An aerial view of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

If someone lied every time you ate a meal, saying you were using your knife and fork incorrectly, I doubt you’d drop your utensils and start eating with your hands.

Sam Harris is one of the more prominent pro-Israel Democrats. He recently suggested not using the word Zionism, as it is attacked and used to distract from many key arguments.

“There are so many definitions, you don’t know what someone means by it,” one of my friends told me.

Online, someone who trains Jewish leaders in the “post-Zionist” world argued that Zionism meant the creation of a Jewish State. They argued that since this took place already, there is no need for the term, which is only used as a weapon.

This person has likely not opened up a Miriam-Webster dictionary, where Zionism is defined as “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in the historical region of Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.”

Ben Shapiro aptly said Zionism means to believe that Israel should not be destroyed.

The goal of the anti-Zionist movement is to exhaust, distract, and demonize. It is quite simple.

At high schools and colleges (and to adults in offices) Jews are asked: “Are you a Zionist? Are you a baby-killer?” I myself have been called a “Zio,” as if that was supposed to hurt my feelings.

Shortly before the 2024 election, I spoke with a college student on a Manhattan street who said that Zionism meant there could never be a Palestinian state. I explained how I personally had interviewed former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who both offered deals that would have resulted in a Palestinian state if accepted by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Were Barak and Olmert not Zionists?

Of course, the person had no answer.

However well-meaning, people who want to stop using the word Zionism are likely tired of debates where people stop the whole conversation and muddy the waters with false definitions of Zionism. It’s been made into a slur, especially among Gen Z.

When people dirty the water enough, you need to clean it. Saying you will avoid the word is only an answer if a stream has been so contaminated that one can’t swim in it anymore.

Anti-Zionists, who also are mainly antisemites, would not cease their efforts if Jews stopped using the word Zionism. They would triple them, as it would be a sign that their verbal terrorism has had the desired effect, and there are more words that need to be taken hostage.

Fighting for what’s right requires effort, not convenience. It requires effort, time, determination, and action, not circular debate.

It was a mistake by Jewish organizations to have speakers over the last 30 years take the podium and say, “Israel has the right to exist,” resulting in thunderous applause. I must have covered more than 300 of those events. There was no reason to open the door to suggest that it didn’t.

But I understand why these organizations did what they did. It was calming and reassuring in the face of a constant barrage of hostility to tell the Jews who celebrate a miraculous homeland that they too could have a seat at the table. We must keep that fight going.

The author is a writer based in New York.