The legitimacy of the Zionist project--establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine--has been questioned since its inception. In recent years, the voices challenging the legitimacy of the State of Israel have become even louder. Chaim Gans examines these doubts and presents an in-depth, evenhanded philosophical analysis of the justice of Zionism.Today, alongside a violent Middle East where many refuse to accept Israel's existence, there are two academically respectable arguments for the injustice of Zionism. One claim is that the very return of the Jews to Palestine was unjust. The second argument is that Zionism is an exclusivist ethnocultural nationalism out of step with current visions of multicultural nationhood. While many therefore claim that Zionism is in principle an unjust political philosophy, Gans seeks out a more nuanced ground to explain why Zionism, despite its manifest flaws, could in principle be just. Its flaws stem from the current situation, where exigencies have distorted its implementation, and from historical forces that have ended up favoring an extreme form of Jewish hegemony. For Gans, the justice of Zionism and of Israel are not black-and-white propositions. Rather, they are projects in need of repair, which can be achieved by reconceptualizing the Jews' relationship with the Palestinian population and by adhering to a significantly more limited version of Jewish hegemony.Ultimately, A Just Zionism offers a concrete, historically and geographically rooted investigation of the limits of contemporary nationalism in one of the world's most fraught cases.

IntroductionChapter 1: Zionism as an Ethnocultural Nationalism1. Zionism, Ethnoculturalism, and Civic Nationalism2. "Bad" Nationalism and "Good" Nationalisms3. Cosmopolitan and Neutralist Objections to NationalismChapter 2: The Jews' Return to the Historical Homeland1. Interpretations of Historical Rights2. Historical Rights and Selecting the Site for Self-Determination3. The Persecution of the Jews4. Responding to Arab Opposition to ZionismChapter 3: A Jewish State: Self-Determination and Hegemony1. Jewish Hegemony and the Right to National Self-Determination2. The Prevalence of Nation-States, the Persecution of the Jews, and the Israeli-Palestinian ConflictChapter 4: Dividing Up the Historical Homeland1. Demography and the Palestinian Right of Return2. The Issue of Territorial Division and the 1967 BordersChapter 5: Jewish Hegemony in Immigration and Other Domains1. Nationality-Based Immigration and Racism2. Self-Determination and the Nationality-Based Priorities in Immigration3. Immigration to Israel: All Jews and Only Jews4. Principles for Nationality-Based Priorities in Immigration5. Other Means for Achieving Demographic Objectives6. Hegemony in Areas Other Than DemographyConclusion