Talk:Zionism

Proposal to Revise the Lead of the Zionism Article

Critique of the Current Lead

The current lead of the Zionism article is not fully neutral. While it addresses criticisms and controversies, it neglects to adequately summarize Zionism's historical and ideological foundations. As per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, the lead should provide a concise and balanced overview of the topic, reserving detailed criticisms for the body of the article.

Specifically:

Lack of Context on Zionism's Origins: The lead does not provide sufficient historical background on late 19th-century European nationalism and antisemitism, which catalyzed the Zionist movement. For instance, Theodor Herzl's foundational text, Der Judenstaat (1896), framed Zionism as a response to Jewish persecution and a vision for self-determination.

Source: Herzl, Theodor. Der Judenstaat. (Full text available)

Source: Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel. Schocken Books, 2003.

Omission of Zionism's Ideological Diversity: The lead fails to acknowledge the diversity of thought within the movement, such as Political Zionism, Cultural Zionism, and Religious Zionism. Figures like Ahad Ha’am emphasized cultural and spiritual revival rather than a purely political state.

Source: Hertzberg, Arthur, ed. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. Jewish Publication Society, 1997.

Source: Avineri, Shlomo. Herzl’s Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State. BlueBridge, 2014.

Overemphasis on Controversies: The current lead gives disproportionate weight to criticisms of Zionism. While these are important, they should not dominate the introduction. Instead, the lead should summarize Zionism’s goals, historical development, and major achievements, reserving critiques for later sections.

Source: Penslar, Derek J. Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870–1918. Indiana University Press, 1991.

Source: Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Beacon Press, 2006.

Proposed Revision

I propose the following revision for the lead:

Zionism is a nationalist and political movement advocating for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the historic Land of Israel. Emerging in the late 19th century in response to rising antisemitism and European nationalism, Zionism was formalized by Theodor Herzl, whose work Der Judenstaat (1896) laid the groundwork for its political objectives. The movement evolved to encompass diverse ideological streams, including political, cultural, and religious Zionism, and culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. While Zionism achieved its primary goal of a Jewish state, it remains a subject of debate, particularly concerning its impact on Palestinian Arabs and ongoing regional conflicts.

This revised lead provides:

A clear summary of Zionism’s goals and historical roots. Recognition of its diverse ideologies and streams. A neutral mention of controversies, suitable for an introduction.

Supporting Sources

Herzl, Theodor. Der Judenstaat. (Link to text)

Hertzberg, Arthur. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader.

Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel .

Avineri, Shlomo. Herzl’s Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State.

Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.

I invite feedback and discussion on this proposal to ensure the article meets Wikipedia's neutrality and reliability standards.

Michael Boutboul (talk) 11:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you contribute on the talk page sections already opened on this topic. The lead is supposed to be a summary of the article body not a summary of your personal opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 11:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, indeed the lead is supposed to be a summary of the body and the current is far to reflect the body. The topic is controversial and must reflect sources, against zionism but also Zionist, and the lead does not while the body does. Michael Boutboul (talk) 13:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

But the lead already does summarize the origins of Zionism in the second paragraph. DMH223344 (talk) 17:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The current second para seems overly wordy and detailed for a lead, but in any event this proposed first paragraph gives a very sharp, uncontroversial concise overview that can then be unpacked in later, less concise paragraphs. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:10, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Moral support. While I don't see that there will be consensus here today for this change, I think the proposal has a legitimate point. Currently, when I read the lead of Zionism, I read the lead in a lot of matter-of-fact, in fact extensive detail. When any detail is smoothed over to make things flow better, we encounter a dispute. At any rate, the lead is very detailed and it also doesn't really say that Zionism is quite a controversial topic with a lot of debate. That's an important part of Zionism. Not only is Zionism a highly fragmented and multifaceted group of related nationalisms, it is also the subject of heated debate with a range of vitriolic characters at the fringes as well as a heated dispute in the mainstream. An encyclopedia article about Zionism should not engage in this. It should be a very flat description of the major disputes and the major players, events, and conceptual groupings. Andre🚐 23:42, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your answer and moral support, I did not expect to have a consensus with my proposal but to start a debate on this lead. Would you mind drafting something? Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

What, in your perspective, (or preferably if you can provide sources) are the aspects of Zionism that are highly debated? The lead does currently mention that supporters of zionism see it as a national liberation movement and that antizionists see it as a settler colonial movement. DMH223344 (talk) 22:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

For example, in Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 by Shapira 1999, we're talking about the history of attitudes toward power and the use of armed force within the Zionist movement—from an early period in which most leaders espoused an ideal of peaceful settlement in Palestine, to the acceptance of force as a legitimate tool for achieving a sovereign Jewish state. It was not agreed by all Zionists that it was necessary not to be peaceful. Andre🚐 01:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

The idea of the "defensive ethos" is an interesting one which might warrant more attention in the body at least.

p. 126:

Was it possible to settle Palestine peacefully, or was a violent clash between Jews and Arabs inevita­ ble? In the 1920s, all were apparently in agreement that it was too early to arrive at any conclusive answer. For the moment, the necessity of the hour was to push ahead with settlement of the land; and the explanatory line adopted had to be based on principles of the defensive ethos. There were those who honestly believed its principles, while others accepted only a portion of its elements. And there were some who apparently viewed it as, at best, an expedient propaganda line and an important instrument for education.

Shapira's book is full of discussion about a peaceful resolution being preferable to some in the Zionist movement, but not achievable on practical grounds (also noted by Flapan). As she says in her conclusion "At what point did the leadership become aware that there were fallacies in the logical structure of the defensive ethos and that the Zionist movement would not be able to avoid a head-on collision with the Arab national movement?... From the very inception of Jewish colonization in Palestine, the course of ultimate confrontation was inherent in the situation." It's interesting to follow Ben-Gurion on this point; taken from his biography (Teveth):

A careful comparison of Ben-Gurion’s public and private positions leads inexorably to the conclusion that this twenty-year denial of the conflict was a calculated tactic, born of pragmatism rather than profundity of conviction. The idea that Jews and Arabs could reconcile their differences … was a delaying tactic. Once the Yishuv had gained strength, Ben-Gurion abandoned it. This belief in a compromise solution … was also a tactic, designed to win continued British support for Zionism.

As a final note, Shapira also discusses the influence of Stalinist Russia on the Yishuv:

In the final analysis, these expressed a tendency to respond with force to clashes with Arabs. That activism was not the product of Palestinian realities, but had been imported from the Diaspora. The young had not learned national pride in Palestine but had come there as an expression of revolt against the humiliation of the Jew. That activism derived its basic values from Russian revolutionary ide­ ology and practice. Those values included a refusal to acquiesce in accepting the established order of things, a faith in the ability of a small avant-garde to change the course of history, a conviction that a historical mission liberates its bearers from the restrictions of simple morality in the name of higher justice, and a legitimation of the use of force for the sake of generating the desired revolutionary change. They believed that every revolutionary ideology harbors within it the legitimation of the use of violence, since the end justifies the means. Moreover, in every revolution, the active core constitutes a minority within a majority. This scheme represented an acknowledgement of the inevitability of violence.

