Jewish Belize?

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is considered the stepping stone to the creation of a Jewish state. The British government supported Zionist plans for a National home for the Jewish people within Palestine‎ with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there. It would be hard to create a place for one population to live, and at the same time keep the people already there free. WI the British decided it was impossible to do just that, and this if a Jewish homeland was to be made it would have to be somewhere else?

Belize is about the same size as Isreal, and it is with in British land at the time. Also the number of people in the region is not near that of modern day isreal. Would the Jews go for such a deal? Would a nation of Jewish people do well in Latin America?
 
Guatemala has claims on Belize, and to my knowledge, the Belize idea, while interesting, I don't think has ever been proposed.
 
Guatemala has claims on Belize, and to my knowledge, the Belize idea, while interesting, I don't think has ever been proposed.

Well in that 1919: Paris Peace Conference book it was made by Wilson, but more as a joke. "They are the same size you see."
 
I'm not well-versed in this particular aspect of history. Would the Jews at large have gone for a Jewish state that didn't include Jerusalem?
 
I'm not well-versed in this particular aspect of history. Would the Jews at large have gone for a Jewish state that didn't include Jerusalem?

See I am unfamilar with that as well. On the one hand is the offer of a homeland enough to encourage mass migration? Or does it have to include the holy land?
 
Well, I cannot imagine that Belize would be appealing to them. Interestingly, some might support a homeland that wasn't in the Cisjordan rather than one that was. The Zionists themselves varied in their religiosity, and even then, some would not have wanted a homeland anywhere else. Others may have been more pragmatic, and might have gone for a homeland elsewhere. The issue I see here is how to make Belize appealing to them.
 
Well, I cannot imagine that Belize would be appealing to them. Interestingly, some might support a homeland that wasn't in the Cisjordan rather than one that was. The Zionists themselves varied in their religiosity, and even then, some would not have wanted a homeland anywhere else. Others may have been more pragmatic, and might have gone for a homeland elsewhere. The issue I see here is how to make Belize appealing to them.

You don't think "Come to Belize, billions of malarial mosquitoes can't be wrong!" would do the trick? ;)
 
Well, I cannot imagine that Belize would be appealing to them. Interestingly, some might support a homeland that wasn't in the Cisjordan rather than one that was. The Zionists themselves varied in their religiosity, and even then, some would not have wanted a homeland anywhere else. Others may have been more pragmatic, and might have gone for a homeland elsewhere. The issue I see here is how to make Belize appealing to them.

Didn't some Zionists reject Palestine on the grounds that there were already a lot of Arab living there?... ;)
 
I had tried working on a similar idea a year ago, but it sort of floundered. There are two maps I did also.
This might be a good time to post it and try to work on it again.



Excerpts of Articles about the history of the State of Chadash Israel, found on Kiwipedia.com ®2006 (a subsidiary of New Zealand-Pacific Telecom)

………..
In 1903 British cabinet ministers suggested the British Belize Program, land for a Jewish state in British Honduras. Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the 6th Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Notwithstanding its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal still proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a majority voted to establish a committee for the investigation of the possibility, and it was not dismissed until the 7th Zionist Congress in 1905.
In response to this, the Jewish Territorialist Organization led by Israel Zangwill split off from the main Zionist movement. The territorialists attempted to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible. Attempts were made at creating the Jewish state in both Canada and Australia, as well as in Mesopotamia.
In 1914, approximately 3000 settlers, mostly from the United Kingdom and Russia, setup the small town of Tel Aviv in northern British Honduras near the Mexican border town of Chetumal.
While the settlers flourished in their new environment, the organization could not induce many more to settle in the region, and the organization went into decline after 1917 and was dissolved in 1925.
……….

……….
The Zionist leaders always saw Britain as a key ally in their struggle for a Jewish homeland. Not only was Britain the world's greatest imperial power; it was also a country where Jews lived in peace and security, among them influential political and cultural leaders, such as Benjamin Disraeli and Walter, Lord Rothschild. There was also a peculiar streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite to which the Zionist leaders hoped to appeal, just as the Greek independence movement had appealed to British philo-Hellenism during the Greece’s War of Independence. Chaim Weizman, who became the leader of the Zionist movement after Herzl's death in 1904, was a professor at a British university, and used his extensive contacts to lobby the British government for a statement in support of Zionist aspirations.
This hope was realized in 1918, when the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, made his famous Balfour Declaration in favor of "the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people". Balfour was motivated partly by philo-Semitic sentiment and partly by a desire to strengthen support for the Allied cause in the United States, home to the world's most influential Jewish community. In the Declaration, however, Balfour was careful to use the word "home" rather than "state," and also to specify that its establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in the area chosen for settlement."…….

newIZ2.png
 
If memory serves Kenya was seriously looked at, for this Jewish homeland, as was part of Tasmania & Western Australia. In fact the Tasmania & WA locations were still in the bidding prior to WWII.
 

NomadicSky

Banned
I think Tasmania would be perfect just the right climate and far away enough from the rest of the world (except OZ)
 
If memory serves Kenya was seriously looked at, for this Jewish homeland, as was part of Tasmania & Western Australia. In fact the Tasmania & WA locations were still in the bidding prior to WWII.

Kenya is chosen, Jewish settlement increases, and the Balfour Declaration marks out Kenya for Jewish settlement only, so would-be Kenya settlers go to Rhodesia instead. Zionists settle in Kenya in increasing numbers, especially after the failure of Zionist settlers in Palestine. Post-Holocaust the numbers skyrocket. Zionist basically run the colony, and the "Jewish Highlands" are a source of much contention among the increasingly nationally aware Kenyan people. The British are more than willing to grant Kenya (called Israel) dominion status along with other white commonwealths. Using a combo of South African logic merged with concerns about maintaining the "Jewish character" of the state, South African style apartheid is enforced.

Israeli-South African cooperation reaches levels no one ever really contemplated . . .
 
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Hmmm... If you want to get the Jews to Belize, refer to it by the what it was called at the time: British Honduras!

'British Honduras! Only slightly less awesome than real Honduras!' :D

(Honduras is awesome.)
 
as one of the few ppl here on AH.com that has actually been to Belize, i don't think that the Jew's would have a problem settling there. as of right now there are Mennonites, local Mayans, and a significant Chinese population and they all get along very well, though they don't really intermingle.
 
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