Zionism is a political ideology advocating for the self-determination of a Jewish national state in their ancestral home. While sharing a core belief in the Jewish people's right to a national home, the Zionist vision covers a range of approaches, including from when the movement was first conceived in the second half of the 19th century.
Zionist beliefs have been categorized into roughly a dozen varieties by academics. The first Zionists were either political or practical Zionists, as typified by Theodor Herzl, considered the father of the Zionist movement. The rise of socialist movements in the first part of the 20th century resulted in the rise of left-wing Labor Zionism. Synthetic and general Zionists combine the ideas of political and practical Zionists. Liberal Zionists emphasize the importance of Liberalism. Revisionist Zionists accept many tenets of Liberal Zionism but have expanded territorial aims—including parts of Jordan. Religious Zionism views Zionism as an integral to Orthodox Judaism. Cultural Zionism emphasizes a secular approach. Revolutionary Zionism emerged from guerrilla warfare against the British (who oversaw Mandatory Palestine), and attracted both left- and right-wing nationalists. Reform Zionism is associated with Reform Judaism.
Other kinds of Zionist thought include Christian Zionism, and even Antisemitic Zionism. Anti-Zionists oppose Zionism altogether. Schools of thought prior to Herzl may be considered Proto-Zionism. Post-Zionism argues that Zionism was successful given the creation of Israel and argues that Israel must build a new civic identity based on multi-ethnic liberal democracy.
Proto-Zionism
The idea of a home for the Jewish people pre-dated Theodor Herzl, and thinkers who espoused such beliefs may be considered proto-Zionists.
Political Zionism Political Zionism aimed at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine through diplomatic negotiation with the established powers that controlled the area. It focused on a Jewish home as a solution to the "Jewish question" and antisemitism in Europe, centred on gaining Jewish sovereignty (probably within the Ottoman or later British or French empire), and was opposed to mass migration until after sovereignty was granted. It initially considered locations other than Palestine (e.g. in Africa) and did not foresee migration by many Western Jews to the new homeland.
Nathan Birnbaum, a Jew from Vienna, was the original father of Political Zionism, yet ever since he defected away from his own movement, Theodor Herzl has become known as the face of modern Zionism. In 1890, Birnbaum coined the term "Zionism" and the phrase "Political Zionism" two years later. Birnbaum published a periodical titled (Self Emancipation) which espoused "the idea of a Jewish renaissance and the resettlement of Palestine." In this idea, Birnbaum was most influenced by Leon Pinsker. Political Zionism was subsequently led by Herzl and Max Nordau. This approach was espoused at the Zionist Organization's First Zionist Congress and dominated the movement during Herzl's life.
Practical Zionism
Known in Hebrew as Tzionut Ma'asit (), Practical Zionism was led by Moshe Leib Lilienblum and Leon Pinsker and molded by the Lovers of Zion organization. This approach believed that firstly there was a need in practical terms to implement Aliyah, Jewish immigration to Palestine as the Holy Land, and settlement of the land as soon as possible, even if a charter was not obtained.
It became dominant after Herzl's death, and differed from Political Zionism in not seeing Zionism as justified primarily by the Jewish Question but rather as an end in itself; it "aspired to the establishment of an elite utopian community in Palestine". It also differed from Political Zionism in "distrust[ing] grand political actions" and preferring "an evolutionary incremental process toward the establishment of the national home".
Labor Zionism
Led by socialists Nachman Syrkin, Haim Arlosoroff, and Berl Katznelson and Marxist Ber Borochov, Labor or socialist Zionists desired to establish an agricultural society not on the basis of a bourgeois capitalist society, but rather on the basis of equality. Labor or Socialist Zionism was a form of Zionism that also espoused socialist or social democratic politics.
Although there were socialist Zionists in the nineteenth century (such as Moses Hess), labor Zionism became a mass movement with the founding of Poale Zion ("Workers of Zion") groups in Eastern and Western Europe and North America in the 1900s. Other early socialist Zionist groups were the youth movement Hapoel Hatzair founded by A. D. Gordon and Syrkin's Zionist Socialist Workers Party.
Socialist Zionism had a Marxist current, led by Borochov. After 1917 (the year of Borochov's death as well as the Russian Revolution and the Balfour Declaration), Poale Zion split between a Left (that supported Bolshevism and then the Soviet Union) and a social democratic Right (that became dominant in Palestine).