DMH223344 (talk) 02:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree Shapira's argument about the inevitability of violence in Zionism is worth expanding in the body, along with Slater 2020's counter argument that Zionism didn't require violence to achieve its goals. I'm sure there are others, too (some, eg Morris, already in the article). Levivich (talk) 08:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Support expansion of this in body not in lead BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Why are we using Theodor Herzl as a source here? He is considered the founding figure of Zionism, not exactly a third-party source known for fact-checking. And he died back in 1904, so we can not use him as a source for the last 120 years of bloodshed. Dimadick (talk) 23:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Yup, it's a primary source, and doesn't help us figure out how to summarize secondary sources in the article. Levivich (talk) 23:21, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The proposed content works without citing the primary source. Secondary sources are pretty unanimous in saying Herzl and his text provided the foundational ideas. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The sources listed talk about colonization "in Palestine," but the proposed rewrite removes all mention of colonization and changes "Palestine" to "Land of Israel". That's less WP:NPOV, not more, just by the suggested sources themselves--without getting into why that's not a good set of sources upon which to base the lead.

I don't think those sources or others say Herzl "formalized" Zionism, probably more like "organized" or "promoted". He died within the first decade of Zionism's existence, and some (many? most?) of the formal institutions of Zionism, like Histadrut and Haganah, were developed after he died.

I question whether the sources describe the various types of Zionism as "diverse" or the exact opposite--homogenous--or somewhere in the middle, e.g. more alike than different. And also whether the movement "evolved to encompass diverse ideological streams," or whether the sources say it went in exactly the opposite direction: a bunch of different strands of Jewish nationalism coalesced into one thing, Political Zionism. I'm not sure whether the sources would list "political, cultural, and religious" Zionism as the three main types, or whether it would be "Liberal," "Labor" and "Revisionist" (or just one main type: political, or something else).

The last line is particularly whitewashy. The sources accuse Zionism of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and war crimes. Such allegations (or widely-agreed facts) are not accurately summarized as a "debate" about Zionism's "impact on Palestinian Arab's."

For these reasons, I don't think the proposed lead is an improvement. Levivich (talk) 04:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed response. I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this discussion and clarify my rationale for the proposed changes. Let me address each of your points in turn:

1. "The proposed rewrite removes all mention of colonization and changes 'Palestine' to 'Land of Israel.'"

• Clarification: The intention behind using "Land of Israel" instead of "Palestine" is to reflect terminology used within Zionist ideology itself, particularly in historical texts and by figures like Theodor Herzl. However, I understand that this may appear less neutral, and I am open to retaining "Palestine" in the lead, as it is geographically and historically accurate.
• On "colonization": The term "colonization" is used in some sources, but it is not universally accepted or uncontested. Zionism was not purely a colonial movement; it was also a nationalist and self-determination movement responding to Jewish persecution. While colonization was an element of how Jewish settlement occurred, the lead should aim for a balanced description that includes the motivations and historical ties behind these efforts. For example, we could state: "through settlement efforts in Palestine," which reflects the action without the pejorative connotations.

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2. "Herzl 'formalized' Zionism vs. 'organized' or 'promoted.'"

• Clarification: You’re correct that Herzl did not "formalize" Zionism in its entirety, as many institutions developed after his death. A more accurate phrasing could be: "Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress and laid the groundwork for Zionism as a political movement." This acknowledges his central role while recognizing the ongoing development of Zionism after his death.
• Supporting Sources: Herzl’s role as a key figure in the early Zionist movement is discussed in works like Shlomo Avineri’s Herzl’s Vision, which describes Herzl as the "founder of political Zionism" for his organizational and ideological contributions.

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3. "Are the types of Zionism described as 'diverse' or the opposite?"

• Clarification: Zionism encompassed a range of ideological streams, which were diverse in approach but united by the goal of establishing a Jewish homeland. The lead could clarify this by stating: "Zionism encompassed various ideological approaches, including political, cultural, and religious Zionism, which differed in their priorities and methods but shared the common goal of Jewish self-determination." This phrasing acknowledges diversity while emphasizing shared objectives.
• On alternative categorizations (e.g., Liberal, Labor, Revisionist): These categorizations are more specific to political Zionism in the 20th century and are better suited to the body of the article. The lead should reflect broader distinctions (e.g., political, cultural, religious) that capture the ideological diversity of early Zionism.
• Supporting Sources: Arthur Hertzberg’s The Zionist Idea and Walter Laqueur’s A History of Zionism describe the multifaceted nature of Zionism, including cultural and religious aspects that preceded the Labor-Revisionist divide.

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4. "The last line is whitewashy regarding allegations of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and war crimes."

• Clarification: The intention of the last line was not to downplay these allegations but to summarize a broader debate about Zionism's legacy. To address your concern, the lead could more explicitly mention these criticisms, e.g., "While some view Zionism as a legitimate nationalist movement, critics have accused it of contributing to the displacement of Palestinians and violations of human rights, including allegations of ethnic cleansing and colonialism." This phrasing acknowledges the severity of the allegations without overshadowing the entire lead with one perspective.
• On the "debate" framing: It is fair to revise the phrasing to avoid glossing over serious criticisms. However, the lead should also avoid adopting language that presumes consensus on these accusations, as there is substantial disagreement in scholarship and public discourse.
• Supporting Sources: Benny Morris’s Righteous Victims and Rashid Khalidi’s The Iron Cage discuss these allegations and the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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5. "Sources and neutrality"

• Clarification: The sources cited in the proposal are widely respected in Zionism studies (e.g., Laqueur, Avineri, Hertzberg). However, I acknowledge that additional sources representing critical perspectives (e.g., Khalidi, Pappé) could be incorporated to ensure balance. The lead should aim to reflect the body of the article by presenting both the achievements and criticisms of Zionism in a neutral and proportional manner.

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Proposed Revision Based on Feedback:

Taking your points into account, here is a revised draft of the lead:

Zionism is a nationalist movement advocating for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, also referred to as the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Emerging in Europe in the late 19th century in response to antisemitism and the challenges of assimilation, Zionism was formalized as a political movement by Theodor Herzl, who convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The movement encompassed diverse ideological streams, including political, cultural, and religious Zionism, which shared the common goal of Jewish self-determination.

Zionist efforts led to significant waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine and culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. While supporters view Zionism as a legitimate nationalist movement addressing Jewish persecution, critics have accused it of colonialism, the displacement of Palestinians, and human rights violations, including allegations of ethnic cleansing. These debates remain central to discussions about Zionism's legacy and its impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

----This version addresses your concerns about colonization, Herzl’s role, ideological diversity, and criticism, while striving for a neutral and balanced tone. Let me know your thoughts! Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:38, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Just on the first point, "colonization", emphasis mine:

