In 1967, Israel launched a preemptive war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, occupying Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. This war led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and intensified Israeli colonization. It also shattered illusions of Arab state strength and triggered the rise of the modern Palestinian revolutionary movement, including the revitalization of the PLO and the emergence of armed struggle.

A brutal military campaign in which Israel invaded Lebanon to crush the Palestinian resistance and the revolutionary Lebanese forces that supported it. During the siege, Israel bombed civilian neighborhoods, murdering tens of thousands, and targeted revolutionary institutions like the PLO Research Center.

A mass hunger strike launched in response to intensified repression in Israeli prisons during the Second Intifada. Under the leadership of Yakov Ganot, Israel employed brutal tactics—strip searches, beatings, isolation—to demoralize and break down prisoner solidarity. The 2004 strike ultimately ended in fragmentation, with prisoners breaking the strike individually rather than collectively—a rupture in the unified political discipline that had long characterized the movement. Walid Daqqa analyzed this event as a form of “searing consciousness,” where Zionism not only physically tortures, but undermines collective national identity.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a U.S.-based organization that promotes Israel's interests in the U.S. and is notorious for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Leveraging its legitimacy gained by positioning itself as a civil rights organization and its influence in schools, the ADL attempts silence criticism of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S. that advocates for unconditional U.S. political, military, and financial support for Israel, enabling and legitimizing its occupation and genocide against Palestinians. AIPAC is also known for flooding hundreds of millions of dollars into U.S. elections to back pro-Israel candidates and undermine and smear those who are progressive, anti-war or in support of free speech.

A joint British-American body tasked with determining the future of Palestine. The U.S. used this platform to push for the admission of 100,000 Jewish settlers into Palestine, overriding the limits placed on Zionist immigration by Britain’s 1939 White Paper. The committee marked the U.S.'s first major formal intervention in shaping Palestine’s future, solidifying its role as the primary backer of Zionist colonization.

The material and strategic alliance between Iran, Syria (prior to the fall of Assad), Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and the Palestinian resistance factions.

A formal statement by the British government expressing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Issued by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, the declaration was made without consultation with the Palestinian population, who overwhelmingly rejected it.

An early petition advocating for Jewish colonization of Palestine, presented to U.S. President Benjamin Harrison. Supported by U.S. industrialists like JP Morgan and Rockefeller, it reflects the long history of Christian Zionism and capitalist interest in Palestine.

A pivotal meeting of the World Zionist Organization held in New York, marking a strategic shift in the Zionist movement’s demands from a vague "Jewish homeland" to an explicit call for a Jewish state in all of Palestine. It signaled the movement’s pivot from Britain to the U.S. as its primary imperial sponsor, laying the groundwork for intensified American-Zionist coordination and political support.

A theological and political ideology that predates Jewish Zionism, rooted in Protestant eschatology. Christian Zionists believed the Jewish “return” to Palestine would hasten the Second Coming of Christ. British imperial elites, influenced by this belief, promoted early proposals for Jewish colonization of Palestine as part of imperial strategy. Today, Christian Zionists make up the largest demographic of Zionist supporters globally.

A term to describe Zionism’s global function not only as a colonial project in Palestine, but as a worldwide counter-insurgent force  against liberation struggles–particularly through the use and exchange of military, intelligence, and ideological partnerships with far-right regimes and actors.

An Israeli military strategy named after the Dahiya district of Beirut, targeted during Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon. It calls for the disproportionate and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure in any area associated with resistance, particularly to send a message to the broader population to get them to reject the resistance movement. It reflects the belief that entire communities must be punished for resisting Zionism—reinforcing the settler logic that all ArabsPalestinians are legitimate targets.

A term used by European imperial powers in the 19th century to refer to how they would divide, control, or manage the weakening Ottoman Empire. Palestine’s colonization through Zionism was seen by Britain as one answer to this question—a way to install a loyal settler colony to secure imperial interests in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Foreign Military Financing (FMF) Program is a U.S. government initiative that provides financial assistance to foreign countries to help them purchase U.S. defense equipment, services, and training. Primarily designed to support countries of strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy, the FMF program aims to "ensure coalition partners and friendly partner governments are equipped and trained to pursue common security objectives by contributing to regional and global stability…” and ensuring that U.S. weapons and arms manufacturers profit from war.

