|
Indeed several other locations such as Uganda were considered and were leading candidates beforehand. It originated as a colonial project, not a "land-back" initiative. > Herzl approached Britain because, he said, it was "the first to recognize the need for colonial expansion." According to him, "the idea of Zionism, which is a colonial idea, should be easily and quickly understood in England.38 In 1902 Herzl approached Cecil Rhodes, who had recently colonized the territory of the Shona people as Rho- desia. "You are being invited to help make history," he said in a letter to Rhodes. "It doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen, but Jews. How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial. > Ronald Stort, The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storr (New York: G.P. Putnams, 1937), 364. Stort, the first Briitish military Governor of Jerusalem Sir Ronald Storr described Zionist ambitions for Palestine as the creation of "a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism." |