OTL, the WZO turned down the proposal to create a Jewish state in British East Africa, as most delegates wanted a Jewish state in Palestine. In the interwar period, Britain limited Jewish immigration to Palestine. What if the Uganda Scheme had been accepted? Assuming an ATL nazi party had come to power in Germany in this time line, could an unrestricted Jewish immigration to Kenya have saved many Jews from being murdered?
The first thing that happens is that the Zionist movement is split between Zionist and Territorialists (who supports Uganda plan), with the later not gaining popularity, just as the colonies in Argentina weren't that popular. Jews would still prefer Israel or the US as destinations.
Later on, if WWII still happens as OTL, the British probably still restricts immigration, as the colony probably can't support a sudden large influx of immigrants, and the British would fear economic collapse and starvation.
I don't think it will save that many people, might be that even more die.
You will probably get a few hundred (low thousands at max) Jews in Kenya, much less then there were in Palestine in OTL.
zionism happens in uganda instead. There's a US-Sotuh Africa-Rhodesia-Israel-Portugal axis in the region. Blacks remain segregated in the US thanks to alot of the older great/silent/boomer generation moderate or liberal pro-israel hawks being small-c conservative on race because of not wanting to set precedent that could hurt israel.
zionism happens in uganda instead. There's a US-Sotuh Africa-Rhodesia-Israel-Portugal axis in the region. Blacks remain segregated in the US thanks to alot of the older great/silent/boomer generation moderate or liberal pro-israel hawks being small-c conservative on race because of not wanting to set precedent that could hurt israel.
What? This is nonsense.
A. Why would Zionism rise in Uganda? No jew would go there, it would be no more Israel than the Baron Hirsch colonies in Argentina, or countless other failed projects.
B. Why would US politicians support a Jewish Uganda? There is no connection to the holy land, no strategic location,no nothing. Why would they suddenly abonden their racial policies for Kenya?
That's apart of the fact that even in OTL the whites failed to govern Kenya, so there is no chance that a tiny Jewish community would manage it.
There was an old timeline chronicling a Jewish state that eventually spreads all over East Africa, supplemented by Black African converts and punching above its weight in WW2.
Britain seemed to be on-board with the plan, having proposed it in the first place. Their politicians were uneasy about an ongoing influx of poor Jewish families into England and would have liked an 'outlet', it would have been a moral victory against antisemitic violence, and everyone anticipated that Jewish settlement would shore up both maintenance and usage of the Uganda Railway. The only notable opponents were the present British settlers who weren't eager to share the pie with alien Russian Jews.
The territory proposed was the Guas Ngishu plateau: the air and temperature were dry and mild by tropical standards, but it was feared that the first attempted settlers would succumb by the thousands to the drastic change in climate. This isn't an AHC but a WI, so given that the first settlements do succeed, Jewish emigration will definitely accelerate. Once a community by and for Jews evolves from discussion to a way of life, more and more Jewish families will sell off their possessions and make the journey, following each other into Kenya like Newton's beads. This is all in the White Highlands of western Kenya, where the British government was altering land laws to push natives aside in favor of its own people, even offering land to WW1 veterans to raise the settler population to nearly 10,000.
The Jewish settlers develop a different worldview from the OTL Zionists. Without Rabbi Kook's religious justification for Zionism or (possibly) Jabotinsky's backing, they have to build 'Muscular Judaism' on their own. Fortunately for them, the scholar who coined that term even went to bat for Uganda IOTL.
I vaguely recall reading somewhere an uncertain quote from Hitler stating his opposition to a Jewish state anywhere, believing that it would act as a safehouse or headquarters for them, but the Reich worked with the Haavara Agreement IOTL all the same, and the popular antisemitic instinct would be thrilled to be rid of them sooner than later with less use of force, especially with Jewish cooperation and British resources. Yes, once the Palestine quotas are filled, and especially with another excuse for countries to deny entry to Jewish refugees, the transport ships will start bringing tens of thousands of Jews from Germany and Austria to Kenya. I can't find any precise numbers, but the Jewish population may very well become the majority subgroup among Europeans in Kenya.
