You should change the name of your website because calling yourselves "against Zionism" alienates a lot of people.
Dear Rabbi,
I think you should promote the idea that Jews in
Israel should not vote for anyone other than one whom they consider to be
the Mashiach or as I would say it, a "potential" Mashiach. And if one does
not see any Messianic candidate, then suggest that Jews just don't vote at
all.
That is why I think you would be better to rename your site, "Torah true
Jews against false Jewish Governance" or something similar to that. Because
that is really what you are against, i.e. a Jewish government (other than a
malchut beis David). The concept of "Zionism" in our days means more than
one thing to many people. To many people it simply means the desire to
settle the land of Israel. And at the same time to such people it does not
have to mean that one supports any aspect of a Jewish government. Nor does
it have to refer to the early Israeli leaders who considered themselves part
and parcel of the Zionist movement. I realize that in the early days of the
Zionist movement, prior to the existance of a Jewish government, the
concept of promoting Zionism clearly meant "the push for a state of Israel
with a government of Jews." Today, however, there is no concept of a "push
for a Jewish government in progress" because it is already there
(unfortunately). Thus, the word "Zionism" today to many does not have the
connotation of "a push to create a new Jewish government in Palestine."
Rather, it simply means the desire to settle and live in the land,
something you have said over and again that you are not opposed to. I'm
telling you that you would be a lot better off calling the website "Torah
True Jews against False Jewish Governance" or the like than "against
Zionism." In fact, I would send you a donation if you called it by that
name since I am also opposed to a false Jewish government such as the
Israeli Knesset, or anything other than a malchut beis David.
One last thing I wanted to mention to you is that yesterday I ran into the
local Chabad Rav. I happened to ask him what Chabad's views are concerning
the oaths in Kesubos. He didn't have time to go into it, but he said there
was going to be a shiur on that subject coming up. I mentioned some of my
thoughts on it and happened to mention your websites' name to him in
passing. His immediate reaction when he heard the name "Torah true Jews
against Zionism" was "that's terrible." I was not trying to conjecture
anything negative to him, so it was solely his own initial response. I'm
mentioning this to you because you can see that no matter what the halachic
details of Chabad may be concering the oaths (i.e. they may even agree with
the thrust of your viewpoint), the concept of being "against Zionism"
immediately illicits negativism and anti-semitism in many Jewish people's
minds to the point where they don't even want to hear the details of your
arguments. However, I think that rephrasing the title to "against false
Jewish governance" or "illegal Jewish governance" would probably not illicit
such knee-jerk negativity. I know it wouldn't by me. For the record, I
replied to him that there were in fact many leading Rabbi's who are quoted
on your website. Again, we were both a in a hurry so we did not have much
time to talk.
To say that we're only against false Jewish governance would imply that should the right candidate for prime minister or king or dictator or whatever you want to call it would come along, we would vote for him and support the continuation of the state under him, and not only that but even in an even more discriminatory way towards gentiles as you have detailed. This is false, and besides, it would not accomplish anything to take away the hatred of the Arabs and other pro-Arab gentiles toward the Jews today. The most it would do is bring some Jews away from supporting the Israeli government as it is now.
Therefore I think that when talking to a gentile about the messiah, we have to make it clear that the messiah will be clearly identified as such by all people before he begins gathering in the Jews and building the Temple. This won't scare them because according to their belief such a thing will never happen. But if we talk about the messiah as something that could happen entirely b'derech hateva (even if this shitah were correct according to Torah), they will feel threatened by it and will continue to lump all of us together with the Zionists.
You say that the name of our organization provokes immediate negative reactions in some Jews. This is true only because, as you yourself say, everyone has a different definition of Zionism. To add to you words, a lot of yeshivish and chareidi Jews misunderstand the word Zionism to mean secularism, and they therefore feel it is out of place to fight against them; if we want them to be more observant we should go out and convince them nicely like the kiruv organizations do. Of course, this is missing the point entirely because we are not talking about non-observance; we are talking about people who keep the Torah and misinterpret it in a grave way. It might be better to call ourselves "Jews against a Jewish state during exile," except that the name is too long and unwieldy. The word Zionism, in its classic sense, does mean this so I think it's a good summarizing term. People just have to read a little bit of our literature to know what we stand for.
To return again to the gentile world, among gentiles the word Zionism is the perfect word, because they don't have these yeshivish definitions. They see Zionism as the push or support for a Jewish government in Palestine, and that is exactly what we oppose.
Also, you talked to a Chabad rabbi, but I think in Lakewood-type yeshivish circles the word Zionism definitely is a negative term, only they misunderstand it as secularism or modernism as I said above. So if they see a book or website called "against Zionism" they will have a positive initial reaction of it, drawing them to open up and see what exactly we mean by Zionism.