How Zionism has evolved from a project to an ideology

THE FIRST protest against the Israeli government’s plans to weaken the country’s Supreme Court on January 7th was a sparsely attended affair, dominated by left-wing and pro-Palestinian parties. A week later, as tens of thousands gathered in Tel Aviv and other cities, the demonstrations shifted to the centre ground. Gone were the Palestinian banners. In their place was a sea of blue-and-white Israeli flags.

In the months that followed the protesters displayed other symbols of Israeli nationhood, such as massive reproductions of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, with its promises of “freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel”. To broaden this new movement’s appeal, its organisers made a conscious decision to focus it on a battle over the nature of democracy in the Jewish state. Without explicitly saying so, they framed their cause as a struggle over the very meaning of Zionism and who its rightful torchbearers are—the secular and liberal Israelis making up much of the protest movement, or the religious, conservative supporters of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government.