Dodging charged words
Your editorial suggests the terms Zionist and Zionism should be abandoned (“What is a Zionist?”). If that is so because “Zionism is an emotionally loaded term with no consensus meaning,” then so too should the very many terms of a similar nature: Christianity, liberalism, socialism, communism, and so on. In fact, what term doesn’t carry many different, often conflicting, meanings over the course of its life—often depending on whether one is for or against it?
The word Zionism was understood in a particular way by its founders: the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This understanding, continued through its history, is what gives the word meaning—a meaning that is apparent in the founding of the Israeli state and in its violence to this day. That there are those who use the term in some other way, often to obscure or soften this history, shouldn’t be a reason for abandoning it. Those who use the term with some other meaning—for instance, supporting a benign Jewish state—have to justify their doing so, just as Donald Trump has to justify claiming to be a Christian. Otherwise there can be no rational or truthful discourse.
—Stephen Morley
Norwich, England
