A student of Daarul Uloom Newcastle wanted a brief explanation of who the Zionists are
Since the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 CE they settled in different parts of the world. During this period they often faced persecution at the hands of the rulers of the empires within which they resided and on many occasions were forced to relocate. However, not once during this time did they give a call to go and take the land of Palestine. This was because in the Talmud it stated that they were not to return to the Holy land until the Messiah came. From the 1700s we see those who were against the Jews voice their opinion that the Jews cannot survive with other people and should be made to live on their own. This antisemtic idea appealed to a small group of Jews living in the 1800s who were being persecuted in Russia and Europe. Since the term Jew had become an ethnic connotation rather than a religious one, most of these so-called Jews who felt the need for their own state were actually atheists. One of them, Theodore Hertzl, began actively campaigning for a Jewish homeland and convened the first zionist congress in 1897.
Zionism stemmed from the word Zion which is a hill in the land of palestine and has come to refer to the entire land. Zionism does not have a specific ideology. It began as a movement to establish a Jewish homeland and nation not necessarily in Palestine and then started to refer to the idea that the Jews have a right to live in Palestine even if it means kicking out those who lived there as the zionists did in 1948.