Herzl's Audience with Sultan Abdulhamid II

Theodor Herzl's audience with Sultan Abdulhamid took place in 1901 CE in the Yildiz Palace. Herzl offered financial help to the Ottoman treasury in return for settlement in Palestine. The sultan listened and did not accept. ²

Two years before the audience Herzl had dealt with senior officials of the Yildiz Palace, and the Ottoman state had been burdened with public debt since 1881 CE. ³

The audience lasted two hours. Herzl proposed that the rich Jewish banks of Europe would help relieve the debts, in exchange for permission to settle in Palestine. The sultan listened more than he spoke, so that Herzl thought he had succeeded, and then realised that he was on a dead end. ²

Abdulhamid held that Jews should not be settled in Palestine, so that the Arab element would keep its superiority there. In June and July 1890 CE he issued two sultanic decrees rejecting the admission of Jews into the Ottoman lands, and calling for a decisive study of the question. He took measures to prevent the sale of land to Jews in Palestine. ²

• The entry rests on al-Salabi's summary, and has not yet been checked against the text of the sultanic decrees or Herzl's diaries.
• Al-Salabi presents the sultan's position from the viewpoint of the Ottoman state, and does not present Herzl's own account here.