The word Zionism (really Zionismus from the German) didn't exist until 1886. So there weren't any Zionists prior to that. Palestine was a region in the Ottoman Empire and therefore not a separate country. The Ottoman Empire allowed Jews to settle in that area, but rejected calls for it to become an independent country. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed due to its defeat in WWI the League of Nations put Britain in charge of the area, where it was known as the British Mandate. During that time tens of thousands of Jewish colonists settled there. It became an independent nation in 1948, so anyone arriving after that time obviously isn't a colonist. The Left has a habit of throwing around terms like colonist without concern for accuracy, but the fact that there were Jews living there 2000 years ago has nothing to do with the situation today.
