zionist

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe which primarily seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine, a region which roughly corresponds to the Land of Israel in Judaism—itself central to Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs. Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as a secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to new waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Soon after this, most leaders o...