Uganda Scheme

The British Uganda Program was a plan in the early 20th century, which provided, to make a part of British East Africa to the new home of the Jews.

The offer was first expressed in 1903 by Theodor Herzl British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. He offered the Zionists an area of ​​5,000 square miles ( 12,950 km ²; comparison: about the size of Schleswig -Holstein ) in the Mau Plateau (now in Kenya ) to. The proposal was a reaction to the pogroms against the Jews in Russia. The land was intended as a refuge for persecuted Jews.

The offer was submitted on the sixth Zionist Congress in 1903 in Basel. It solved among the participants of a fierce debate. The African country has been referred to as " precursor to the Holy Land ", but many Zionists feared that the solution would make their way to the Jewish state in Palestine, when one would have once engaged in Uganda. Before the vote, the Russian delegation went into opposition, and the offer was rejected by 295 to 177 votes.

The next year, a three-member Commission for inspection has been sent to the Kenyan Mau Plateau. The inspectors found the country too dangerous because there were lions and other predators in the area. In addition, the area was inhabited by nomadic Maasai.

After the inspection report to the Congress had been filed, he decided to decline the British offer 1905 politely. Some Jews saw this as an error, and the Jewish Territorialist Organization split with the aim of establishing a Jewish state outside of Palestine, from. Few Jews moved actually to Kenya, but settled in the cities.

The offer was raised again during the Second World War by Winston Churchill, however, was at that time already Palestine as a future Jewish state established.