A Palestinian writer, revolutionary, and intellectual assassinated by Israel in 1973. Kanafani was a central figure in the PLO’s Center and among the first to develop a systematic analysis of Zionist propaganda and thought. His book On Zionist Literature examines Zionist novels not as fiction, but as ideological weapons that laid the psychological groundwork for colonization. Kanfani outlined how Zionist literature constructs the Jewish character as superior, Arabs as inferior and barbaric, and Palestinians as absent or undeserving of the land–foundational myths that still shape Zionist propaganda today.

A Zionist paramilitary organization formed in the 1920s that later evolved into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). It was built to defend Zionist colonies and to suppress Palestinian resistance during the British Mandate period and beyond. It played a central role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba.

A Zionist trade union founded in 1920 that only admitted Jewish workers and played a central role in the economic and political consolidation of the Zionist settler colony. It advanced a racially exclusionary labor policy and reinforced Jewish supremacy through the “conquest of labor.”

A world economic, financial, and military system that enables the violent and systematic transfer of value—from the periphery (the Third World) to the imperial core (the First World). Zionism emerged as part of the larger imperialist world system, developing through and with the backing of imperial powers like Britain and later the United States.

A foundational Zionist military and psychological doctrine developed by Jabotinsky. It argues that Arabs will never accept their dispossession voluntarily, so Zionism must erect an “iron wall” of violence and military superiority to break their will. This is not just about conquest but about instilling deep psychological defeat in the indigenous population to prevent future resistance. It undergirds the Zionist belief that only overwhelming force can secure Jewish supremacy.

A core tenet of Zionist ideology that constructs the Jewish people as a superior group entitled to exclusive sovereignty over Palestine. This idea is foundational to the exclusion and displacement of Palestinians, the creation of apartheid laws, and the long-standing rejection of Palestinian right of return.

An imperialist-backed plan to reroute regional water resources to serve Zionist settler expansion while containing Palestinian refugees in areas where they could be used as cheap labor. This project exemplified how infrastructure development under occupation is weaponized to deepen Zionist settler colonialism and fragment Arab resistance.

British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister in the 19th century who advocated for the settlement of Jews in Palestine under British protection. Though not Jewish himself, Palmerston was among the first to propose using Jewish immigration as a means to further British imperial control over Ottoman lands, long before organized Jewish Zionism emerged.

The Maccabee Task Force, founded by Miriam and Sheldon Adelson,  is a zionist organization operating with the aims of countering Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movements on college campuses and promoting pro-Israel beliefs and suppressing free speech amongst young people on college campuses.

From the early Zionist settler movement to the present-day Israeli state, militarism has been central to Zionism’s survival and expansion. Early settler militias like Hashomer laid the foundation for the Haganah and later the Israeli army. Militarized violence has always been Zionism’s primary response to Palestinian resistance.

A Zionist military doctrine referring to the routine use of overwhelming force to destroy Palestinian resistance capacity whenever it becomes too strong. This doctrine treats Gaza and other areas of Palestinian life as permanent targets for cyclical extermination, repression, and containment. It is a central feature of the counterinsurgency model maintained through U.S.-Zionist coordination.

Arabic for “catastrophe,” referring to the ethnic cleansing and mass displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians in May of 1948 by Zionist forces during the establishment of the state of Israel. Entire villages were destroyed, massacres were committed, and Palestinian society was shattered. The Nakba is not a past event but an ongoing process of dispossession and erasure.

Nikolai Ashurov, an Israeli commander, was involved in the execution of 15 paramedics, rescue workers, and UN staff in Rafah. He later resurfaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo, working as a mercenary for a private Israeli security company.

The system-wide overlaps that exist between US imperialism and Zionism in the realms of profit accumulation, ideology, repression, and militarism on the basis of their mutual interest in counter-revolution against the Palestinian and Arab national liberation movements (and increasingly against revolutionary movements elsewhere-including in North America). 

There are four elements of US-led regional order (the substance of the “organic unity”):

1. Israel

2. The World Zionist Movement 

3. World Imperialism (led by the US)

4. Arab reaction represented by feudalism and capitalism

An imperial modernization policy that required the registration of land ownership in the Ottoman Empire. This reform allowed for land privatization and absentee ownership, often by urban elites. It laid the legal groundwork for Zionist land purchases and peasant dispossession in Palestine in the decades to follow.

Palantir Technologies Inc., co-founded by Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, is a U.S.-based data analytics firm known for supplying Israel’s military and intelligence agencies with advanced targeting capabilities.

