Uruguay's Diplomatic Push for a Jewish Homeland, Clashing with the Vatican

In May 1922, a group of Argentine Zionists crossed the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay with a specific diplomatic mission: to persuade the Uruguayan administration of Baltasar Brum to intercede with Brazil. Their goal was to secure Brazil's vote in the League of Nations Council in favor of a British mandate over Palestine, a crucial step towards establishing a Jewish national home.

This diplomatic maneuver was orchestrated by Uruguay's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under Juan Antonio Buero, following an explicit request from the World Zionist Organization. The initiative, however, encountered significant opposition from the Vatican. The Holy See disagreed with the British proposal, particularly concerning the mandate's provisions for the custody of holy sites in Jerusalem, as documented in various historical archives.

The Uruguayan government's engagement occurred 46 years before the United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, would eventually resolve the partition of Palestine, and 46 years before Israel declared its independence. The League of Nations Council was scheduled to convene in London in May 1922 to decide the fate of territories formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. The establishment of a British mandate in Palestine was the primary objective of the World Zionist Organization, which had, since its first congress in Basel in 1897, identified the return of Jews to the land of Israel as a key political goal to address the statelessness of its people.

The groundwork for this objective had been laid by the British government through Foreign Secretary James Balfour's 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild, promising "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" while safeguarding the rights of existing non-Jewish communities. This commitment was further reinforced at the San Remo Conference in April 1920, where the victorious Allied powers designated Great Britain as the mandatory power for Palestine, tasked with implementing the Balfour Declaration.