• Herzl, Der Judenstaat: The Jewish Company ... has other than purely colonial tasks. ... our male colonists ... our colonists will be peaceably inclined ... the Company's colonists ... more prosperous colonists ... the peaceable voluntary departure of colonists ... I don't understand using Der Judenstaat to argue in favor of including "Land of Israel" and excluding "colonization", when Der Judenstaat does not have the word "Israel" in it, but does have the words "colonial" and "colonists."
• Laqueur, p. xxvi: ... up to 1917 the history of the Zionist movement presents no particular problems; it is the story of a somewhat eccentric movement of young idealists who met every other year at a congress and espoused various political, financial, cultural, and colonising activities.
• Hertzberg is a collection of primary-source documents by Zionists, not a history book about Zionism. It has very little historical analysis in it, mostly it's the reproduction of Zionist leaders' works. But in the introduction, p. 16, Hertzberg writes: ... what is classical in Zionism-its eschatological purpose; and what is modern-the necessarily contemporary tools of political effort, colonization, and the definition of Jewry as a nation ...
• Avineri (2008) is a biography of Herzl, not a book about Zionism, but he has lots of quotes of Herzl referring to Jewish colony, Zion colonies, plus discussion of early Zionist institutions like the Jewish Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonial Trust.
• Khalidi, p. xxxiv: This enterprise was and is colonial in terms of its relationship to the indigenous Arab population of Palestine ... Zionism also served as the national movement of the nascent Israeli polity being constructed at their expense. There is no reason why both positions cannot be true: there are multiple examples of national movements, indeed nations, that were colonial in their origins ...
• Morris (2001), p. 13 Muslim attitudes to some degree affected the Zionist colonists in Palestine. They drove the colonists, at least during the early decades of Zionism ..., pp. 38-39 These Jews were not colonists in the usual sense of sons or agents of an imperial mother country, projecting its power beyond the seas and exploiting Third World natural resources. But the settlements of the First Aliyah were still colonial, with white Europeans living amid and employing a mass of relatively impoverished natives., or p. 61 On the most basic level, Jewish colonization meant expropriation and displacement., there's more like this in that book.

I do not think removing the word "colonization" makes the lead "a balanced description," but rather an unbalanced one that omits this key point that is in all these sources ... the sources you are bringing to this discussion, without considering other (possibly better) sources. Indeed, "colonization" was a compromise over just saying "colonial enterprise", which is what the lead used to say, and the more I read sources about this, the more I think that's probably what the lead should say. Levivich (talk) 23:17, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I would like to address your points in detail and explain why I initially proposed modifying the language, while also clarifying that my intent is not to erase the idea of "colonization" but rather to ensure a balanced and nuanced presentation of the term in the lead.

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1. "Colonization" in Early Zionist Writings

You raise a valid point that early Zionist writings, including Der Judenstaat and other foundational texts, explicitly use terms like "colonists" and "colonial." Herzl himself employed this language to describe the practical settlement efforts required to establish a Jewish homeland. I do not dispute that "colonization" was part of early Zionist discourse, but I think the current lead risks oversimplifying the term without sufficient context.

• Clarification: When Herzl and early Zionist leaders used terms like "colonization," they often did so within the framework of contemporary European nationalist and developmental discourse, not necessarily as a reflection of imperialist ambitions akin to European colonial powers. For example, Herzl’s vision focused on peaceful settlement, voluntary agreements, and the development of land, rather than the exploitation of resources or subjugation of indigenous populations, which are central to many definitions of colonialism.
• Suggested Compromise: Instead of removing "colonization," the lead could clarify the term’s specific context in Zionist thought. For example:
  • "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century, advocating for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine through organized settlement and colonization efforts." This phrasing acknowledges the use of "colonization" while avoiding connotations that might inaccurately frame Zionism solely as a colonial enterprise in the imperialist sense.

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2. Secondary Sources on Colonization

You provide excellent examples from secondary sources, including Laqueur, Khalidi, and Morris, which highlight the colonial aspects of Zionist activities, particularly in their relationship to the indigenous Palestinian Arab population. I do not contest the inclusion of this perspective in the article, but I would argue that these sources also reflect complexity and nuance, which should be conveyed in the lead.

• Morris: While Morris acknowledges the colonial elements of Zionist settlement (e.g., "Jewish colonization meant expropriation and displacement"), he also distinguishes it from traditional European colonialism, noting that Zionism was not backed by an imperial mother country and was primarily driven by a national liberation ethos.
• Khalidi: Khalidi’s point that Zionism can simultaneously be a national movement and a colonial enterprise is a nuanced position that should inform the lead. This dual characterization could be reflected in a balanced lead, such as:
  • "Zionism has been described as both a national liberation movement for Jewish self-determination and a colonial enterprise that displaced the indigenous Arab population."

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3. Current Language in the Lead

The current lead uses "colonization" without sufficient explanation, which could mislead readers into equating Zionism entirely with European-style colonialism. This interpretation is incomplete because Zionism also arose from unique historical circumstances, including widespread Jewish persecution, statelessness, and a historical connection to the land.

• Proposed Revision: The lead could expand on the term to capture the complexity of Zionism’s settlement efforts. For example:
  • "Zionism’s efforts to establish a homeland in Palestine involved organized settlement and land acquisition, often described as colonization. These activities were influenced by European nationalist and colonial models but were also shaped by the unique context of Jewish statelessness and historical ties to the region."

This phrasing acknowledges the colonial aspect while providing context that distinguishes Zionism from traditional colonial enterprises.

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4. Balance and Neutrality

Your point about the importance of retaining "colonization" for balance is well-taken. My initial concern was that the term, as currently presented, risks oversimplifying Zionism’s goals and methods. However, I agree that removing it entirely would also create an imbalance. The key is to provide a nuanced explanation that reflects both the colonial aspects of Zionism and its unique characteristics as a national liberation movement.

• Addressing Neutrality: Including multiple perspectives from sources like Khalidi, Morris, Laqueur, and Avineri can ensure the lead captures the full spectrum of interpretations. For example:
  • "Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century, advocating for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Its efforts involved colonization and settlement activities, which have been characterized as both a national liberation movement and a colonial enterprise, particularly in their impact on the indigenous Arab population."

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5. Use of Herzl as a Source

You correctly note that Herzl’s Der Judenstaat frequently uses "colonization" and related terms. While I referenced Herzl to provide historical context for early Zionist ideas, I agree that his writings should not be the sole basis for evaluating Zionism’s methods or impact. Secondary analyses, such as those by Avineri and Laqueur, are essential for contextualizing Herzl’s language and understanding its limitations.

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Conclusion

Thank you again for your thorough analysis and sources. I propose that we retain "colonization" in the lead but expand its context to reflect the nuances discussed here. By doing so, we can provide a balanced and accurate description that captures both the colonial and national liberation aspects of Zionism, as supported by the sources you and I have referenced. Michael Boutboul (talk) 20:02, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Have you read the article by the way?

Colonization is used by RS and we are using it here to reflect that. DMH223344 (talk) 20:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

On the third point, where does Hertzberg's book or Laqueur's book say that Zionism's "nature" is "multifaceted", or that Zionism "encompassed various ideological approaches", or anything like that? I'm not finding it. Levivich (talk) 00:12, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure Engel 2013 says something like that. Andre🚐 01:23, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. Engel 2013 doesn't seem to mention cultural Zionism at all. It barely make any mention of religious Zionism, except when discussing the post-1967 party. It talks about Labour, Revisionist, General Zionism (as do the other sources), but (like the other sources) describes those as parties, factions, etc. I don't see anything even close to saying there was a diverse, multifaceted, or wide range of Zionist ideologies, etc., just different parties/factions that had control at various times. Maybe I missed it. Levivich (talk) 01:42, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

