The use of the compounded "Zio" as a pejorative is first recorded by the 1990 edition of the American Jewish Yearbook as in the term "Zionazi", spraypainted as graffiti on the campus of SUNY-Binghamton.
[2] The website WikiZio, run by former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) David Duke uses "Zio" as a noun or as a hyphenated or unhyphenated adjective.
[4] Ben Samuels, writing for Haaretz, has claimed that the term was popularized first by David Duke and then later by leftists and members of the British Labour Party.
[7][8][9] In April of the same year, Terry Couchman, an election candidate of the British Labour Party, was suspended over his use of "ZioNazi" in a post criticising Israel.
[18][19] This decision was welcomed by the American Jewish Committee.,[20] while 73 organizations sent a letter to the Meta, alleging that such a policy "will also encourage the incorrect and harmful conflation of criticism of the acts of the state of Israel with antisemitism.