Haavara FAQs: Was the Uganda Scheme the Canary in the Coal Mine? A Re-examination

Herzl Died Thinking Israel Would Have Been in Uganda, not in "empty" Palestine

A Brief Introduction

Faced with the renewed persecution of the Russian Jewish community by the Tsar in the early 1900s, Zionist leaders, including Theodor Herzl, recognized the imminent danger. They proposed implementing Herzl's detailed plan (developed a decade earlier in Der Judenstaat) by focusing Zionist colonization efforts on Uganda, rather than Palestine, on a "temporary" basis. Herzl viewed the pogroms of the 1880s as lost opportunities to establish the "Jewish state" and was determined not to squander the next refugee crisis.

Herzl successfully lobbied the Zionist Congress, which approved his proposal (295 votes to 175) in Basel, Switzerland, on August 26, 1903. Remarkably, Herzl even secured British approval for the colonization of Uganda, preceding the infamous Balfour Declaration by 14 years. At the time, Zionists were sincerely interested in creating the "Jewish state" anywhere as a means to save Europe's Jews; the location was simply a tool to achieve a noble goal. However, as Zionist and Israeli sources will soon prove, the founding fathers of the "Jewish state" ultimately did the exact opposite.

Critical Analysis

Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

It should be emphasized:

A) There was nothing temporary once millions of Jews were moved to the middle of Africa, and Zionists of all shades (especially the founding fathers of the "Jewish state") knew it.

B) The Uganda scheme deeply enraged and emotionally scared the founding members of the "Jewish state" (David Ben-Gurion, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Chaim Weizmann, Moshe Sharett, etc.), who lobbied forcibly to torpedo this proposal (and other viable schemes much later) that could have easily saved millions of Jews. It should be NOTED that the schism with the Territorialist (Jewish Territorialist Organization--ITO) was for real, which continued until Nakba. Nothing enraged and terrified the founders of the "Jewish states" like Territorialists. Based on our extensive research of the Haavara Agreement, this point cannot be overemphasized. The hate between both groups was for real, especially during the calamity, and often Zionists referred to Territorialists as traitors! If this subject interests you, we urge you to read how Zionist leaders responded to the Bergson Group during WWII. A hint: Zionist leaders weaponized antisemitism against the Jews who favored havens other than Palestine.

David Ben-Gurion envisioned that the Nazis' Nuremberg Race Laws would become the LEVER that would end up creating the "Jewish state," but how? Click the image for the details

C) The Uganda Scheme was quickly reversed by the 7th Zionist Congress on July 27th, 1905, soon after Herzl's death in July 1904.

In layman's terms, at the cost of risking millions of lives, the Israeli founding fathers insisted that Palestine must be the ONLY destination when viable solutions were available at hand! This evil strategy persisted before and during WWII, and it even continued in the DP camps after the calamity ended. We were shocked to find that David Ben-Gurion eloquently articulated this sinister strategy a month after the Kristallnacht pogrom in late 1938. Zionists of all shades lobbied against any rescue scheme unless the destination was Palestine. Thus, in practice, Zionist leaders gave Europe's Jews two options: Palestine or Auschwitz, and lobbied like hell against any other alternatives.

Which hate speech was worse: Hitler's hate speech at the Reichstag on Jan 30th, 1939, or Ben-Gurion's speech (just two months before Hitler's speech) when he incited the murder of German Jews a month after the Kristallnacht pogrom?

In our humble opinion, the Uganda scheme was the canary in the coal mine and set the stage for Zionists' policies for decades to come. For some unknown reasons, Zionist Jews "learned" from the Uganda scheme how to fight like hell for any solution to Europe’s Jewish refugee crisis (which they had fomented) that doesn’t make Palestine their only destination.

Just in case you think what was written was a Palestinian anti-Zionist rant, please think twice. In Jewish communities around the world, this is an open secret. Actually, American Jews investigated Zionists' policies during the 1930s and 40s in the early 1980s, and they were quickly nixed.

David Ben-Gurion: We're the aggressors; Arabs defend themselves. (Righteous Victims, p. 652)

Why were the founders of the "Jewish state" fixated on Palestine when other rescue schemes were available?

Until now, it has been a mystery to us:

Why did the founding fathers of Israel fixate only on Palestine? Meaning, if Zionist leaders really cared about "saving Jews' lives," why didn't they contemplate Uganda, Cyprus, Argentina, or Libya?

Hitler's message to the British and American people: If Jews are such noble citizens and you care about them, how come you're not letting them in?

