A movement advocating the return of Jews to Palestine founded in 1897 under the leadership of Theodore Herzl. Originally a secular movement, Zionism has its foundation in the millenarian belief that the Jews, the chosen people of God, will be reunited from diaspora (dispersion or exile) in their rightful homeland. After the Russian pogroms of 1881, Leo Pinsker wrote a pamphlet, Auto-Emanzipation, appealing for the establishment of a Jewish colony in Palestine. Zionism assumed a political character, notably through Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896). The issue of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the grant of a mandate for Palestine to Britain gave impetus to the movement. During the mandate period (1920–48) under Chaim Weizmann the World Zionist Organization played a major part in the development of the Jewish community in Palestine by facilitating immigration, by investment (especially in land), and through the Jewish Agency. The movement was further strengthened by the persecution and annihilation of the Jewish people in World War II (the Holocaust). Zionist activities in the USA were influential in winning the support of Congress and the Presidency (1946–48) for the creation of the state of Israel.

Zionism remains an important issue in Israeli domestic politics and in the politics of the Middle East, since the question of the existence of the state of Israel and its claim to all the biblical territory of Israel has not been satisfactorily reconciled with the rights of the Palestinians. The continuing right of all Jews worldwide, whatever their nationality, to emigrate to Israel and to take Israeli citizenship, is a fundamental principle of Zionism, and the World Zionist Congress, an independent body, exists to support Jewish emigration to Israel.