are controversial to say the least. Everything about this topic is controversial. Let me further note that the intro of Palestinian nationalism has a while section emphasizing the differences of opinion inside the movement. They’re different movements but not that different. Most political movements contain a diversity of viewpoints, while agreeing on some central tenets. If the article said that about Zionism I would be fine with it. To me that’s very different from saying the differences between Labor and Likud are primarily stylistic. And now I really will try to walk away. Prezbo (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

It would seem that the Chomsky thing isn't attributed though but is being used to discuss a claim in wikivoice. While this sentence has been discussed in the past, WP:CCC. However, maybe this and the last thread should be combined since they seem to be the same thing. I believe this claim is unduly synthetic and an oversimplification, and we've discussed other sources which portray a range of ideological strains within Zionism. Engel, and Shindler, among others, not to rehash the same discussion again. Even Penslar doesn't really support this. Trying to be constructive, maybe there's a way to change the phrasing to accomplish what it's trying to say and summarize those sources that say it without getting into what appears to be a conclusion not stated explicitly in the sources, or portraying that WP:SOURCESDIFFER. Also, there's a change over time element to this. Zionist groups disagreed on quite a few substantial issues but consolidated over time; that fact is elided in the intro as it stands. Andre🚐 23:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

No. You are mistaken. It's literally presented as a quote.Simonm223 (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe you are the one who is mistaken or it's semantic, but not according to the conventional meaning of attribution on Wikipedia. It's quoted in the footnote, but that's not what we mean by attribution per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Attribution in Wikipedia parlance would mean the article text would read something like "According to theorists a la Chomsky, mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance...." Andre🚐 03:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I support Prezbo's edit. Chomsky is not an appropriate source for the lead. There is no way that he is a best source for this contentious topic. It's simply not his area of expertise; he's not someone cited in the scholarly literature.

The claim is a highly contentious one, that some have made. We can report that, and attribute it. Other serious scholars say the opposite, which we can also report with attribution -- in the body not the lead. It's not something we can say in our voice, and definitely not in the lead.

The other sources cited don't really say what it was being used for either. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC) (PS speaking as an anarchist-adjacent person I want to add that Chomsky being an anarchist is a really bad reason to remove him. Plenty of serious scholars are also anarchists, and indeed for that matter a few major figures in the Zionist tradition. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC))

But it's not just Chomsky who is making this claim. Even if you remove him from the list the range of scholars making this assessment is very wide. DMH223344 (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

While we may disagree about his relative significance as far as attributed opinion (and for the record I've never said the opinion shouldn't be attributed or should be in wiki voice) I really appreciate you giving a sanity check on those people who denigrated his politics as "unpopular" as if that was just cause to minimize his views.Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• Chomsky has a huge number of extremely high-profile, highly-cited works on politics published in academic sources. The argument that his only expertise is linguistics is just wrong - he's also an extremely impactful political scholar, to the point where he could trivially pass WP:EXPERTSPS on politics alone (not that that threshold is necessary here, because these are published by reliable high-quality publishers.) He obviously has a stark perspective, and this does have to be evaluated when determining due weight, but his position on Israel is not fringe by any standard; as one of the most highly-cited authors alive (including, yes, in his work on politics) he's a logical source to attribute. Neither is the statement made here particularly WP:EXCEPTIONAL; it seems to be a common position. --Aquillion (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Sources used for style not substance

Per DMH comment on Chomsky not being only source, just pasting the sources previously cited:

• Sternhell 1999: "The difference between religious and secular Zionism, be- tween the Zionism of the Left and the Zionism of the Right, was merely a difference of form and not an essential difference."
• Penslar 2023, p. 60
• Ben-Ami 2007, p. 3
• Shapira 1992, Conclusion
• Shlaim 2001, Prologue
• Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2022). Prophets Without Honor. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-006047-3. Archived from the original on June 24, 2024. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
• Gorny 1987, p. 165: "As a member of the Zionist Executive in 1921-3, he [Jabotinsky] soon discovered that what divided him from his colleagues in the Zionist leadership was not political differences, but mainly his style of political action"
• Chomsky 1999, Rejectionism and Accommodation: "In essence, then, the two programs are not very different. Their difference lies primarily in style. Labor is, basically, the party of the educated Europe-oriented elite—managers, bureaucrats, intellectuals, etc. Its historical practice has been to "build facts" while maintaining a low-keyed rhetoric with conciliatory tones, at least in public. In private, the position has been that "it does not matter what the Gentiles say, what matters is what the Jews do" (Ben-Gurion) and that "the borders [of Israel] are where Jews live, not where there is a line on a map" (Golda Meir).21 This has been an effective method for obtaining the ends sought without alienating Western opinion—indeed, while mobilizing Western (particularly American) support."

BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

my trims/additions

It is entirely possible that these may be my last edits to this page for a while; wanted to leave a few notes.

• Regarding Hebrew, I removed the part that had no citations. I also concentrated the sentence on the main point, but I think it's worth noting that being the liturgical language meant that Hebrew did have a vibrant medieval life as the language of some poems and prayers, but also as a kind of lingua franca among Jewish communities. I suspect that some of the sources talk about this a bit as it relates to Cultural Zionism, which is really still underweight in my view.
• I continue to feel the technicalities of early Zionist parliamentarianism and early Zionists' views of issues of territory, transfer, etc. is overweight versus some of the modern stuff.
• "Zionist historiography" is basically the national-conservative historiography that is going to be opposed in a lot of ways to either the New historiography (Morris, and Pappe) and the Arab historiography. "Traditional historiography" is also a thing. I restored the mentions of the forerunners and the proto-Zionists and medieval aliyah and messianism because it's critical to understanding the traditional historiography. It has less weight in Arab and New historiography because they're focused more on labor issues, population issues, but let's not forget there are also aspects that we left out, such as the malarial swamp and technological developments which relate to labor and are covered by Shapira in her other book, that are also part of the modern historiography. Also, this article should consider patterning itself after a general world or general political history of the region in some sense, to get an outside-of-the-box view rather than this inside baseball stuff. The article still reads a bit like a term paper.
• We had a list of best sources and there is still plenty that either is over/underweight or left out altogether or probably not necessary according to my read of most of those.
• A few things I removed were tagged with "page needed" for months, but restore them if you can check the page and find a close enough, but not too close, paraphrase. I failed to. I think there are still some issues of synthesis and kludgy frankensteining to fix.

Andre🚐 04:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Reverted because I don't agree with your assessment of UNDUE or that stuff was duplicative. TarnishedPath^talk 06:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Fine, on some of it, but this part: the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community. What page of Yadgar is that summarizing? AFAIK, it's not a true statement that Zionism caused a decline in the status of religion of the Jewish community. Zionism was/is a fundamentally secular movement and a secularization of certain Jewish religious concepts that predate Zionism, but that isn't the same thing. Many Jewish communities are extremely religious, while other groups are less so, but in general, the religiosity of every group has been declining for a while - not just Jewish groups - and the Haskalah has more to do with the Jewish secularization, and is also a cause of/related to the growth of Zionism. Also, on another point, you restored a statement that had a citation needed tag, so you should provide a citation for it. And the ones with no pages numbered need page numbers. They've been tagged for months. Andre🚐 06:26, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@DMH223344 reverted the stuff to do with page numbers. You'll need to ask them about that. I took the revert further. TarnishedPath^talk 06:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There were page numbers needed in that text you reverted too, if I'm not mistaken. Such as the one I just quoted. Fine for DMH223344 to respond too of course, as most likely he was the one who originally added it anyway. [06:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)]

Here is what you restored:[3]

"The Zionist goal of reframing of Jewish identity in secular-nationalist terms meant primarily the decline of the status of religion in the Jewish community.Prominent Zionist thinkers frame this development as nationalism serving the same role as religion, functionally replacing it. Zionism sought to make Jewish ethnic-nationalism the distinctive trait of Jews rather than their commitment to Judaism. Zionism instead adopted a racial understanding of Jewish identity. Framed this way, Jewish identity is only secondarily a matter of tradition or culture. Zionist nationalism embraced pan-Germanic ideologies, which stressed the concept of das völk: people of shared ancestry should pursue separation and establish a unified state. Zionist thinkers view the movement as a "revolt against a tradition of many centuries" of living parasitically at the margins of Western society. Indeed, Zionism was uncomfortable with the term "Jewish," associating it with passivity, spirituality and the stain of "galut". Instead, Zionist thinkers preferred the term "Hebrew" to describe their identity. In Zionist thought, the new Jew would be productive and work the land, in contrast to the diaspora Jew. Zionism linked the term "Jewish" with negative characteristics prevalent in European anti-Semitic stereotypes, which Zionists believed could be remedied only through sovereignty."