One of the ways I know this not an accurate way to summarize Zionism, is that every source I've ever read talks about "the Zionist movement," and never "Zionist movements," or any plural like that. It's always one movement, one organization, one ideology, one group. With infighting, yes, but it's not a collection of ideologies, it's one thing. Levivich (talk) 01:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's not conventional to refer to "Zionisms," plural, but they do talk about "streams of Zionism" in Conforti and Schlinder, and left-and right-wing factions within the Zionist movement. It's more than one group but it is generally referred to as a single ideology or movement, but I wouldn't say one organization. There are many Zionist groups and organizations. Engel 2013 discusses a wide variety of programs, ideas, aims, goals, and tactics. Andre🚐 02:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Can this or that group of Zionist disagree with something, sure, but the WZO/Basel->Jerusalem program seems pretty monolithic to me. For example see American Zionist Movement "All Zionists agree on the set of ideals and principles known as the Jerusalem Program." The philosophy is clearly expressed in the Nation State law as a legalized Jewish state within Israel and settlement as a national ideal. Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, this is backed up by the most thorough discussion of this topic that I can think of (anecdotal, I know), the one in Penslar 2023, where he spends about 30 pages of Chapter 1 on "Taxonomy of Zionism, Old and New" (pp. 36-64). He lays out 4 "types" of Zionism from pre-WWI: Hibat Tsion, Political Zionism, Practical Zionism, and Cultural Zionism; and 4 "forms" of Zionism during Mandatory Palestine: Labor Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, General Zionism, and Religious Zionism. He writes (p. 41):

With the exception of Religious Zionism, ­these forms of pre-1948 Zionism have ­either declined into insignificance or mutated into new forms that are substantively dif­fer­ent from their pre­de­ces­sors. Accordingly, we need more capacious and inclusive categories of Zionist sensibility to include aspects of the Zionist proj­ect from its origins to our own day. Recently, some writers attempted to provide ­these categories ...

He then talks about Chaim Gans's alternative classification and 21st-century Liberal Zionism, and Gil Troy's alternative classifications. Then he lays out his own suggested new classifications of "vari­ous types of Zionism".

Note he calls these "types," "forms," "categories of Zionist sensibility" and "aspects of the Zionist project"; he does not call these "diverse," "multifaceted," or say they are "various ideologies," a "wide variety," or anything like that. He writes (p. 43):

The continued application of classic Zionist categories is problematic not only ­because change over time calls their relevance into question. ­Those in the past who identified with one Zionist camp or another ­were unaware of or reluctant to admit commonalities between them and their mutual influence. This was particularly the case for Labor and Revisionist Zionism during the heyday of their internecine strug­gles during the 1930s and 1940s. The social and economic ideologies of the two movements differed profoundly, but their goals and methods diverged more in style than substance. During the Israeli state’s first de­cades, ­Labor Zionism was still identified with the “Left” and Revisionism with the “Right,” but later in the twentieth ­century, with the triumph of neoliberal economic doctrines the only substantive difference between Left and Right remained the fate of the Occupied Territories and questions of Palestinian statehood. Even then, all but the most extreme positions within the Zionist Left maintained the primacy of Jewish claims to a state within most of historic Palestine and ­were wary of, if not downright hostile to, extensive intermixing with the Arab population. Divisions within Zionism between the Left and Right are real yet fluid and epiphenomenal.

This isn't accurately summarized by saying that Zionism evolved into diverse ideological streams. They're not that diverse, according to Penslar, and as time went on, he says there were fewer, not more, ideological differences. Levivich (talk) 18:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

That is all great stuff that we should use, but there are other contrasting viewpoints or more nuance to bear. For example Engel 2013,

p.49

the road to the Jewish state was hardly as smooth as Herzl imagined. Even after his appearance, the Zionist movement remained a coalition of disparate groups and constituencies, ideologically fragmented and numerically insignificant. In fact it incorporated three distinct streams – one concerned primarily with settling Palestine, a second with readjusting political relations between Jews and non-Jews, and a third with creating a Jewish ‘national’ culture – and it was not yet clear that all three could work together productively within a single organization,

p.61

In 1905 the Seventh Zionist Congress shelved the matter permanently. Only then did the three principal streams in the Zionist movement – centred respectively about settlement of Palestine, reconstructing political relations between Jews and non-Jews, and creating a secular Jewish culture in Hebrew – come firmly together. However, some of the movement’s greatest stalwarts, for whom political reconstruction eclipsed the other two, broke permanently with the Organization over this issue.

p.184-185, though not directly related to the above 2, talks about the disagreement about the relationship with the diaspora in more recent times: The complication of Israel–diaspora relations and the intensification of multifaceted divisions within the Jewish world since the 1980s have beset the.. which ends with:

disagreement on fundamentals has been a constant feature of Zionist history, and there is no reason to expect that it will be any less so in the future.

I believe there's also relevant material in Stanislawski talking about the liberalism of Zionism: there was a distinct liberal utopian streak in Herzl’s vision of the Jews’ state: most famously, in Der Judenstaat he called for the institution of a seven-hour workday,, as well as touching on the controversial debates of Zionism: This raises one of the most controversial issues that have dominated debates over Zionism from Herzl’s day to the present. And page 31:

Herzl’s success at the First Zionist Congress did not resolve the fundamental ideological divides within the Zionist movement. Thus, there were at least three organized groupings within the Zionist movement that differed from Herzl’s strictly “political” Zionism: First, Ahad Ha’am and his followers soon organized themselves as the “Democratic Faction,” which insisted on a cultural revolution within the Jewish community based on secular Hebrew culture, but also distrusted Herzl personally and opposed what they considered his near-dictatorial control of the movement. Secondly, already in 1899, the first socialist Zionist group was founded, which soon divided into many different groups and subgroups, often based on crucial differences such as acceptance of Marxian or so-called “utopian” socialism, support of Yiddish as well as Hebrew as the national language(s) of the Jewish people, and on solutions to the “Arab problem” in Palestine, and also—like so many other movements on the left—on far subtler disagreements in the theory of socialism. And finally, in 1902 the Mizrachi movement was founded to put forward a synthesis between Orthodox Judaism and Zionism.

Andre🚐 19:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

So what is your suggestion? To mention pre 1905 streams of zionism in the lead? These quotes dont tell me that Zionism had a "wide variety" of ideological streams. DMH223344 (talk) 19:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Right: Engel AFAIK doesn't say these three streams are "diverse" or "wide variety" or anything similar, and note he says the three streams converged into one early in Zionist history (1905)--this contradicts the idea that Zionism evolved into diverse ideologies, and supports the idea that it went the other way: what started as multiple streams came "firmly together" by 1905, according to Engel. This is similar to what Penslar said about post-1948: less diversity, not more, as time goes on. Levivich (talk) 19:48, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

He says "disparate groups and constituencies, ideologically fragmented" which certainly covers "diverse," does it not? I am not arguing that there wasn't less diversity over time: there certainly was particularly with the decline of the left-wing and the rise of revivisionist Zionism. But our article doesn't focus exclusively on the modern day. Andre🚐 19:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

No, it does not cover "diverse." We shouldn't use a characterization like "diverse" unless the sources use that same characterization. "Disparate" does not mean "wikt:diverse." "Different" does not mean "diverse." The question to ask yourself is why aren't they using the word "diverse"? Levivich (talk) 19:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"Disparate" alone doesn't mean diverse, but "disparate...ideologically fragmented" certainly does. Or "disagreement on fundamentals." That says diversity of ideology. Anyway, it's not true. Engel says this on p.55: The young Zionist movement already incorporated diverse opinions about its purpose and methods, Andre🚐 20:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"Opinions about its purpose and methods" are not "ideologies." And he said they were already incorporated into Zionism early on. No objection to saying that Zionism had internal divisions, that early on there were diverse opinions about its purpose and methods, which ultimately converged around the turn of the 20th century, as Engel says, at which point there were differences in style not substance, which also disappeared (or mutated) by 1948, as Penslar says. Levivich (talk) 20:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd say opinions about a purpose or a method is fairly close to a working example of ideological praxis. And I don't think mutation = disappear. I think Penslar is right to point out the debates became less relevant, certainly the left-wing barely exists today and has had a steady decline, but it was not gone by 1948. Andre🚐 20:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I think most sources are saying it's a diverse movement or a diverse ideology, rather than that it is constituted of diverse movements or diverse ideologies. E.g. Britannica: "Despite the diversity of Zionism as an ideology, which includes iterations that consider the rights of Palestinians to be fundamental to Zionism’s success". Or Seidler 2012 "the conflicting founding designs, which express the formative ideological background underlying the very idea of the State of Israel". Boyarin, in a section called "Zionisms and the state" says "What we call Zionism, despite the existence of a World Zionist Organization and then a Zionst state, is in fact a catchall for numerous, often contradictory currents of thought.