Defined by Walid Daqqa as “a system of collective values that represents the concept of one unified people with a purpose shared by a majority of its members.” National consciousness is a vital force that sustains Palestinian resistance through time and across fragmentation. It ties the struggle of a refugee in Lebanon to a protestor in Haifa, a prisoner in Naqab to a fighter in Gaza. Zionism targets this consciousness precisely because it is the source of Palestinian endurance and political clarity — replacing it with despair and disconnection is essential to the colonial project.

A central institution of revolutionary knowledge production within the Palestinian national movement. Despite being confined by a system meant to crush resistance, Palestinian political prisoners transformed Zionist prisons into universities of struggle. Through hunger strikes and clandestine educational programs, prisoners have studied Zionism, Israeli society, and revolutionary theory. One of the most significant early demands of prisoners was access to pencil and paper—emphasizing that revolutionary education is foundational to liberation.

A process by which Palestinian peasants were driven off their land due to Zionist land purchases and became a landless urban class seeking wage labor. At the same time, Zionist institutions like the Histadrut excluded Palestinian laborers, intensifying class and national oppression.A process by which Palestinian peasants were driven off their land due to Zionist land purchases and became a landless urban class seeking wage labor. At the same time, Zionist institutions like the Histadrut excluded Palestinian laborers, intensifying class and national oppression.

Israeli-developed surveillance software sold to authoritarian governments around the world, including in the DRC, to repress dissent, spy on activists, and coordinate arrests — revealing Israel’s role in global authoritarian surveillance.

A global financial arrangement established after the U.S. faced crisis post-Vietnam War, where oil-exporting Arab regimes reinvest oil profits into U.S. financial institutions. Enabled by U.S. alignment with Gulf monarchies and support for Israel, the petrodollar system props up U.S. global hegemony by maintaining the dollar’s dominance and funding both imperial wars and Israeli militarization.

Established in 1965, one year after the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the PLO Research Center was a vital institution of Palestinian revolutionary knowledge production. It aimed to provide literature, analysis, and conferences that would guide the Palestinian liberation struggle. The Center actively translated Zionist texts—such as Herzl’s diaries—into Arabic to expose Zionism’s inner logic to the Arab masses. During Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Zionist forces targeted and bombed the Research Center, killing 18 people and seizing its archive, demonstrating Zionism’s war not only on Palestinian lives, but on revolutionary thought itself.

A genocidal, fascist ideology within Zionism that calls for the complete expulsion or extermination of Palestinians. Founded by Brooklyn-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, Kahanism was once seen as extreme even within Zionist society but is now increasingly normalized. Figures like Itmar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich openly carry forward Kahane’s legacy, revealing that this fascism is not a distortion of Zionism but its logical conclusion.

A term used in Zionist culture to refer to a native-born Israeli Jew, as opposed to a diaspora Jew. Sabras are idealized as strong, resilient, and connected to the land—contrasted with Holocaust survivors who are portrayed as weak or victimized. This trope reinforces the Zionist narrative of “regenerating” the Jewish people through colonization and military conquest, while erasing the suffering of European anti-Semitism and displacing its consequences onto Palestinians.

A concept developed by Palestinian political prisoner and thinker Walid Daqqa to describe Zionism’s psychological warfare on Palestinians. This process uses extreme violence and division to erode collective national identity and impose Zionist values. Searing consciousness breaks solidarity by attacking the bonds—shared struggle, national unity, and political purpose—that bind Palestinians together. Daqqa analyzed this through case studies of prisoner organizing, showing how Israel attempts to turn political prisoners from revolutionaries into isolated individuals.

A mass Palestinian uprising against the Zionist occupation that erupted in 2000, rooted in decades of dispossession, colonization, and violence. Unlike the largely unarmed First Intifada, the Second Intifada saw intensified armed resistance and was met with unprecedented Zionist violence, including the bombing of refugee camps, the bulldozing of homes, and targeted assassinations. The Intifada exposed the brutality of the Zionist state and produced a generation of resistance fighters, but also led to massive repression, arrests, and deaths of Palestinians. It was during and after this period that Israel intensified efforts to fragment the Palestinian people geographically, politically, and psychologically.

A form of colonialism that seeks to permanently displace and eliminate native populations in order to replace them with a new settler society. Unlike classical colonialism, which is often exploitative of native labor, settler colonialism aims to erase native life altogether. Zionism, like other settler-colonial projects, is rooted in elimination and replacement.

