Rachel Elboim-Dror
The Armenian question has occupied the Zionist movement since a mass
killing of Armenians was carried out by the Turks in the mid 1890s –
prior even to the First Zionist Congress. [Theodor] Herzl’s strategy was based on
the idea of an exchange: The Jews would pay off the Ottoman Empire’s
huge debt, in return for the acquisition of Palestine and the
establishment of a Jewish state there, with the major powers’ consent.
Herzl had been working hard to persuade Sultan Abdul Hamid II to accept
the proposal, but to no avail.