But some do talk about multiple Zionisms. Colin Shindler in a section called "A Plethora of Zionisms" says "Zionism was never a monolithic movement. It would be more correct to speak of a range of different varieties of Zionism. Herzl's General Zionism immediately began to flow into different ideological streams." Stanlislawski has a chapter called "Socialist and Revisionist Zionisms. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:53, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is true and a good point which I agree with. Andre🚐 18:00, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, so now I am back to specifying time periods, there's the history and there's the now and they are nothing like each other. Selfstudier (talk) 18:02, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, and it's important our lead covers both not just one. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:09, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

First the body should cover both, no? DMH223344 (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes of course. Body needs improvement, but they are both in body already no? BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Zionism today (or even since 67) is not really covered DMH223344 (talk) 14:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

The lead should cover the mainstream and possibly mention some notable ideas outside the mainstream (which it currently does). DMH223344 (talk) 19:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I am mainly arguing that the lead and the body alike should portray the many inter- or intra-Zionist debates and not portray it as a monolith. I think "disagreement on fundamentals" being a constant feature gets at the variety within Zionism, no? For example, p.180: The religious–secular and the Israel–diaspora fissures continued to widen over the quarter century Reading the article now we'd have little idea of the deep fissures. The quotes I've given support that in the time periods covered in the article's history of Zionism, there was disagreement about various topics, for example, what to do about Palestinians. Andre🚐 19:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

The lead and body do this already. The last paragraph of the lead is "The Zionist mainstream has historically included liberal, labor, revisionist, and cultural Zionism, while groups like Brit Shalom and Ihud have been dissident factions within the movement. Differences within the mainstream Zionist groups lie primarily in their presentation and ethos, having in some cases adopted similar strategies to achieve their goals, such as violence or compulsory transfer to deal with the Palestinians." This seems like an accurate summary of, e.g., Engel and Penslar. Levivich (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I do not believe "Differences within the mainstream Zionist groups lie primarily in their presentation and ethos" is an accurate statement nor does that appear in Engel or Penslar. Penslar thinks Divisions within Zionism between the Left and Right are real. Andre🚐 19:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Divisions within Zionism between the Left and Right are real yet fluid and epiphenomenal., is what Penslar wrote. He also wrote their goals and methods diverged more in style than substance ("more in style than substance" = "wikt:epiphenomenal", aka "Being of secondary consequence to a causal chain of processes, but playing no causal role in the process of interest"). Penslar is saying their differences are real but ever-changing and they didn't much matter (didn't play a causal role in Zionism). Levivich (talk) 20:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

He doesn't say they didn't play a causal role. He's saying they're less relevant today than they were in the past. Thus the use of present tense. Andre🚐 20:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Secular-religious divide is already discussed in the lead. What in your opinion is missing from the section?

The Zionist mainstream has historically included liberal, labor, revisionist, and cultural Zionism, while groups like Brit Shalom and Ihud have been dissident factions within the movement. Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance, having in some cases adopted similar strategies to achieve their goals, such as violence or compulsory transfer to deal with the Palestinians.

It covers that Zionism has a mainstream and has also had dissident factions which were still considered part of the movement. The body does not use a description such as "wide range" or "diverse" to describe Zionist ideology. Whatever new content you are proposing we include should first be incorporated into the body. DMH223344 (talk) 20:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Here are the current changes that I think are incremental improvements: [1] Andre🚐 20:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"Modern form"? RS do not use that terminology when talking about the movement that developed in the 19th century. There is no such thing as pre 19th century Zionism. Maybe RS say "protozionist", but they dont say "zionist" to describe such movements.

The comment about why those fleeing russia went to palestine is well sourced, see the body.

I removed the last sentence you added because we should discuss how to represent transfer in the lead. Also, religious zionism is already mentioned (ie not all zionists were secular) and debates about relationship with diaspora does not seem leadworthy DMH223344 (talk) 20:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I think something about "modern" belongs in the lead and body. Maybe not that exact wording For example Stanislawski refers to Zionism coming out of "modern Jewish nationalism": Zionists today regard Zionism as a natural continuation of two millennia of Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel,.. a redefinition of Jewishness that resulted from a broader ideological innovation in Jewish history: the creation of modern Jewish nationalism. Indeed, in most ways Zionism followed the common pattern of modern nationalist movements,, ..his version of modern Jewish nationalism was dubbed “spiritual” or “cultural Zionism,” as opposed to “political Zionism.” To understand these terms, we must move beyond the invention of modern Jewish nationalism and its early embodiment in movements such as the Bilu and Lovers of Zion to the creation of the Zionist movement itself. Andre🚐 20:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"modern Jewish nationalism" is fine. I would have suggested to add it to the opening sentence but it is already very long. DMH223344 (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I mean adding the word "modern" in the sense of "a modern movement" DMH223344 (talk) 21:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. Andre🚐 21:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to note that the lead of the Britannica article (which also uses both Palestine and land of Israel, the latter in quote marks)

"Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel”)." BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

It probably makes sense to expand somewhere in the body about Ahad Ha'am's criticism of Herzl's Zionism (ie "Jewish state" vs "state of the Jews"). DMH223344 (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Taking into account criticism on colonization and the debate on zionisms, I suggest the following lead :

Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century, advocating for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, also referred to as the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The movement arose in response to antisemitism, Jewish persecution, and the challenges of assimilation in Europe, drawing on both historical connections to the region and contemporary nationalist and colonial models. Early Zionist leaders, including Theodor Herzl, framed settlement and colonization as central to the movement’s efforts to create a Jewish homeland.