What was so special about Palestine that made the Zionists focus much of their colonization efforts on it? Besides Palestine's strategic situation, Palestine has little to offer in terms of natural resources, and its trading routes would've been useless to the "Jewish state" as it has been demonstrated since Nakba. Most importantly, Palestine was already populated with a hostile native population who made it clear to Herzl & Co. that they would resist his colonization efforts. Ironically, that is exactly what forced Herzl to contemplate colonizing other places, which was 14 years before the infamous Balfour Declaration.

JTA Sept. 3rd, 1933 Quoting Nahum Sokolow: "Hitlerism enables us to convert all Jews to Zionism."

Why did the founders of the "Jewish state" feel Europe's Jews needed to suffer? Why was that a prerequisite? If that were the case, how could Jewish pain and suffering be monetized politically and economically? Could the apocalyptic idea of Catastrophic Zionism was way more widely spread than previously thought? Hannah Arendt (one of the towering intellectual Jewish figures in the 20th century) seemed to think that Zionism is nothing but the secular version of the Shabtai Tzvi's Sabbatean catastrophic movement.

Is it possible that instigating a Jewish refugee crisis was the actual lever that Ben-Gurion & Co. often spoke of?

Kastner Saved Lives Too: How does justifying Haavara after the fact not resemble Rudolf Kastner's defense of what happened on his famous train, but at a much larger scale? Kastner trains passengers on their way to Switzerland, 1944

Chaim Weizmann attempted to answer this conundrum in 1939 (just before WWII was underway), and he reasoned it was due to psychological attachment to Palestine (actually, he used the word Palestine)! Mr. Weizmann could be correct, but his argument isn't convincing for simple reasons! First, the mass majority of Europe's Jews were secular atheists, and being Jewish was a cultural thing; no more. Second, even at the height of Nazi persecution before WWII, the mass majority of Europe’s Jews still chose to immigrate to Great Britain and the Americas, but not to British Mandated Palestine. It is worth pointing out that this phenomenon persisted even after Nakba, and many of Europe's Jews voted with their feet and immigrated to the Americas. On this note, also note how the American Jewish community (which is a Zionist community by a big margin) has already visited Israel at least once, but under 1% made it home, and many of those are retirees with a home in Tel Aviv and another in NYC, Miami, or LA.

On the other hand, there is a good chance that Weizmann and other founding fathers of the "Jewish state" knew something we don't know about Jewish politics. During a discovery session with Google's AI Gemini, it speculated that the Jews have been suffering from a messianic gravitational pull towards Palestine, which has been repeated many times in the past five centuries since Shabbatai Tzvi's catastrophe. Nowadays, this phenomenon still exists in some Christian communities, but to a lesser degree, although it was as intense during the Crusades between 11th and 14th centuries. In May 1946, Hannah Arendt (the renowned German Jewish political philosopher) alluded to the facts that Zionism is nothing but the secular version of Tzvi's messianic movement.

The Zionist leadership knew that this messianic gravitational pull towards Palestine could be turned into a political movement, but it was dormant among secular Jewry. That being said, this gravitational pull became so intense after the Israeli victory during the 6-Day War of 1967, especially in the American Jewish community, which is mostly secular! Google's Gemini might be onto something.

When the Bergson Group organized pageants in major US cities during the Holocaust, why did Zionist leaders lobby to shut them down?

Honestly, we don't know. Yes, we agree that the founders of the "Jewish state" were sinister enough to purposely inflict pain and suffering on Europe's Jews to achieve their political goals. As you have seen earlier, we've shared plenty of evidence of that (especially during the 1930s and 40s), which proves such an evil policy. That said, in the case of the Uganda scheme, we are humble enough to admit that we don't know. All we know is that this mystery could be solved by examining primary sources, and we hope a courageous historian will do so soon.

If you have 90 seconds to spare, we urge you to watch this short clip that explains the Uganda scheme in easy language. We think it is worthwhile watching:

We were shocked to discover that some Ugandan natives had even converted to Judaism, but their Israeli citizenship applications were rejected. It seems they were not Jewish enough:

Finally, please keep in mind that A) 44 of the 45 men who signed Israel's declaration of independence were secular, national socialists, and above all, they were atheists! B) Almost all Jewish religious establishments were anti-Zionists who petitioned the UN against the creation of the "Jewish state" in late 1947! Therefore, Zionist policies weren't formulated based on religious dogma (although no doubt that was helpful to some).

At length, Beit-Zvi (in the Post Uganda: Zionism On Trial) attempted to tackle this mystery, but sadly it was not to our satisfaction. Let's know what you think in the comments section.

Here it is from Martin Gilbert's The Mother of all Hasbarab books (Israel: A History) on page 22

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