A concept referring to the essential support that the broader Arab world offers to the Palestinian struggle. Historically, the Palestinian cause has required the material, political, and military backing of the Arab masses and revolutionary Arab states. The idea emphasizes that Palestine cannot be liberated in isolation and that the fragmentation of the Arab world weakens the Palestinian resistance. The Zionist-imperialist project aims to sever Palestine from its Arab depth. It is also based on an understanding that the Zionist-imperialist project is a threat to the broader Arab region and not Palestine alone.

A major Zionist land acquisition in northern Palestine from the Sursock family, wealthy absentee landlords from Beirut. The sale resulted in the eviction of Palestinian peasant communities and is emblematic of how Zionists used colonial legal frameworks and capitalist land markets to carry out dispossession.

Often regarded as the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl advocated for a Jewish state not primarily as a spiritual return to Palestine, but as a “solution” to European anti-Semitism and a method of securing support through imperial powers. He sought alliances with colonial states to build Zionism as a settler project, drawing inspiration from European colonial practices across the globe.

Convened in Basel, Switzerland, and led by Theodor Herzl, this congress marked the formal organization of the Zionist movement. It adopted the Basel Program, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Congress represented the consolidation of Zionism as a political movement aligned with European imperial interests.

North Korean tunnel expertise exported to Lebanon and potentially Gaza as an example of revolutionary technology transfer — a counterpoint to Zionist/U.S. counterinsurgency exports. This reflects the reverse flow of military knowledge among revolutionary forces.

Unit 8200 is an intelligence unit within the Israeli military, responsible for signals intelligence, cyberwarfare, counterintelligence, and broad surveillance operations, in Gaza and in the region.  This unit develops technologies, tactics, and strategies that are often exported to and adopted by U.S. companies and agencies for surveillance. 

Established in 1949 to provide aid to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA became a tool for managing the consequences of Zionist ethnic cleansing while suppressing Palestinian demands for return and liberation. Funded primarily by the U.S., it functioned to pacify refugees with minimal sustenance, discouraging political struggle and entrenching dependency.

A Palestinian political prisoner, intellectual, and revolutionary who spent 37 years in Israeli prisons. Through his writings, Daqqa analyzed Zionism as a project that aims not just to conquer land but to dismantle Palestinian identity itself. He warned that fragmentation–across geography, class, and politics–serves the Zionist aim of eroding the idea of a single Palestinian nation. Daqqa’s life, death, and legacy remain symbols Palestinian refusal to surrender to the Zionist colonial project.

A settler-colonial ideology and movement that seeks to establish a Jewish state in Palestine through the domination and elimination of the existing Palestinian Arab society. Zionism has always relied upon the sponsorship, protection, and backing of Western imperialist powers, from its earliest ideological formation to its violent material realization.

The internal fractures within Zionist society stemming from its settler-colonial nature. These contradictions emerge from attempts to unify a diverse Jewish population into a single, exclusivist ethno-nationalist identity, while also violently dominating the indigenous Arab population. Contradictions appear across lines of religiosity, ethnicity, geography, class, and political ideology, and are constantly heightened by Palestinian resistance. These contradictions are not simply tensions—they are deep structural instabilities that expose the unsustainability of the Zionist project.

1. Labor/Liberal Zionism:  Often linked to the founding generation of the Israeli state, this current promoted a "socialist" settler colonialism, built on Jewish-only labor and industry. It supports the maintenance of the 1948 borders and, at least nominally, the two-state solution, though still rooted in Jewish supremacy.

2. Revisionist Zionism: Originating with Ze’ev Jabotinsky, this current believes in the maximal expansion of the Zionist state (“Greater Israel”) and uses fascist tactics to ensure domination. It rejects compromise and sees extermination or total submission of Arabs as necessary.

3. Religious Zionism: A newer but increasingly dominant current that fuses settler colonialism with religious zealotry. It views Arabs as inherently inferior and believes in a divine mandate to ethnically cleanse the land.

All three currents share the same goal–Jewish supremacy and Arab dispossession–but differ in tactics and internal priorities, leading to recurring conflicts within Zionist society.

The myth at the heart of Israeli society that the state, through the IDF and its military prowess, can protect Jews from persecution and guarantee safety through supremacy. This contract is rooted in a colonial promise: that Jewish unity, prosperity, and protection can be secured by dominating Palestinians and being a faithful proxy of U.S. imperialism. The collapse of this myth—especially after October 7, 2023—has triggered a crisis in Zionist identity.