What could have been the Jewish Homeland
Dawit Giorgis
(These days the establishment of the state of Israel is a headline story all over the media. Here is an interesting piece of history regarding the conspiracy of Britain to make Uganda the Homeland of the Jews. Taken from my book: What A Life.)
In the year 2001 I worked in Kampala, Uganda for the United Nations Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders (UNAFRI). I was expected to conduct research on firearms trafficking in Africa. They needed a lawyer with a military background and an ability to conduct research. I fulfilled those requirements.
Uganda is full of natural beauty. It is the source of the Nile. It is evergreen. I have climbed its mountains in search of the mountain gorillas. But the capital, Kampala, is another story. The traffic there is vicious and every year it gets worse. I had been to Kampala several times and I had no qualms about using the boda boda (motorbike taxi) instead of driving or using a taxi. It is the most dangerous way to get around in the city and yet the best and only effective way of getting where you want to go without unreasonable delay.
The Jewish Homeland?
There is one aspect to Uganda’s colonial history that I cannot resist telling before I return to my UN assignment there. It’s something that is not often mentioned, to my knowledge, but could have changed the course of modern history. In 1903
* Tibs is a spicy grilled dish of beef or other kinds of meat. 245
Theodor Herzl, the man behind the Zionist movement to create a Jewish homeland, went to the British colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain to propose a spot for a Jewish settlement in East Africa, and Chamberlain agreed.
At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basel on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. By a vote of 295-178 it was decided to send an expedition (“investigatory commission”) to examine the territory proposed. Three days later the British government released an
official document allocating a “Jewish territory“ in East Africa “on conditions which will enable members to observe their national customs.”
While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. … The Uganda program was finally rejected by the Zionist movement at the seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, … 228
The land that was allocated ended up in what is today Kenya, but what would East Africa, or indeed the world, have looked like with the state of Israel in the heart of the continent?
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