As far as I knew, “Zionist” as a negative was primarily used by the Nazis for all that blood libel stuff. I think it may have been used under Stalinist communism as well. The KKK and other white supremacist groups use it. You also see Zion in hymns, usually as a reference to heaven.

FWIW, I’m not a supporter of Israel or the ongoing Palestinian genocide. I also think that most of the Muslim states are terrible as well. Organized religion and its involvement in the state is a cancer and it doesn’t much matter if it’s Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Fundamentalism is terrible.

Anyhow, when I see “Zionism” to refer to support of Israel, it pings my bullshit detector. It isn’t a part of normal discourse as I know it in the US. It feels like whomever is spouting it has been propagandized when I see it. It seems to be accompanied by varying degrees of jingoism and anger. Tends to be a very black and white worldview, almost naive. Reminds me of Qanon brainwashing but for the Left.

As this is Lemmy, it’s not coming from neo-nazis.

What is driving this?

Is it tankies? (Which I don’t know a lot about, but they seem to be heavily propagandized and unpleasant.)

Is it Muslims?

Some sort of Left ideology that isn’t common in the US?

Is it politically naive kids that have been fed talking points?

Is it Russian, Chinese, or some other state level disinfo/propaganda?

  • @jordanlund
    17•8 hours ago

    Zionist, in the modern sense, is more or less the Jewish equivalence of white supremacy.

    They believe they have a divine right to the lands of Israel and everyone else who lives there can get bent.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism

    • @[email protected]
      3•6 hours ago

      I learned that term on Lemmy and other social media platforms, never really questioned it.

      I now quickly scrolled through that Wikipedia article and the most recent date reference given there is 1995 with the majority of events being in 196x or earlier. No recent event is linked there to the Zionist movement.