In Ottoman Palestine, Poale Zion founded the Hashomer guard organization that guarded settlements of the Yishuv, and took up the ideology of "conquest of labor" (Kibbush Ha'avoda) and "Hebrew labor" (Avoda Ivrit). It also gave birth to the youth movements Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror. According to Ze'ev Sternhell, both Poalei Zion and Hapoel Hatzair believed that Zionism could only succeed as a result of constantly and rapidly expanding capitalist growth.: "They believed that the Zionist enterprise in Palestine could succeed only in consequence of a rapid and constantly expanding capitalist development." Poale Zion "saw capitalism as the cause of Jewish poverty and misery in Europe. For Poale Zion, Jews could only escape this cycle by creating a nation-state like others." However, according to Sternhell, Labor Zionism ultimately did not promise to free workers from the inherent dependencies of the capitalist system.: "However, Zionism as an ideology of liberation– even when dominated by the labor movement, and even when subject to few socialist or socialist-minded trends that in various periods before and after the founding of the state had demanded the application of certain principles of socialism–never promised to liberate the worker from forms of dependence inherent in the capitalist order." In Labor Zionist thought, a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to Israel and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Labor Zionists established rural communes in Israel called "kibbutzim" which began as a variation on a "national farm" scheme, a form of cooperative agriculture where the Jewish National Fund hired Jewish workers under trained supervision. The kibbutzim were a symbol of the Second Aliyah in that they put great emphasis on communalism and egalitarianism, representing Utopian socialism to a certain extent. Furthermore, they stressed self-sufficiency, which became an essential aspect of Labor Zionism.
In the 1920s, Labor Zionists in Palestine also created a trade union movement, the Histadrut, and political party, Mapai. In Palestine, PZ disbanded to make way for the formation of the nationalist socialist Ahdut HaAvoda, led by David Ben Gurion,Teveth, Shabtai (1985) Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503562-9. pp. 66–70 in 1919.: "The formal decision to found Ahdut Ha'avoda was made at the Convention of Agricultural Workers, held in February 1919. This was the first country-wide gathering of all regional agricultural workers’ organizations. The elections took place according to the system of proportional representation, with 1 representative for every 25 people; small settlements were allowed to send 1 representative for every 12 people. Altogether, 58 representatives were elected to the convention, 28 of whom were nonparty, 11 from Hapo'el Hatza'ir, and 19 from Po'alei Tzion. Thus, a clear majority supported non-socialist, if not antisocialist, principles. Prior to this agricultural gathering, the two political parties also held conventions, and at the Po'alei Tzion convention in Jaffa on 21–23 February, the party disbanded in order to clear the way for the founding of Ahdut Ha’avoda." Hapoel Hatzair merge with Ahdut Ha'avoda in 1930 to form Mapai,: "The two largest of them, Ahdut Ha'avoda and Hapoel Hatzair, merged in January 1930 to form Mapai." at which point, according to Yosef Gorny, Poale Zion became of marginal political importance in Palestine.: "[I]n the thirties... Po'alei-Zion were of marginal political importance"
Labor Zionism, represented by Mapai, became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the Yishuv during the British Mandate of Palestine. Poale Zion's successor parties, Mapam, Mapai and the Israeli Labor Party (which were led by figures such as David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, dominated Israeli politics until the 1977 election when the Israeli Labor Party was defeated. Until the 1970s, the Histadrut was the largest employer in Israel after the Israeli government.
Sternhell and Benny Morris both argue that Labor Zionism developed as a nationalist socialist movement in which the nationalist tendencies would overpower and drive out the socialist ones.:"But, in reality, rather than “meshing,” the nationalist ethos had simply overpowered and driven out the socialist ethos." Traditionalist Israeli historian Anita Shapira describes labor Zionism's use of violence against Palestinians for political means as essentially the same as that of radical conservative Zionist groups. For example, Shapira notes that during the 1936 Palestine revolt, the Irgun Zvai Leumi engaged in the "uninhibited use of terror", "mass indiscriminate killings of the aged, women and children", "attacks against British without any consideration of possible injuries to innocent bystanders, and the murder of British in cold blood". Shapira argues that there were only marginal differences in military behavior between the Irgun and the labor Zionist Palmah. In following with policies laid out by Ben-Gurion, the prevalent method among field squads was that if an Arab gang had used a village as a hideout, it was considered acceptable to hold the entire village collectively responsible. The lines delineating what was acceptable and unacceptable while dealing with these villagers were "vague and intentionally blurred". As Shapira suggests, these ambiguous limits practically did not differ from those of the openly terrorist group, Irgun.: "It is doubtful whether [the] external differences in framework and patterns of behavior were sufficient to create a different attitude toward fighting or to develop "civilian" barriers to military callousness and insensitivity...if a village had served as a hiding place for an Arab gang, it was permissible to place collective responsibility on the village."
General and Liberal Zionism