With a PoD of 1904 or later, have another power occupy Ottoman Palestine AND be a patron of Zionism?

raharris1973

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An American Mandate in Palestine would be like interesting.
Woodrow Wilson volunteers to occupy Palestine as a neutral party in the region (The United States doesn't have any colonies in Africa). The Americans maintain a Marine detachment headquartered in Jerusalem and maybe the US Navy maintains a Mediterranean squadron to make regular port visits.
American Jews could move to Palestine and establish their own American style Kibbutz. Evangelists in the twenties would support an independent Palestine seeing it as a sign of end of days.
Things would really get interesting if the Italians invade Libya kicking off the North African campaign. Would the Italians go out of their way to avoid an incident with the neutral Americans? what would the Germans and Vichy French do?

Corrected an "auto-correct" mistake: Not having broader interests of significance in the wider Muslim world, the US mandate administration might give carte blanche support to the Zionists. Maybe George Patton needs to command some cavalry to
Defeat some Arab insurgents.

On the other hand, the US might seek to limit Jewish immigration (not shut it off entirely) to the mandate, to keep peace and quiet with the Arab population, and the participants in "the inquiry" the us study of postwar problems noted the opposition of Christians and Muslims in the region to a Jewish state.
 
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CalBear

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An American Mandate in Palestine would be like interesting.
Woodrow Wilson volunteers to occupy Palestine as a neutral party in the region (The United States doesn't have any colonies in Africa). The Americans maintain a Marine detachment headquartered in Jerusalem and maybe the US Navy maintains a Mediterranean squadron to make regular port visits.
American Jews could move to Palestine and establish their own American style Kibbutz. Evangelists in the twenties would support an independent Palestine seeing it as a sign of end of days.
Things would really get interesting if the Italians invade Libya kicking off the North African campaign. Would the Italians go out of their way to avoid an incident with the neutral Americans? what would the Germans and Vichy French do?
This was actually pushed for fairly hard by both the Arab and Jewish residents, who wanted nothing to do with the openly colonial expansionist France and UK. By the end of WW I it was getting increasingly obvious that the U.S really was falling out of love with colonial expansion, at least outside the Americas.
 
Not having broader interests of significance in the wider Muslim world, the US mandate administration might give carte balance support to the Zionists. Maybe George Patton needs to command some cavalry to
Defeat some Arab insurgents.

On the other hand, the US might seek to limit Jewish immigration (not shut it off entirely) to the mandate, to keep peace and quiet with the Arab population, and the participants in "the inquiry" the us study of postwar problems noted the opposition of Christians and Muslims in the region to a Jewish state.
I was thinking that some members of congress would rather have European Jews emigrate to the Mandate than enter the US.
 

raharris1973

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You could have a doffrent Syaks-Picco (spel?) agreement, in which britain gets, lets say, the Negev, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, while France get the rest of Israel, Lebanon and costal Syria.
Thus the British get their connection between Egypt and the persian goalf, and France gets its traditional sphere of influence in the outer-mer.
France can then be influenced by the british govorment and the Rotshiled family to adopt a zionist agenda and to eatablish their own mandate.

What does everyone think of the likelihood of France being a patron of Zionism if it were the mandatory power over all of it except the Negev, as Ahab suggested?
 

pack leader

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What does everyone think of the likelihood of France being a patron of Zionism if it were the mandatory power over all of it except the Negev, as Ahab suggested?
The interwar French are too racist to Grant a balfur style deceleration they olso had long standing emotional and political comitments to the maronaite nationalist movment as doomed to failure as it is
in hindsight
 

CaliGuy

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So, instead of British occupation and the Balfour Declaration, there is a French, Italian, Russian, German, Austrian or American occupation of Palestine post -WWI and have a declaration supporting a Jewish National Home there be released in the name of a diplomat from that country.

Again, looking for late PoDs, so only 1904 or later.
You could try having WWI break out around 1920 rather than in 1914. This would cause Britain to remain neutral and, if the Franco-Russian side wins this TL's WWI and the Ottomans still end up on the losing side, could result in a French Palestine and in France supporting Zionist aspirations there in order to appease its own Jewish community as well as Jews elsewhere.
 
England took Palestine only as a buffer for their Suez-Canal. Take away that reason and the Brits wouldn't insist on that after WO I. I know you wanted a PoD after 1904, but if you can stretch your PoD back to 1881, you can let France intervene in the Urabi-revolt instead of GB or in co-operation with the british. Before the revolt France was the main investor in Egypt with GB second. At the begining of that crisis France did send gunboats, but they didn't want to commit ground-troops like the british did (reluctantly, because Gladstone, who didn't want an empire was in power). If France had intervened in some way, Britain couldn't have set up their 'veiled protectorate' over Egypt, like they did in our timeline. The convention of Constantinople about free pasage would be immediately ratified instead of 1904. The canal would be stil important for britain as the life-line of the Empire, but they wouldn't have been able to claim sole propriety. There wil be also some butterfly effects for Sudan and the scramble for Africa.
 
What does everyone think of the likelihood of France being a patron of Zionism if it were the mandatory power over all of it except the Negev, as Ahab suggested?
Most of the routes that I can see for France to take over Palestine, as I had mentioned with the Franco-Russian agreement, don't require the Balfour declaration. The Balfour declaration was a way for the British to get Palestine instead of the French getting it, increasing their standing there internationally, in addition to its effects for Jewish opinion. Since France's options mostly revolve around ways to get Palestine without the Balfour declaration, there's no reason for France to issue it and harm their standing among the various other communities in the region.

If France did get it, then encouraging Jewish settlement, at least in any recognizable way like the British, seems unlikely. France was never an openly anti-Semite state until the Nazis invaded, and it would take radical changes to French politics to get it to a Polish-type support for settling Jews in Palestine. None of the really anti-Semitic parties had a possibility of winning in any elections, since Action française was a joke, and the Parti sociale française, while antisemitism was common in its ranks, was not antisemitic at the center. Antisemitism furthermore had significant changes in its level in France in the Interwar - it was at a historic low in the 1920s, but in the 1930s it become much more significant. Even then, the situation varied by which class of Jews was in question : "native" Jews were tentatively accepted, but the Jews fleeing from antisemitic regimes in Germany and Eastern Europe had a great degree of prejudice directed against them.
 
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