Zionism encompassed distinct ideological streams, including political, cultural, and religious Zionism, which differed in their approaches but shared the common goal of Jewish self-determination. The movement led to significant waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the development of Zionist institutions, culminating in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. While supporters view Zionism as a legitimate national liberation movement for the Jewish people, critics argue that it contributed to the displacement of Palestinians and ongoing regional conflict. These debates remain central to discussions about Zionism’s legacy and its impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Michael Boutboul (talk) 20:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Again, I don't think this accurately summarizes the sources. I suggest, for each change you want to make (or start by just picking one change), you quote the sources that say something different than what the article currently says. Levivich (talk) 20:49, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Penslar 2023 p.91

The Hebraic Zionism of Ahad Ha-Am was noncolonial in that it condemned Jewish sovereign authority in Palestine and displayed little interest in improving the lot of the natives in a Western paternalistic fashion. Yet a passion for Hebraic culture and hawkish political views could easily coexist, as was the case for Joseph Klausner, a scholar of Jewish history and Hebrew literature who during the interwar period was a committed Revisionist Zionist... Of all the varieties of Zionism discussed in the first chapter, Statist Zionism is most clearly linked with colonialism

Andre🚐 21:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Do you think there is a compelling reason to discuss Ahad Ha'am's criticism of Zionism in the lead? If so, we should work on the body first, then decide how to incorporate those changes into the lead (if at all). DMH223344 (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'll work on the body when I have some free time and a clear head. But I think the point about the lead is that it should not elide the differences between different schools of Zionist thought. They aren't all violent or colonial. Andre🚐 17:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A link to a relevant article would suffice. Selfstudier (talk) 17:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed completely - the lead has improved somewhat, but still makes it sound like all Zionists today support further violence/transfer of Palestinians, rather than simply the continued existence of Israel in a two-state solution. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I thought this edit was being faithful to the suggestion made by Levivich above, No objection to saying that Zionism had internal divisions, that early on there were diverse opinions about its purpose and methods, which ultimately converged. [2][3] Is the qualifier the issue with that text? Andre🚐 03:53, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What I said: No objection to saying that Zionism had internal divisions, that early on there were diverse opinions about its purpose and methods, which ultimately converged around the turn of the 20th century, as Engel says, at which point there were differences in style not substance, which also disappeared (or mutated) by 1948, as Penslar says.

What I removed: Zionism had numerous internal debates and divisions, and early on there were diverse opinions about its purposes and methods, which later converged to some extent.

What the lead already says that I didn't remove: The Zionist mainstream has historically included liberal, labor, revisionist, and cultural Zionism, while groups like Brit Shalom and Ihud have been dissident factions within the movement. Mainstream Zionist groups for the most part differ more in style than substance, having in some cases adopted similar strategies to achieve their goals, such as violence or compulsory transfer to deal with the Palestinians.

The sentence I removed said things that I think are contradicted by the sources or are characterizations that aren't in the sources (e.g. "numerous," "to some extent"), and I don't think that sentence adds anything to what's already there. Levivich (talk) 04:24, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I think adding Zionism had internal divisions, that early on there were diverse opinions about its purpose and methods, which ultimately converged adds something that isn't there now. Is there a version of that sentence you'd be comfortable adding? Andre🚐 04:28, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that's not in the body. It could be, but it needs to be added, with sources, with the nuance and characterizations used in the sources cited, etc., and then there would be some version of that sentence that should be added to the lead, but I'm not really sure what it is now, without closely examining what multiple sources say about it--not just Engel and Penslar, because everybody who writes an overview of Zionism talks about "types of Zionism," so the question is what do they say exactly? Probably they say the same thing as Engel and Penslar, but maybe not.

BTW I noticed that in some of your recent edits, you changed the article prose but didn't add a source, and while I think everything you added is easily sourced (probably to Penslar or Engel or somebody we've discussed here), I'm not sure if the pre-existing sources in the article source the stuff that you added. Just a heads up, I think you might need to add citations to what you added. Levivich (talk) 04:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Good catch, I added the cite to Penslar quote, which is p. 59-60 in the edition I have. Regarding adding some distillation of the material in this section to the body, I will attempt to do that if there is no objection, though not at this very moment. Andre🚐 04:51, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

On the Use of "Colonization" in Zionist History

Many sources explicitly use the term "colonization" when describing Zionist activities, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, these same sources often emphasize that Zionist colonization was distinct from European imperialist colonialism. Zionist leaders and organizations framed colonization as a means of fulfilling Jewish self-determination and re-establishing a historical connection to the land, rather than as an imperial venture exploiting local populations for the benefit of a distant mother country.

Here are some relevant sources and how they address "colonization":

1. Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat:
   • Herzl explicitly uses the term "colonists" and "colonization" to describe the practical process of Jewish settlement in Palestine. However, his focus is on peaceful settlement and voluntary agreements.
   • Example Quote: “The Jewish Company ... has other than purely colonial tasks. ... our colonists will be peaceably inclined.”
   • This supports retaining "colonization" in the lead but underscores that early Zionist leaders envisioned it as a developmental and peaceful effort, rather than an imperial project.
2. Walter Laqueur’s A History of Zionism:
   • Laqueur acknowledges the colonial aspects of Zionist activities but distinguishes them from traditional colonial enterprises.
   • Example Quote: “These Jews were not colonists in the usual sense of sons or agents of an imperial mother country ... but the settlements of the First Aliyah were still colonial, with white Europeans living amid and employing a mass of relatively impoverished natives.”
   • This nuanced description suggests that "colonization" was part of Zionist history but needs context to distinguish it from imperialist colonialism.
3. Rashid Khalidi’s The Iron Cage:
   • Khalidi emphasizes the colonial relationship between Zionism and the indigenous Arab population but acknowledges Zionism’s dual character as both a colonial enterprise and a national movement.
   • Example Quote: “This enterprise was and is colonial in terms of its relationship to the indigenous Arab population of Palestine ... Zionism also served as the national movement of the nascent Israeli polity being constructed at their expense.”
   • Khalidi’s position supports including "colonization" in the lead but also highlights the tension between Zionism’s colonial and nationalist dimensions.
4. Benny Morris’s Righteous Victims:
   • Morris discusses Zionist colonization efforts, particularly during the First Aliyah and Second Aliyah periods, but notes that Zionism was not supported by a European imperial power.
   • Example Quote: “Jewish colonization meant expropriation and displacement,” but “these Jews were not colonists in the usual sense of sons or agents of an imperial mother country.”
   • This source supports the use of "colonization" while distinguishing it from traditional colonial enterprises.

So I believe I have now provided all the necessary sources and evidence to substantiate the points raised in our discussion. Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:25, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Might be a good idea to read some of the talk page archives here. Selfstudier (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, you don't answer what in my current proposal is not well sourced and explained and what does not make a consensus. The current lead is far to respect Wikipedia requirement : Neutrality, Balance of perspective, speculative assertion, ... Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Because many of these points have already been discussed and dealt with. If it were as simple as you say, it would have been done already, no? Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It’s as simple as I stated. The current lead is not neutral, and you know it. Please respond to my arguments instead of simply saying 'no, there is no consensus.' There is no consensus on the current lead either, and many people have provided strong arguments. We should work together to create a more balanced lead." Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The current lead has consensus, your opinion does not. The need is to demonstrate that the current lead does not have consensus. Selfstudier (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

How can you reasonably claim that the current lead has consensus? At least six (and likely many more) editors have requested changes to it, providing valuable arguments. Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:37, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

See the RFC on the question that has just been opened. You may comment there. Selfstudier (talk) 18:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

One advantage of Michael B's proposed lead is the removal of the sentence starting "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine... " As Penslar, for example, makes clear, the aspiration for statehood grew slowly and was far from a defining feature of early Zionism, which focused on a home or homeland, as in the wording of the Balfour Declaration. The Jerusalem Program cited by Selfstudier, for instance, was not drafted until 1951, after the state was a reality; the Nation state law, also cited by Selfstudier, is a mere six years old and opposed by many calling themselves Zionist (including nearly half the Knesset). It's telling that the footnote (4) to that paragraph, the quotes that mention the word "state" almost all refer to the 1948+ period. In other words, it's anachronistic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:07, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, we need to do a better job of separating the historical stuff. There's the pre-20th century stuff, the 1930s and 1940s, 1948-1967, and 1967-present at the least. Andre🚐 18:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

