As far as I knew, “Zionist” as a negative was primarily used by the Nazis for all that blood libel stuff. I think it may have been used under Stalinist communism as well. The KKK and other white supremacist groups use it. You also see Zion in hymns, usually as a reference to heaven.
FWIW, I’m not a supporter of Israel or the ongoing Palestinian genocide. I also think that most of the Muslim states are terrible as well. Organized religion and its involvement in the state is a cancer and it doesn’t much matter if it’s Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Fundamentalism is terrible.
Anyhow, when I see “Zionism” to refer to support of Israel, it pings my bullshit detector. It isn’t a part of normal discourse as I know it in the US. It feels like whomever is spouting it has been propagandized when I see it. It seems to be accompanied by varying degrees of jingoism and anger. Tends to be a very black and white worldview, almost naive. Reminds me of Qanon brainwashing but for the Left.
As this is Lemmy, it’s not coming from neo-nazis.
What is driving this?
Is it tankies? (Which I don’t know a lot about, but they seem to be heavily propagandized and unpleasant.)
Is it Muslims?
Some sort of Left ideology that isn’t common in the US?
Is it politically naive kids that have been fed talking points?
Is it Russian, Chinese, or some other state level disinfo/propaganda?
I live in Canada, less than 100km from the US, and it’s a pretty commonly used term. I’ve heard it come up in the beer league hockey dressing room in casual conversation multiple times.
I first started hearing the term occasionally in high school history class, then heard it more at university in political discussion contexts, then again a ton more in the past decade or so given what’s been happening leading up to the current war.
It is not a propaganda term, it is literally the term for people who believe that Jewish people have a right to an ethnostate around historic Jerusalem.
This is a category of people that include some Jews, but not all Jews, and not exclusively Jews, it includes some Israelis, but not all Israelis, and not exclusively Israelis.
Some people wear the term proudly, and some people view it as the devil incarnate, so it’s a term that can be used hatefully or non-hatefully, but it’s not specific to Lemmy.
You’re probably seeing it be used more in general these days because people critical of Israel are trying to be specific in their choice of language and just criticize the supporters of the idea of the Israeli ethnostate rather than Jewish people more broadly (obviously anti-Semitic), or even Israelis more broadly (which sweeps up many Arab-Iseaelis and other citizens who don’t support their state), and misses the non Jewish / Israeli people who also fund and support the state of Israel for various reasons.
I’m middle aged, only recently left the deep south, and have never heard it used in conversation. Only occasionally saw it used on Reddit and before that, Slashdot. Seeing it a lot more on Lemmy.
My prior experience with the term was religious or white supremacist. I can probably count on one hand the Jews I have met and known they were Jewish. Tiny minority where I’m from. Antisemitism did become quite common as Qanon accelerated in 2020 and people that had no experience with Jewish people were suddenly spouting blood libel and such.
Is it more common outside the US, do you think?
I quite frankly don’t know how to put this in a completely un-critical way, but I genuinely think it’s an example of Americans’ quite frankly, overall crappy public education system, and how insular and self focused it is.
Most other countries spend more time on world history, as opposed to their own national history for instance in school. If you only ever covered American history, and world war two up until the point that “We Won!” then you would never really cover the history of the middle east leading up to the world wars, or the rippling aftermath of what displacing the local people to create a Jewish state would look like.
American conservatives also tend to be a group that cannot deal with any guilt or shame whatsoever, so don’t like covering any parts of history that makes them look bad, and given how lock step America has been with Israel, and some of the atrocities that Israel has committed, that results in them not talking about or criticizing Israel or Israelis, which means they don’t ever need to distinguish between Israelis at large and those who oppose the state of Israel or its ethnostate policies.
You can probably consider me self educated, especially when it comes to history and culture. My public education occured in a state that is consistently ranked 49 or 50 and is far right. We were not even taught about evolution but given a statement that there is controversy between Evolution and Creationism, this was state policy in a publicly funded school. Prayers were common and led by authority. I was raised by Christian Fundamentalists and didn’t logic my way out of it until my 30s.
Anyhow, to make my way out of it I cultivated a finely honed bullshit detector. I think I’m lucky enough to be naturally skeptical and self trained in critical thinking. I learned to trust the scientific process.
I can sniff out far right bullshit from a mile away. I’m seeing a fair amount of far left bullshit on Lemmy that I don’t have a lot of experience with. The far Right doesn’t have monopoly on fanaticism. That’s why I’m asking about this. The whole Zion thing sets off my radar and I’m not all convinced it’s a false positive given the response in this thread.
I tend to trust my gut on this sort of thing. However, I am actually able to change my mind given clear information that doesn’t trip my detector.
I’m leaning towards the Zion thing being an indicator of tankie thought/Left fanaticism or a phrase that is common outside the states. The fact that it was used historically heavily by the Nazis and, I think, by the Stalinist communists is a large negative factor for me. I also think it may have been picked up by non-fanatics and not necessarily be a firm indicator.
Very common in my experience of french politics to distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
It’s also a lot more used since the genocide is an important subject, so that may explain why you see it a lot more used in the last two years.
Also in germany in my experience. It often but not exclusively comes up when people talk about the history of the formation of Israel. And also to differentiate between Jews that think there should be a Jewish state and those that think there shouldn’t.