Author bio: Kanui Kaigua writes about African matters from a decolonised perspective
Iran is currently conducting the biggest decolonisation project of the 21st Century–the dismantling of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine and the eviction of US imperialist forces from Western Asia. We examine how and why East Africa is being prepared as a sanctuary for US-Israel ethno-supremacism.
‘When your neighbour’s hair is getting shaved, prepare your head for a haircut.’ —Swahili proverb
Global news cycles are glued to the war instigated by the US and Israel against Iran and its allies. As the wise Swahili proverb admonishes, Africans should not assume that they are somehow physically safe from the ongoing war in West Asia. Africa needs to urgently prepare for confrontation with US imperialism and its Zionist agents.
The key reason is that after their defeat in Western Asia, Washington and Tel Aviv will set up a redoubt in East Africa from which they can continue their attempts to retake the lucrative global energy hubs and transit points, from the Gulf states all the way to Bab el-Mandeb and the lucrative shores of Somalia.
Zionist interest in East Africa is over a century old. In 1903, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern political Zionism, 5,000 square miles (approx. 15,000 square kilometres) in the Uasin Gishu Plateau, then part of the East Africa Protectorate, for Jewish settlement.
Map: (Area marked by red dots) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Uasin+Gishu+County/@-0.3186807,34.0876604,6.42z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x1781002edaa360bb:0xa7d143f432c7e82b!8m2!3d0.5527638!4d35.3027226!16zL20vMDRiczl3?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMyNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
The plan was proposed as a homeland for Eastern European Jews fleeing violent persecution, particularly in some parts of the Russian Empire such as Moldova. The Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903 voted to send a commission to explore the area. A three-man team comprising Major Alfred St Hill Gibbons (an Englishman), Nachum Wilbusch (a Russian-born Jew) and Alfred Kaiser (a Swiss explorer-scientist) set out in 1904 to survey the area but returned with mixed reports. The 7th Zionist Congress in 1905 voted to pursue Palestine instead.
Two points to note: Joseph Chamberlain had sweetened his proposal (inaccurately referred to as the Uganda Scheme) for a Jewish Homeland in East Africa (located in what is today the republic of Kenya) by suggesting that it would be a self-governing homeland. Jewish settlers would have a free hand in political, administrative, religious and economic matters. Secondly, European settlers in Kenya did not want Jewish refugees coming over from Europe to set up shop here, a decision communicated to British colonial authorities by an influential settler, Lord Delamere. Did they know something that we today should take note of?
If Palestinians had kept tabs on the Uganda Scheme, they would probably not have welcomed Jewish refugees pouring into the Holy Land following the implementation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration by then British Foreign Secretary Sir Althur Balfour promising Britain’s support in the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But as it was, Palestinians generously opened their homes to a people whose agenda was to take over their land. The culmination was the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) of 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were violently displaced from their ancestral land to make way for the creation of the State of Israel.
78 years later, the Palestine question has coalesced into an intractable geopolitical quicksand for US and Zionist imperialism, chiefly thanks to the heroic resistance of Palestinians and their comrades in the region, who are paying an enormous price in blood and national treasure. The ongoing showdown is the final and decisive phase, which will culminate in the liberation of Palestine and the dismantling of Zionist settler colonialism.
Zionism to retreat to East Africa?
Israel has been quietly laying the groundwork for establishing a Zionist settlement in Kenya. Why Kenya? It goes back to the 1903 Uganda Scheme. Gibbons, one of the surveyors sent to assess the land, described it as ‘one of the finest pieces of country within my experience’. Upon returning to the UK, he told Reuters in an interview: ‘There is no healthier country in Africa than the spot offered by the Government for the Zionists. It seems almost impossible to be ill there. It is an ideal region for white settlement.’
Now that the Zionist occupation of Palestine has become untenable, could Uganda Scheme 2.0 already be in motion? It appears so, given the flurry of media appearances by the current Israeli ambassador to Kenya, Gideon Behar, attempting to convince Kenyans that his apartheid government is merely defending itself against unjustified attacks by Iran.
Curiously, the Israeli Embassy in Kenya has announced scholarship opportunities for Kenyan students to pursue a Master’s programme in African Sustainable Communities at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The focus? Sustainable development, community empowerment, and social change. Studies directly connected to land-use, community building and ‘social change’ in preparation for exchange programmes between Kenya and Israel.
