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Statement of Principles of Zionism

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES OF ZIONISM

AS ADOPTED BY THE AZM NATIONAL BOARD JUNE 4, 2018

The American Zionist Movement (AZM), comprising national Jewish Zionist organizations, links the diverse American Jewish community in support of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish People. The AZM and its constituent organizations represent American Zionists within the National Institutions of Israel, including the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The AZM and its constituent organizations fully support and endorse The Jerusalem Program of the WZO, the global statement of the beliefs of the Zionist movement.

The American Zionist Movement (AZM), through action and deed, supports these principles:
  • The sovereign state of Israel’s unconditional right to exist as the Jewish democratic homeland;
  • The right of the people of Israel to live in peace and security;
  • Pride in the common history, culture, destiny and religious heritage of the Jewish people;
  • Pride in Israel’s rich contributions to the world and its aspirational role to be an exemplary society for all of humanity; and
  • Israel’s centrality to Jewish identity and life.
Zionism Forward is the AZM’s campaign to:
  • Strengthen support for Israel, the Jewish people and Zionism.
  • Celebrate the ideology and cause of Zionism.
  • Help strengthen Israel’s position in the global family of nations.
  • Improve the dialogue on Zionism in America and participate in a new effort to guide the American Jewish people to speak in a unified and informed voice in support of Zionism’s core principles.
  • Provide the forum that fosters our diverse constituent Zionist organizations’ respectful coalescence around our commonality.
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The JERUSALEM PROGRAM is the official platform of the WORLD ZIONIST ORGANIZATION and the global Zionist movement, having been most recently amended and adopted in June 2004, as the successor statement to the “Basel Program” of 1897 adopted at the First Zionist Congress convened by Theodor Herzl. The Jerusalem Program states that:

Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, and views a Jewish, Zionist, democratic and secure State of Israel to be the expression of the common responsibility of the Jewish people for its continuity and future.

The Jerusalem Programs foundations of Zionism are:
  • The unity of the Jewish people, its bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael, and the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem, its capital, in the life of the nation;
  • Aliyah to Israel from all countries and the effective integration of all immigrants into Israeli society.
  • Strengthening Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state and shaping it as an exemplary society with a unique moral and spiritual character, marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people, rooted in the vision of the prophets, striving for peace and contributing to the betterment of the world.
  • Ensuring the future and the distinctiveness of the Jewish people by furthering Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist education, fostering spiritual and cultural values and teaching Hebrew as the national language;
  • Nurturing mutual Jewish responsibility, defending the rights of Jews as individuals and as a nation, representing the national Zionist interests of the Jewish people, and struggling against all manifestations of anti-Semitism;
  • Settling the country as an expression of practical Zionism.
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