Halevi, also, there still is merit in discussing why zionism is wrong – because it has left its mark on even very frum people. Many frum jews identify with Israel on some level, and not just in the sense of defending the millions of jews who live there – that’s perfectly fine. But we’d feel the same if those jews lived in france or Italy; it’s nothing special to a Torah jew, the zionist narrative of being a “free people in our land” or having a “jewish” state which is anything but, situated on hallowed soil, creating laws that contravene halacha and speaking a bastardized corruption of the joly language…
That should bother a jew. He shouldn’t be able to identify positively with that or the tamei culture of the state; yet many of us feel a kinship over Israel. It represents us, somehow, even though it’s not torah observant.
So how can something not torah observant be Jewish, if jews are a nation – as rav saadya says – only because of the Torah? The answer is that zionism got in our heads and told us that there’s more to being a jew and the jewish nation than the Torah. There’s “something else” that makes one Jewish r”l.
That’s ths avodah zara of nationalism, and it has infiltrated our world. And talking about zionism helps to dispel this notion.
Read the letters rav elya ber vachtfogel wrote to the author of “the empty wagon” – most of what I wrote is straight from there.