Photo: Screenshot of this article: https://www.trtworld.com/article/c19230a20bf1
It is already happening. A 520-acre agri-residential project in Solai, Nakuru County, spearheaded by Israeli investor Erez Rivkin offers a glimpse of the future. The project has faced scrutiny, with some Kenyans labelling it a “kibbutz-style” settlement. Concerns are being raised about eventual displacement of indigenous communities by Zionist settlers.
Fingers are being pointed at a 2018 dam collapse in the area that killed nearly 50 when flooding tore through communities living downstream. Some say the tragedy is connected to the Israeli-led development, known as the Great Rift Valley Retreat. A Senate investigation concluded that natural causes alone could not explain the collapse. Is it a mere coincidence that an Israeli turned up a few years later, bought the land for a penny on the dollar and is now openly calling for more settlers to join him?
Before the firestorm from Rivkin’s exposé had cooled off, an Israeli mobile research lab from the Weizmann Institute of Science arrived in Kenya at the end of March 2026. The mission is reportedly scientific in nature: to collect data on Kenya’s soil, water, and climate. Tellingly, Kenya is actively proposing significant changes to its citizenship laws. The proposed legislation, The Kenya Citizenship and Immigration (Amendment) Bill, 2025 (sponsored by Kilifi North MP Owen Baya), seeks to expedite the country’s citizenship acquisition process. The question is, why now, and who benefits? Could it be the people actively mapping out the country?
Photo: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEUX71PWgAAMw1I?format=jpg&name=large
Credit: @IsraelinKenya X
Kenya is a major non-NATO ally, and is a de facto Anglo-American colonial outpost all but in name. Its armed forces regularly conduct exercises with the US military, which has a base known as Camp Simba, located in Lamu County. It is used for ‘counter-terrorism’ operations against al-Shabab in Somalia. In early 2026, Washington launched a $70 million project to expand Camp Simba’s runway.
Top-notch private security personnel, the sort that protect Kenya’s bourgeoisie, are Mossad-trained. Our best intelligence-gathering equipment and spyware is Israeli-made, conveniently employed to suppress a growing anti-imperialist awakening among the country’s tech-savvy, youthful population.
Tel Aviv has bizarrely claimed that Nairobi is in range of Iranian missiles, raising concerns that the Kenyan capital could be hit by an Israeli false flag operation, to be conveniently blamed on Tehran. The goal would be to entrench Zionism’s military-intelligence complex in Kenya by selling the idea of accelerated Israeli security investment in the country.
PHOTO/ Screenshot of this article https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/17/trim-slugs-to-kenya-authorities-israel-tech-crack-activists-phone-report
News that France, host of this year’s G7 Summit, has picked Kenya to replace South Africa all but confirms that the East African state is now firmly in the ‘Epstein Class’, to borrow Professor Mohammad Marandi’s description of the West’s ruling elite. Pretoria has been dropped for standing with Palestine, Iran, China and Russia.
Africa Gateway: First Stop, East Africa
Port of Berbera, Somaliland: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/New_DP_World_Berbera_Container_Terminal_Port.jpg
Another layer to the Zionist investment in East Africa is Israel’s official recognition of Somaliland in December 2025. The Port of Berbera in the breakaway region of Somalia has received massive investments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Britain. The UAE is a deep-pocketed arm of Zionism, splurging oil money to acquire farmland in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Sudan and Ethiopia, to secure food and water supplies.
The Africa Gateway is a consortium between the British International Investment (BII), the U.K.’s investment arm, and the UAE-based trade-logistics company Dubai Ports World. In early 2022, BII invested $320M in the Port of Berbera, with plans to push it to $720M, binding London, Dubai, and Somaliland in a financial and strategic relationship.
In 2023, it was reported that Elite Agro Projects (EAP), a UAE-based company, was in discussions to set up a $200m wheat farm in Ethiopia and a tea factory in Uganda. In the same year, another UAE firm, Global Carbon Investments, obtained conservation rights valued at $1.5 billion for 7.5 million hectares in Zimbabwe, accounting for 20 percent of the nation’s land area.
Connecting the dots, one sees a stealthy takeover of the lucrative maritime belt all the way from the Gulf of Aden to the shores of East Africa, including fertile farmlands to feed the belly of the apartheid beast in Western Asia. And politically, having Kenya in the driver’s seat thanks to its pro-West foreign policy gives Anglo-Zionism a seemingly firm foothold in this geopolitically important region.
Time will tell whether the winds of decolonisation will blow across East Africa to prevent Anglo-Zionism from taking root. For now, all eyes are fixed on Iran’s lion-hearted resistance to US and Israel’s cowardly attacks.
But we must also keep an eye closer home lest our land is taken from us.
