@arcana @scathach

Except Maimonides (12th century) was speaking about a Jewish Messiah (not Jesus) who would instigate a return to Israel. Since there is no such Messiah who fits that description and is recognised by Jews as such, Zionists of today aren't operating under that Maimonidean precept. Notwithstanding folks like Judas of Galilee, Theudas, Simon of Peraea, Athronges, Simon bar Kokhba, Moses of Crete, Al-Ra'i, David Alroy, Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, Moses Botarel of Cisneros, Asher Lammlein, Sabbatai Zevi, Jacob Joseph Frank, Eve Frank, Shukr Kuhayl I, Judah ben Shalom, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and various other lesser known megalomaniacal narcissist nutjobs who've claimed / been believed to be the Jewish Messiah.

The idea also appears albeit ambiguously in the BuyBull (Ezekiel 40-48, Daniel 9:24-27, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). The other complication is that the Pagan Emperor Julian already allowed Jews to return to Aelia Capitolina (aka: Palestine, aka: Israel) and attempted to rebuild the Third Temple, which Christians obstructed and then destroyed. Then there's the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and not withstanding the temple of Jupiter built at the behest of Hadrian before either of those.

The reality is that while some earlier people might have had a concept of returning to Israel per interpretation of vague BuyBull prophesies, there was no actual movement of people advocating that until the Protestants of the 16th century got the idea that they could use it to bring about the end times and convert the Jews to Christinanity. That's when it got legs as an actual political movement and began the long process of it's metastasis into the genocidal war mongering of today.