See the new author (section at the bottom, not saying I think this is a best source or anything but at least it's new) "Zionism is a movement that aspired to the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. Having emerged at the end of the 19th century, the Zionist ambition was achieved in 1948 with the founding of the state of Israel. Selfstudier (talk) 18:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

And as you already pointed out, Britannica says much the same as do lots and lots of sources. Selfstudier (talk) 18:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

That source centres the state, as does Britannica, but also highlights diversity on other questions: "Despite this basic unity of purpose, Zionism was not a monolithic ideology. Factions differed on substantial issues like the rate and implementation of the immigration to Palestine, or even on whether the “Holy Land” should be the site upon which to fulfill the movement’s goals. Cultural Zionism, for example, understood the “Land of Israel” as the irreplaceable spiritual center of Jewish life and Hebrew culture, while Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) and political Zionism focused on securing imperial approval for a territorial grant to the Jewish people." I think we need the maximum broad definition as the opener, and only then say something like that the aspiration for statehood became a central element especially after 1917 BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:57, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

There should probably be a reasonable treatment of Cultural Zionism in the body first, right? Probably a full paragraph would be reasonable. DMH223344 (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

That's just not true, the aspiration for a state begins with Herzl and the whole disguised "homeland" version of that aspiration is very well documented, just read the Balfour Declaration article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration#The_%22national_home_for_the_Jewish_people%22_vs._Jewish_state Selfstudier (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your support, I am not that familiar with Wikipedia editing, do you know how to come to a consensus to have a more balanced lead with neutral presentation and streamlined focus on key historical point? Should we ask for an arbitration process? Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

First port of call, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for the boilerplate. All I would say is that, on WP, trying to do everything at once usually doesn't work.Selfstudier (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a dispute exactly, so much as a lack of consensus. I believe three editors argued for a need to change the lead to make it (as we see it) less historically presentist and more neutral, while three editors argued for it to remain as it is, with both groups providing policy-based arguments and sources to back their cases, but neither convincing the other. In such a context, the status quo remains in place, but Michael should feel free to present new arguments or new sources in the future to keep the proposal alive. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

It's definitely a dispute and its been running a while now, at least we have one RFC on the go. Selfstudier (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

• Shindler 2015: A Plethora of Zionisms. Zionism was never a monolithic movement. It would be more correct to speak of a range of different varieties of Zionism. ... ideological streams. Andre🚐 03:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism

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 (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 [4], 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

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)[reply] 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 Wikipedia'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, Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia'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)

  Wikipedia 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

  Wikipedia 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)

• 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)

  Wikipedia 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 activists] ... 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.
— [5]

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 [i.e., Palestine and Transjordan] would [ultimately] 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 ^-talk- 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 Wikipedia 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 ^-talk- 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 ^-talk- 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

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 [5], [6], and [10] 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 [10] 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 [9]. [7] and [8] 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.
• [10] 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.

• [7] and [9] 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 [4] is Finkelstein. Do you think he disputes "as many Jews as possible"? The argument doesn't make sense. And your [3] 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.

[7] and [9] are not primary sources

I didn't say [9] was. I said [7] and [8] were. [7] 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 [4] 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, this sentence is well sourced and captures the mainstream narrative regarding the mainstream zionist movement's objectives. DMH223344 (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• No, not as a matter of policy, but it may be best to reword anyway. Wikipedia 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^talk 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^talk 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^talk 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 Wikipedia says they do. I told them Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia being non NPOV propaganda? At minimum it is highly controversial. But it's fine, Wikipedia 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^talk 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^talk 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.[1]

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.[2]

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)

• 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)

Tag on Race and Genetics section

Can someone explain the tag on the Race and Genetics section? Why is it there? DMH223344 (talk) 06:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That tag along with multiple others was added by Qualiesin with no meaningful explanation in their first and only edit to this article or its talk page. This feels like drive-by tagging of one of Wikipedia's most contentious articles, Qualiesin. Can you please discuss? Valereee (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I am simply trying to restore some semblance of NPOV to this article that has become a vehicle for strongly biased views. Qualiesin (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Aight, @Qualiesin. Well, for the record, drive-by tagging is seldom helpful anywhere, and in a CTOP even less so, and at one of the project's most contentious articles it's almost inexcusable from an editor with 20K edits over five years. Please consider in future actually reading discussions and participating instead of dropping tags with no meaningful explanation onto CTOP articles where you have had zero talk page participation. That's disruptive on its face. Valereee (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it is unbalanced as too focused on genetics but This re-conceptualization of Jewishness... is really important. It's a nation for a people. Maybe too focused on a particular present debate/look at 'people'? Need Nishidani's input here i think. Might look better as part of "Jewish nationalism and emancipation"? Article seems light on 'nationalism'. fiveby(zero) 15:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Originally the main Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism was titled Zionism, race and genetics but here we still have that (in effect), maybe retitle the section "Racial conceptions of Jewish identity". Selfstudier (talk) 15:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Not that the issue is not important today and also for earlier conceptions, just reads odd and i don't think a novice reader would be able to understand the section. fiveby(zero) 15:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Also don't think a reader has been provided with enough to understand the McGonigle quote at this point in the article. Really covering a lot of ground with that quote. As i recall he is a sociologist looking at current use of genetics for conceptions of peoples? Probably not a best source for covering all that ground. fiveby(zero) 15:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

"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:

• Laqueur, Walter (2009). A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel.

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…”

• Ther, Philipp (2014). The Dark Side of Nation-States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe.

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.”

• Heller, J. (2006). "Alternative narratives and collective memories: Israel's New Historians and the use of historical context". Middle Eastern Studies. 42 (4): 571–586.

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. “

• Galnoor, Itzhak (1995). The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement.

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.”

• Karsh, Efraim (2019). "Book Review: 'A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion'". The Wall Street Journal. (review of Tom Segev's book)

“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.”

• Karsh, Efraim (2010). Palestine Betrayed. Yale University Press.

“...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.”

• Shapira, Anita (2014). Israel: A History. Brandeis University Press.

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 [given what is feasible]. 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 Wikipedia 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 ^-talk- 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 [Morris] 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[6]. 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 [work is about 1948-1956]	"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 activists]", "Zionist leaders and activists"			"without Arabs or with as small a minority as possible"
Lustick & Berkman 2017	doesn't specify [work is about pre-state Zionism]	"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	Y
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"	Y
Segev 2019	p. 418, "the Zionist dream from the start—maximum territory, minimum Arabs";	"from the start"	not mentioned	Y
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"	? 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	Y
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	Y ? 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". Y By 1948 - "virtually all of its inhabitants"	N Before the Peel Commission the goal was just minority Y The Peel Commission proposed "smallest possible minorities" Y 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" Y
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	Y ? 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	Y
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		? 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)

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.[7]. 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)

[8] 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: "[Karsh] 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)

References

Back to Dec 4 version

I object to Qualiesin's Dec 4 edit at Special:Diff/1261190407. This single edit made changes to almost every section of this article, and in total, added 4,206 bytes, but had the inaccurate edit summary added links, templates, citations, cleanup.

