Political Memes

The entire reason the word is problematic is because it is so overloaded. Even setting aside the white supremacist baggage for a moment, purely descriptive definitions depend on time, place and context to determine whether you mean that the Jewish people should have representation in Palestine, the creation of their own independent state, the continuation of their own state, or a justification for colonialist expansion in the Levant. The term is historically favored by white supremacists specifically because it is a dog whistle which has plausible deniability to mean anything from a historical retrospective to actual antisemitism.

For decades, thoughtful critics of Israel have intentionally avoided invoking the term to separate their analysis from hate groups. And this is not a difficult thing to do. It is quite easy to articulate specific problems with Israel's statecraft. There are many things to choose from, so when people choose the dog whistle instead, there's a good reason to see it as suspect. Israel also understands this. They prefer you choose the bumper sticker instead of sober analysis, because it is easier to discredit.

(Unfortunately?) no. Even putting aside that the term is a lot more broad than a lot of (well intentioned) critics of Israel think, its been long used as a dog whistle by anti-semites. The novel "The Turner Diaries" for example, which is sometimes referred to as the bible of American neo Nazism, uses the term "Zionist occupied government" (ZOG).

The word Zionist in "Zionist Occupation Government" is used to equate being Jewish with the ideology of Zionism, depicting Zionists as conspiring on behalf of Jews and Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_Occupation_Government_conspiracy_theory

And when Hamas leaders use the term Zionist, then they mean Jews more often then not either.