@KormaChameleon there was never, in any context, an “extermination project”. Zionism was opportunistic and lucky aligning with colonial powers of the time, and that’s just about it.
Western Jews who started the Zionist movement and established the first congress in Basel, send missions to explore various regions of the world into which Russian Jews can be transported. Palestine was not the only option, nor the preferred.
For Hertzl it had to be with international and legal authority, either of the Ottomans, when Palestine was discussed, or the British in respect to various parts of Africa.
The “bunch of rich people” who gathered in Basel were Western and Russian Jews (mostly poor or lower middle class in fact) “. They could not gather in Austria, where Herzl lived, because the authorities objected.
Jewish plutocracy at this stage had no interest in #Zionism non whatsoever.