Emmanuel OduorMore than a century before Israel perpetrated one of the worst genocides of the modern era on Gaza, European colonial powers viewed tribal land in Africa as theirs to redistribute.
In 1903, Britain proposed carving out a vast territory in what is now western Kenya as an autonomous Jewish homeland exceeding the size of the area allocated in 1947 under the United Nations' partition plan to create Israel.
The project, mislabelled the "Uganda plan" due to the proposed location being along the Kenya-Uganda rail route, nearly rewrote the history of two continents.
Joseph Chamberlain, Britain's then secretary of state for the colonies, envisioned a sanctuary for European Jews fleeing antisemitism on land seized from the Nandi people deep inside East Africa's bountiful Uasin Gishu plateau.
Fresh from a railway tour of the region in the early 1900s, Chamberlain presented the offer to the Austro-Hungarian journalist and lawyer Theodor Herzl, acknowledged as the pioneer of modern political Zionism.
The British bureaucrat hyped the highland territory as having "excellent climate suitable for white people", also noting its resemblance to parts of England.
Sare Şanlı, an expert on Jewish settlement in Africa, debunks the idea that the proposal was ever rooted in humanitarianism.
"The 1903 plan was of a 'British-protected sanctuary' and not the 'Promised Land'. This proposal must be seen as a strategic British effort to redirect Jewish migration away from Europe. Crucially, it was not the Zionists' first choice," she tells TRT Afrika.
Yet for the local communities of Uasin Gishu who were to be dispossessed of their ancestral land, Herzl didn't buy into Chamberlain's deviously marketed plan. His focus remained fixed on Palestine.
What might have been
Kenyan historian Joseph Boit, a native of the region, reckons the geopolitics of Africa and the Middle East would have been vastly different had Chamberlain succeeded in his plan to establish a Jewish state within Africa.
"Where would we, the Nandi people, be now? What about Jews becoming the new colonial power?" Boit wonders.
For his part, Herzl had appealed to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1896, reportedly offering £20 million for a charter to colonise Palestine. Despite the Ottoman Empire's opportunity to get out of mounting debt, the Sultan refused outright.
"Herzl next turned to the British and suggested Cyprus or maybe Sinai in Egypt. Again, the answer was no. The Uganda plan came after that," explains Şanlı.
The East African proposal gained momentum only after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom in Moldova, where dozens of Jews were killed. Yet even this tragedy couldn't unite the Zionist movement behind Britain's offer.
Proposed arrangement
Natives of Uasin Gishu's fertile highlands, considered Kenya's bread basket and home to President William Ruto, didn't get a whiff of the plan that was to be foisted on them after being debated in distant capitals.
Under the British plan, the proposed Jewish homeland was to operate autonomously under a council led by an elected representative. This council would manage infrastructure, education and a local police force, all under British colonial oversight.
British settlers already in East Africa erupted in protest. Local newspapers ran critical articles warning of "Jewganda". A meeting of settler leaders in Nairobi warned of violence if the colonial authorities went ahead with the plan.
Herzl spent months negotiating before presenting "an autonomous Jewish settlement in East Africa under the sovereign supervision of Great Britain" to the Zionist congress in August 1903. He couldn't have foreseen that the proposal would immediately fracture the movement.
"Zionist congress members refused the Uganda plan, preferring Palestine as their homeland," says Dr Serhat Orakçı of the International Relations Coordination Office at Istanbul's Haliç University.
Although some within the Zionist think tank saw East Africa as a feasible temporary refuge, those at the heart of the movement rejected it.
"How could they accept a random piece of land in Africa when their ancient dream was Zion? By 1905, the plan was dead," Şanlı tells TRT Afrika.
Persistent ambitions
The Uganda plan preceded the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. But even this pledge didn't end Britain's quest for African territory to create Jewish settlements.
"There was talk of Angola, but Portugal, the colonial power there, rejected it. A Madagascar plan was discussed in the 1930s, but deemed unrealistic. In 1944, Ethiopia appeared on the radar, but Emperor Haile Selassie refused the proposal even though Ethiopia had its own Jewish community, the Beta Israel," explains Şanlı.
"So, in each case, the plan collapsed for different reasons. Sometimes, the Zionists rejected it. On other occasions, the colonial powers blocked it. In Ethiopia's case, the independent state said no."
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made no secret of his resolve to carry out an ethnic cleansing in Gaza under the garb of retaliating against the Palestinian outfit.
Various African nations, including Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda, are being discussed as possible destinations for displaced Palestinians, although the governments of these countries deny anything official about the proposals.
Far-right ministers in Netanyahu's government have reinforced such talk, demanding that Palestinians be sent into exile to enable the expansion of Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Echoes of history
The pattern reveals an enduring colonial mindset of treating Africa as vacant land for unwanted populations, experts say.
"Over 100 years ago, Africa was considered a place where Jews could settle. Now, we hear proposals to send Palestinians there. It's clear that the same logic persists, of history repeating itself. For Europe and now Israel, Africa is often the place where they send people they don't want," says Şanlı.
"These plans tell us less about Africans and more about Europe and Israel."
South African academic Jo Bluen, among 800 scholars who signed a November 2023 letter declaring Israel's actions genocidal and served on the legal team for the Global Sumud Flotilla that attempted to break the Gaza blockade, argues for African countries to take stronger action against Israel.
She suggests cutting diplomatic ties, closing embassies and ending trade.
"Shutting down an embassy is the bare minimum. We should not be having genocide perpetrators among us," declares Jo. "Why would these people even have embassies in African states?"
