Joe Biden
46th US President; a non-Jewish self-described Zionist
Across five decades Biden repeatedly and publicly called himself a Zionist, using the formulation that one “need not be a Jew to be a Zionist” and framing it as support for Israel’s security and existence.
What happened
As a senator, Biden told Jewish-American media he was “a Zionist”; as president, on landing at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2022 he reprised the line while PM Yair Lapid publicly recalled Biden “defining yourself as a Zionist.”
You need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. (Ben-Gurion Airport, 13 July 2022) — earlier, on Shalom TV (2007): “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
Under each definition
Explicit and repeated: “I am a Zionist… you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
He consistently affirmed Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
He supports and materially backs the Jewish-state project (indeed as a state patron).
A Catholic whose Zionism is political; the Jewish religious-return frame does not apply.
The case that they're a Zionist
Explicit and repeated self-identification, plus consistent affirmation of Israel’s right to exist and material US backing of the state.
The case against / their own view
The religious lens does not apply — he is a Catholic whose Zionism is political, not a Jewish religious/return conception; critics on the left argued the self-label signaled uncritical alignment during the 2023–24 Gaza war.
In their words
You once defined yourself as a Zionist. You said that you don’t have to be a Jew in order to be a Zionist, and you were right.
The verdicts above are how each definition would most likely classify this person — illustrative guidance, not official rulings. The lenses diverge most on the difference between a self-label and a substantive commitment, and between “Zionism” meaning a Jewish homeland versus a Jewish state. See the Definition tab for each definition’s full text. Inclusion is documentation, not a finding.