The plan was later rejected as unworkable by the Zionist Congress.[8] Adherents of territorialism split off from the main Zionist movement and continued to search for a location where Jews might settle and create a state, or at least an autonomous area.[9] The idea of Jewish resettlement in Madagascar was promoted by British antisemites Henry Hamilton Beamish, Arnold Leese, and others.[10] With the cooperation of the French, the Polish government commissioned a task force in 1937 to examine the possibility of settling Polish Jews in the island.[2] The head of the commission, Mieczysław Lepecki [pl], felt the island could accommodate 5,000 to 7,000 families, but Jewish members of the group estimated that, because of the climate and poor infrastructure, only 500 or even fewer families could safely be accommodated.[1][11][lower-alpha 1]