Once Britain loses so much blood and treasure in WW2 and decolonization comes around, things could go in any direction:
- True to Herzl's original intentions of the plan as a temporary refuge from pogroms, the Jewish settlers could conclude that their work in Kenya is done. They calmly sell their land and cattle to the government/natives and leave for Palestine, the United states, or other White Dominions.
- Similar to IOTL, power is negotiated to the Black supermajority, and with the options to take Kenyan citizenship or go somewhere else, the Jewish population is shorn down by emigration much like the British settlers and Indian workers/merchants. The minority who stick around chafe under Kenyatta's land redistribution, but carry on as a wealthy and better-educated minority in one of the most peaceful countries in Africa.
- Flush with tens of thousands of White-coded settlers, the Mau Mau Rebellion could be suppressed more effectively, or get worse, and the transition to Black majority rule isn't so calm and orderly. If the NP still builds its apartheid state in South Africa, and with White-minority states holding on in the Portuguese colonies and Southern Rhodesia, the Kenyan settlers could feel ballsy enough to maintain their own grip on power. The NP regime could only carry on for so long with mixed support from the 20% White population, and you would need to pull the combined Jewish-British population up past 1 million to get anywhere near that, so independent minority rule imposed on the whole country is nearly impossible, and they should know it, but being concentrated in the western portion of the country and having several thousand combat veterans, my point is that the settlers could have their own plans for the land, international law be damned.
- Kenya IOTL is a success story: stable and well fed. It could have been much worse. Even between 200,000 Asians, 60,000 White British, and however-many-thousand Jews, the 5+ million Black Africans were a solid majority in Kenya, diverse among themselves. Without a smart tyrant like Jomo Kenyatta, relations between the Kikuyu plurality and other Black ethnic groups could fray, and the country could trip and fall down the path of the Congo or later Somalia: ethnic wars and a central government weaker than random foreign mercenaries. The settlers would be free to impose their own rule on the White Highlands. A siege mentality develops, a new flag goes up, and well-armed and -trained settler militias can seize more pastures from the surrounding natives, to the chagrin of the Diaspora. There should be plenty of far-right Boers and Rhodesians happy to come and teach them how to wage a race war while managing a farm or a herd of cattle.
Even as a pariah, they could survive on cooperation with Portugal, Rhodesia, South Africa, and covertly the United States (and their flag goes on the wall of some Ulster loyalist pub, for what it's worth). Sympathizers, Jewish and Gentile, form pressure groups to shore up the state's reputation on the far-right among Dixiecrats and Birchers, telling them about how the brave David-like cowherds with their ARs and FALs are building a sanctuary of Judeo-Christian values in the heart of Africa against the hordes of nomadic communist-backed [expletive]s. America's top neo-Nazi gets a round of applause for donating to Meir Kahane's "Free Play For Judea Committee".
Even in this overdetailed scenario, the Diaspora wouldn't necessarily support this breakaway Zionist statelet; just as Orthodox and Reform/secular Jews abroad oppose the State of Israel and/or its policies on religious or humanitarian grounds, the settler project would be a subject of debate that rhymes with the one IOTL: supporters who demand solidarity with the isolated Jewish state, opponents who claim that the settlers' actions are unconscionable, while terms like "self-hating Jew", "lebensraum", and "apartheid" get thrown around all the same.
Even between the Uganda Scheme, the White Paper quotas and the diversion of thousands to Kenya, there is still a mix of Old Yishuv resident Jews and early Zionist settlers who never lost focus of Palestine, like Jabotinsky. They may underperform in a first Arab-Israeli War ITTL and hang on to the coastal plain and parts of Galilee, bloodlessly achieve those gains through a negotiated settlement immediately after WW2, or pull off a Faisal-Weizmann agreement for autonomy in an Arab Palestine. There's no telling what issues would emerge in Israeli-Kenyan relations, but the significant presence of coreligionists in both countries would guarantee interest in each other's affairs.