This edit made significant POV changes (e.g., changing "Palestinian" to "Arab", changing "colonization" to "settlement"), and it removed some sourced information and replaced with citation tags. It also made some helpful changes, e.g., fixing typos, but there is no way to revert the bad changes and keep the good ones without going through the entire damn article line by line. Further, Qualiesin, aside from the inaccurate edit summary, offered no explanation of these changes either before or after making them, for a week now, until today, where they admitted that the intent of their edit was to change the article's POV. Since that edit, most of what I've seen on this article consists of cleaning up that edit, or edit warring over changes. To me, this is an unacceptable way to collaborate on an article. This is WP:FAITACCOMPLI editing, and it's disruptive.

If Qualiesin want's to make changes to the whole page, they should do it in pieces, maybe section by section or paragraph by paragraph, so that objected-to changes can be reverted without reverting the whole thing. Edit summaries must be accurate and should be descriptive.

I understand I've likely wiped out some good-faith changes that happened between Dec 4 and today. I apologize for that, and will be happy to investigate the history and restore good edits, just let me know which ones I should be looking at, or feel free to just restore them if anyone prefers. (I'm not sure which are changes to Qualiesin's version, and which are changes to unrelated content, but I'm happy to look further if someone wants.)

I almost never wipe out dates worth of changes with a revert to lgv like this, but I thought this situation warranted that extreme measure. Hope y'all agree. Levivich (talk) 17:35, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Would you mind reviewing the section "remained forever elusive" as you've complicated the situation with those changes (immediatley above). Or please just restore the edits that aren't controversial to you. Andre🚐 17:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, looking now. Levivich (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, I looked, with an eye to restoring the Dec 11 (most-recent before my revert) version of the "Race and genetics" and no. One of the very POV changes that Qualiesin made in that Dec 4 edit was to add the line "it is now proven that all Jewish ethnic groups share ancestral genetic ties". That was removed today, and you restored it, violating the consensus required restriction on this page. I object to Qualiesin's changes to that section, and to your re-reinstatement of those changes. Per the CR restriction, obtain consensus before reinstating. Levivich (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I didn't realize that line was only added by Qualiesin on Dec 4, but you undid quite a few other changes. Other than that line, I think the other changes should be looked at. Andre🚐 17:52, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I see you added some stuff that Stephen removed, and Stephen added some stuff that you removed while reinstating what you added. So under CR, both of those additions stay out until there is consensus. Unless I missed something in those edits? Levivich (talk) 18:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I think maybe you should look at your own diff versus the immediately prior revision and consider restoring edits you don't consider controversial regardless of their author. Many people made edits in the last week, and your diff shows things like removing page numbers. Andre🚐 18:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, I went through every change between Qualiesin's Dec 4 edit and my revert and restored the changes I don't object to. Lmk if I missed anything, or if anyone has any questions about what my objection was to a particular change. Levivich (talk) 18:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks a bit better. I can assume that anything you didn't restore was an objection. [18:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)]

You missed two typos: thetime for moral scruples or guilt feelings towards the dispossessed Arab population. This is how a Brit-Shalom Ihud, non-Zionist member of theJewish Agency, and you left in the anti-semitism with dash, which is contrary to MOS, you also changed the seealso of Zio (pejorative) which has been moved. Could you self-revert those reverts? [18:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)]

and two more typos: m ilitary force or diplomacy... The Talmud (BT Ketubot, 111a) relates the three oaths sworn on the eve of the dispersal of what remained of the people of Israel to the fourcorners and is there any specific objection to the attribution of El Haj and McGonigle in that section? Andre🚐 18:45, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

"there is no way to revert the bad changes and keep the good ones without going through the entire damn article line by line"

Funny, you seem to be telling me to do exactly that. Why is it imperative that I do that but you don't have to?

"If Qualiesin want's to make changes to the whole page, they should do it in pieces, maybe section by section or paragraph by paragraph"

Qualiesin (talk) 17:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Because "added links, templates, citations, cleanup" attached to a raft of significant changes suggests something. Selfstudier (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Because per WP:ONUS, the person making new additions to a page must get consensus for them; if there are substantial objections, and the issue is that it's a massive edit with some good parts and some bad parts, this ultimately does shift the burden of doing the legwork to separate the two onto the person proposing a massive change, at least provided people can articulate their objections. Massive sweeping changes on controversial articles are harder to get consensus for, that's just how it is; breaking them down makes it easier. --Aquillion (talk) 19:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

@Qualiesin, because you caused that work to be necessary.

It looks like you are very new to WP:CTOPs. You may have made those changes thinking this article was like most others you end up at: if you see a change that needs to be made, you go right ahead and make that change. If anyone objects, they'll undo it and you'll discuss. It's different at contentious topics in general, and this article in particular is being extremely heavily edited right now. That meant that by the time people even realized you'd made those edits and then waited while you delayed coming in here to discuss, there'd been dozens of intervening edits. When you make a mess, you really should be willing to clean it up.

I'd suggest that if you want to work at this article, you read this entire talk page first. It's being heavily discussed right now, for the same reason that likely brought you here in the first place. In general reading the talk page first is a good idea when editing any contentious topic. Valereee (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Revert of text still being discussed at RfC

I reverted some edits made yesterday and early today (initially I didn't go far back enough so had to self-revert and revert again). Some of these edits changed the text under discussion in the RfC here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zionism#RFC_about_a_recently_added_claim_about_Zionism

Other edits added in lots of new material which hadn't been discussed. I have no opinion on the text itself, as I'd need to check the sources, etc, but it looked like it would be considered controversial (or at least not uncontroversial). If there is agreement that I have made a mistake in this, someone ping me and I will self-revert (again) if necessary Lewisguile (talk) 10:01, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

KronosAlight additions

To editor KronosAlight:
(1) When did Herzl "[portray] Jewish assimilation as a failed attempt to avoid their inevitable genocide"?
(2) How did the US Emergency Quota Act of 1921 "limit Jewish migration to Palestine"?
(3) How many Jews emigrated to Palestine during WWII compared to the quota set by the White Paper?
I see your edits have been reverted. Now check the notice at the top of this page about obtaining confirmative consensus before repeating them. Pyramids09, that means you too. Zero^talk 10:26, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

These were the edits I mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Zionism#c-Lewisguile-20241215100100-Revert_of_text_still_being_discussed_at_RfC I realised they were quite extensive and covered the text currently under RfC. Lewisguile (talk) 11:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

1) Theodor Herzl, Letters and Journals (Jerusalem: Mizpa, 1928), p. 129., among many other places in his writings and publications.

2) Clearly a typo. It limited Jewish immigration to the US, leaving Jews with few options to escape the intensifying anti-Jewish violence across Europe. This Quota Act was in effect during the Holocaust.

3) Interesting question, you should look it up and find an answer. KronosAlight (talk) 11:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

1) I know that citation even with the same punctuation. It refers to a speech that Herzl was planning to deliver to Lord Rothschild asking for a billion francs. Full text in Herzl's diary entry for June 13, 1895. It doesn't mention assimilation. Herzl asserted that the Rothschilds had such vast wealth ("Ihr Kredit ist enorm, monströs. Ihr Kredit betrügt viele Milliarden.") that they would soon have to liquidate their assets and what better beneficiary than Zionism? It was a typical Herzl fantasy that as usual didn't happen. Herzl was concerned about the dangers of growing antisemitism, including violence, but the claim that he foresaw the Holocaust is pure mythology. Incidentally, in this speech he expresses preference for Argentina over Palestine.

3) I know the answer already, but it was you who wrote something relying on it in the article so I wondered what your source was. Zero^talk 14:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

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)