Andre🚐 06:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but your edits to do with page numbers were at Special:Diff/1269740494 and Special:Diff/1269740570, those were reverted by DMH223344 at Special:Diff/1269747214. The fact that I reverted back to an edition without the page numbers is immaterial as the diff of the article I reverted from didn't have the page numbers. In any case I would have been restricted from overriding DMH223344's reverts because of the consensus required restriction. The only option available to me if I wanted to over-ride your edits, without reinstating what DMH223344 reverted, was to rollback to a time before you had made any adjustment that I disagreed with and which DMH223344 had reverted. TarnishedPath^talk 07:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe you must be incorrect, because I just pasted the text and that text is restored in your diff. If you agree with removing that text, you may do so. Andre🚐 08:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think a page needed tag is a good reason for removal. If there's doubt about the source, maybe a verify quote tag is better. I see page needed as more of a technical improvement issue. My main issue is that some of these claims are the opinions or interpretations of scholars that we should be attributing, rather than the scholarly consensus, so most of the deleted material doesn't look strong enough to keep in a bloated article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

References

Ethnocultural nationalism

I have long been not a fan of the opening sentence use of "ethnocultural nationalist", currently citing one source, the Israeli philosopher Chaim Gans. Looking back over the talk archive, I don't see the establishment of consensus for this. It's been disputed by multiple editors, and supported by few. (Open to being corrected on that if I missed a robust RfC or similar strong establishment of consensus.) I've looked in Google Scholar to identify if it's a term used widely about Zionism in the academic literature, and it seems to me clear it isn't. It's a term used by Gans, but by almost nobody else that I can see. Open to persuasion if I'm missing something, but if my reading is right, it's not something we should say in our voice and certainly not in the opening sentence.

Even if we agree with Gans that it is an ethnocultural nationalism not a civic nationalism, we still shouldn't use it in our voice in the lead, given that his argument that it is one notes that Herzl and Pinsker were civic not ethnocultural nationalists; that it should specifically be understood as representing a sub-species: a "liberal ethnocultural nationalism"; that many have tried to generate a civic rather than ethnocultural Zionism; and that he is disagreeing with other scholars who don't share his analysis.

Conforti argues that Zionism is a clear case of ethnocultural nationalism, but with paradoxical civic elements: This research concludes that the state of Israel, which developed from a nationalist ethnic-cultural movement, integrated within it ethnic values as well as Western civic values. The founders of the central wing of the movement all aspired to create a Jewish national state that upheld these values... Since Zionism is a clear example of an ethnic national movement, scholars usually tend to ignore its civic components.... I will argue that the two characteristics, civic and ethnic, were continuously present in mainstream Zionist thought and activities from the 1880s to 1948. The primary aim of the 'Zionist consensus' was to create a Western Jewish nation-state, in contrast to two alternatives that were proposed by marginal movements within Zionism: a bi-national state or the messianic Israelite kingdom.

Michael Berkowitz makes the same argument: that Zionism, like Czech nationalism, contains elements of both ethnocultural and civic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

We've had discussions about NPOV previously and there has been consensus against adding such tags. Please don't do it. TarnishedPath^talk 14:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Describing Zionism as civic nationalism is absolutely a fringe standpoint. Maybe it has "elements" of it, (wouldn't many other forms of ethnic nationalism also have elements of civic nationalism?) but it certainly cannot be characterized as civic nationalism (and is for the most part not characterized as such in RS).

Quickly flipping through my library:

Shimoni: It [this book] has identified Zionism as manifestly a case of ethnic nationalism

Masalha (doesnt use the term, but still describes it throughout his work): Zionist nationalism adopted German völkisch theory: people of common descent should seek separation and form one common state. But such ideas of racial nationalism ran counter to those held by liberal nationalism in Western Europe, whereby equal citizenship regardless of religion or ethnicity — not ‘common descent’ — determined the national character of the state.

Sand: Zionism from its inception was an ethnocentric nationalist movement

Shafir: Zionism was founded, like other types of nationalism, on a theory of political legitimacy, which requires that ethnic boundaries should not cross political ones."

Shapira (also does not use the same term, but describes it and uses a similar term): The concept of nation that originated in the French Revolution was not ser­ viceable as a basis for a Jewish conception of nationhood. A stateless people, the Jews could not embrace the idea of citizenship based on the notion of a state. Iron­ ically, it was the Romantic-exclusivistic brand of nationalism (whose prescriptions meant that the Jews could never be an integral part of the organic nation) that con­ tained certain ideas able to function as a basis for an elaborated notion of a Jewish nation and national movement.

Stanislawski: Indeed, in most ways Zionism followed the common pattern of modern nationalist movements, which began in the early nineteenth century in Western and Central Europe and then spread into Eastern Europe in the middle and late nineteenth century. These began as ideologies of cultural renaissance among small groups of intellectuals and writers who were heavily influenced by the ideas of philosophers such as J. G. Herder and J. G. Fichte, who argued that humanity was fundamentally divided into distinct “nations,” each of which had a unique history, culture, and “national spirit” ( Volksgeist in German). Thus, the word “nation,” which previously had a very loose meaning that could apply to essentially any group of people united by some common bond (one spoke, for example, of the “nation of students”), now acquired a highly specific and exclusive meaning: every person’s primary identification was as a member of his or her nation, rather than other forms of self-definition or loyalty—religious, regional, local, even familial. DMH223344 (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)