A movement that began in the nineteenth century for the return of the Jews to Palestine. Started by a Hungarian Jew, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), Zionism was, and is, held together by the belief that the Jews worldwide are all descendents of the ancient Hebrews, and therefore share a common nationality by virtue of their link to the historical kingdom of Israel. Nineteenth century European anti-Semitism helped to strengthen Zionism, and during World War I, the British (who ruled Palestine after World War I) supported the idea, which led to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which favoured the creation of "a Jewish national home."

When Israel was established in 1948 Zionism took on a new coloring, to indicate support for Israel by Jews outside the Middle East. Israel's enemies claimed, and still do, that Zionism seeks to perpetuate Israeli rule over Arabs in the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized from Jordan in the war of 1967. Supporters of Zionism point out that Israel is a democracy, where Arabs—including Christians and Moslems, as well as other ethnic groups such as the Druse and the Circassians—are granted the right to vote, freedom of religious expression, and other civil liberties equal to those guaranteed to the Jews.