The first thing that happens is that the Zionist movement is split between Zionist and Territorialists (who supports Uganda plan), with the later not gaining popularity, just as the colonies in Argentina weren't that popular. Jews would still prefer Israel or the US as destinations.
Later on, if WWII still happens as OTL, the British probably still restricts immigration, as the colony probably can't support a sudden large influx of immigrants, and the British would fear economic collapse and starvation.
I don't think it will save that many people, might be that even more die.
You will probably get a few hundred (low thousands at max) Jews in Kenya, much less then there were in Palestine in OTL.
IIRC the main reason why Britain restricted immigrasjon to Palestine was opposition from oli-rich Saudi-Arabia. This wouldn't have been an issue with settlement in Kenya. In OTL Jews lacked somewhere to go as most countries restricted immigration and Britain also restricted immigration to Palestine. The incentive to limit immigration to the designated area in Kenya would be much smaller.
IIRC the main reason why Britain restricted immigrasjon to Palestine was opposition from oli-rich Saudi-Arabia. This wouldn't have been an issue with settlement in Kenya. In OTL Jews lacked somewhere to go as most countries restricted immigration and Britain also restricted immigration to Palestine. The incentive to limit immigration to the designated area in Kenya would be much smaller.
The British got their oil from Iraq and Kuwait, the Americans were more interested with the Saudis at that time.
So oil had nothing to do with it, it was fear of two things:
1. Arab resistance and uprising.
2. Economic collapse if immigration would suppress the "economic capacity" of the land.
IIRC the main reason why Britain restricted immigrasjon to Palestine was opposition from oli-rich Saudi-Arabia. This wouldn't have been an issue with settlement in Kenya.
I wanted to create a TL about the creation of a Jewish Homeland in East Africa that nearly came into fruition. The assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia would unleash a series of anti-Semitic violence affecting the world's largest Jewish community. The result was a series of violent...
From what I recall, Kenya was considered as a halfway house to Palestine. But if this was supported then there would definitely be a split in the Zionist movement as there would now be many who supported a Jewish state in Kenya, Palestine, and Patagonia (which was the second choice due to its climate and not being formally annexed by Argentina and Chile yet IIRC).
I foresee a lot of the conflicts that plagued the Middle East because of Israel's existence occur within East Africa instead.
With North Atlantic nations repeatedly trying to create a lasting peace in the region, only for it to be undermined by racial relations spiraling out of control. Really Kenya is gonna implode if the Jewish settlers, British whites and Indians join forces in opposing the Kenyan government and splitting off with the area surrounding Uganda Railway as their territory.
One really nasty consequence of such a proposal would be antisemitism becoming much more prominent in Africa. I can't see this Jewish state in East Africa existing without some really nasty violence and ethnic cleansing. This in turn is going to lead to Africans having a much bigger hatred of Jews and this could reverberate to the African diaspora where they can also pick up on antisemitic ideas due to many of them opposing the Jewish state in East Africa.
OTL, the WZO turned down the proposal to create a Jewish state in British East Africa, as most delegates wanted a Jewish state in Palestine. In the interwar period, Britain limited Jewish immigration to Palestine. What if the Uganda Scheme had been accepted? Assuming an ATL nazi party had come to power in Germany in this time line, could an unrestricted Jewish immigration to Uganda have saved many Jews from being murdered?
Imo, yes. Also, it would have been better for the Jewish people as well as for Palestinians. For Jewish people, they actually get a land that wants to live and not a desert. And they are an industrious and resourceful people and will turn their country to a prosperous land. Since they won't be targetted for death by everyone else around them like now, they can spend less money and resources on military and more on social development and other important things.
Meanwhile, Palestinians can live in peace. And Africa is actually rather huge if you look at the map of actual country size. It can easily fit in every Jewish person in the world without anyone else feeling squeezed.
