I am sure at some point there were Zionists who were focused on “their agenda”. This happens in any organized movement and it is not good.
But original idea came to Hertzl when he got disappointed with the path of assimilation seeing that even assimilated Jews were not accepted, so Zionism was a means to saving Jews as a separate entity instead.
There is nothing wrong with this idea at the time when things were getting worse for Jews in Europe, and it is something to be explained – how is a naive journalist from Vienna can see whether things are going better than so many learned people.