The Zionist Century - Concepts - Zionist Congresses

Sixth Congress - Basle, 1903

At the Fifth Zionist Congress, a resolution was adopted determining that the next Congress would take place every alternate year and not - as had been the practice - annually.

In his opening speech, Herzl detailed the efforts to secure a Charter on behalf of the movement, but these attempts were increasingly desperate as the situation of the Jews, particularly following the Kishinev pogrom, deteriorated. This gave rise to various temporary solutions such as the "El Arish" project, which was negotiated with the British statesmen, Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Landsdowne.

After the collapse of this scheme, the British then offered Herzl the possibility of an autonomous Jewish settlement in East Africa (commonly known as the Uganda Project). Herzl called on the Congress to give serious consideration to the plan, even though he appreciated that it could not replace Palestine as the Jewish Homeland. In the lively debate that followed, Max Nordau, Herzl's major confidante, argued that "Uganda" would be a night refuge. Despite considerable opposition and a demonstrative walk-out by the Russian Zionists, the delegates agreed by 295 in favor, 178 against and 98 abstentions that a committee should be dispatched to examine the possibility of Jewish settlement in East Africa.

Among other matters discussed at the Congress was a report by Franz Oppenheimer on the possibility of cooperative settlement on the land, a program that was to have influence on the creation of various settlements in Palestine a few years later. This was to be Herzl's last Congress: he died a year later.

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