I once read an Israeli alternate history novel titled "Herzel amar" (the Hebrew version of Simon says) where the Uganda plan goes through.
The plot takes place in 2005.
Anyway, in it it's mentioned that Ethiopea expelled most of it's Jews who subsequently went to Zion (the name of this alt Israel) where they became this country's version of Mizrahi Jews
In this scenario the Nazi party is still formed and comes to power. As persecution in Germany gets worse and the possibilities to move to Palestine or other countries are limited, it might be a question of moving to Kenya or staying in Germany .
From what I recall, Kenya was considered as a halfway house to Palestine. But if this was supported then there would definitely be a split in the Zionist movement as there would now be many who supported a Jewish state in Kenya, Palestine, and Patagonia (which was the second choice due to its climate and not being formally annexed by Argentina and Chile yet IIRC).
I foresee a lot of the conflicts that plagued the Middle East because of Israel's existence occur within East Africa instead.
With North Atlantic nations repeatedly trying to create a lasting peace in the region, only for it to be undermined by racial relations spiraling out of control. Really Kenya is gonna implode if the Jewish settlers, British whites and Indians join forces in opposing the Kenyan government and splitting off with the area surrounding Uganda Railway as their territory.
One really nasty consequence of such a proposal would be antisemitism becoming much more prominent in Africa. I can't see this Jewish state in East Africa existing without some really nasty violence and ethnic cleansing. This in turn is going to lead to Africans having a much bigger hatred of Jews and this could reverberate to the African diaspora where they can also pick up on antisemitic ideas due to many of them opposing the Jewish state in East Africa.
The British got their oil from Iraq and Kuwait, the Americans were more interested with the Saudis at that time.
So oil had nothing to do with it, it was fear of two things:
1. Arab resistance and uprising.
2. Economic collapse if immigration would suppress the "economic capacity" of the land.
There was a really good TL from a while ago where Kenya ends up as a British dominion, and eventually a Jewish state a few years before Israel. Kenya ends up as an Ashkenazi Haredi dominated country, and Israel as a Mizrahi socialist state. There are some problems with this, but it’s interesting to start from.
Does anyone has a map of this proposed state?, from what I remember, it was not proposed as literally all of Kenya becoming an alt-Israel, but only a quite small region near to the border with Uganda, and I cannot even remember if the state was even proposed to be an independent sovereign state to begin with, wasn't it supposed to be a Jewish Autonomous Oblast-esque autonomous region of Kenya?
But of course, if people in here want to project all of the problems and wars of the post-WW2 Middle East onto East Africa instead, then what is preventing the more radical Zionists from invading and claiming all of Kenya for themselves?
Does anyone has a map of this proposed state?, from what I remember, it was not proposed as literally all of Kenya becoming an alt-Israel, but only a quite small region near to the border with Uganda, and I cannot even remember if the state was even proposed to be an independent sovereign state to begin with, wasn't it supposed to be a Jewish Autonomous Oblast-esque autonomous region of Kenya?
The World Zionist Organization conducted a short survey on the Uasin Gishu, very temperate by sub-Saharan African standards. Herzl proposed it as a temporary refuge, temporary tends to become permanent; once growing numbers of hundreds, then thousands become drawn to a place where Jews are encouraged to own land, many would decide that they could get used to it and put down roots, loathe to leave after some decades.
But of course, if people in here want to project all of the problems and wars of the post-WW2 Middle East onto East Africa instead, then what is preventing the more radical Zionists from invading and claiming all of Kenya for themselves?
Ehud Olmert said it out loud about Gaza IOTL: if you permanently occupy a land, the international community will expect you to be responsible for the residents and give them citizenship, with rights and votes. Fear of being sanctioned into acknowledging a Black and non-Jewish supermajority electorate would keep them from trying to expand any further past the White Highlands and Lake Victoria.
en.wikipedia.org
