More than 300 delegates from around the United States attended the 1926 conference that created the Association for Jewish Culture and Education called at the initiative of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to create a permanent national organization for Jewish education. The official call says that the purpose was to overcome the fragmented and inadequate state of Jewish education in American Jewish communities.
It was held on May 16, 1926, at the Astor Hotel.
Its objectives included promoting Hebrew language and literature; increasing knowledge of Eretz Yisrael, then Mandate Palestine; strengthening Jewish youth organizations; promoting Jewish literature and the fine arts; encouraging Jewish education among children, youth and adults; and developing educational material about Eretz-Yisrael and Zionism.
A substantial proposed budget was $290,000 for its first year, including the educational and cultural organizations already affiliated with the ZOA, such as Young Judaea and Histadruth Ivrith.
Chaim Nahman Bialik was present. Ze'ev Jabotinsky was not invited although in the country.
And, of course, there was an important dispute over how explicitly Zionist the new organization should be.
The official program adopted by the conference spoke of Jewish cultural values, Hebrew, Eretz-Yisrael, Jewish aspirations, etc. But Max Rhoade of Washington, representing the minority of the program committee, proposed inserting a much more explicitly Zionist formulation. His amendment would have said that:
“Zionism as the expression of the Jewish national spirit is inseparable from Jewish education and culture…”
It called for Jewish education to be infused with “the Zionist spirit” and connected with the Jewish renaissance in Palestine.
That amendment was rejected.
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The case of Arab Palestinian born Muhammad Hussain El-Farra, serving as Jordan’s ambassador to the U.N
ReplyDeleteFrom Author Nathan A. Kurz, 'From Antisemitism to “Zionism Is Racism.” In: Jewish Internationalism and Human Rights after the Holocaust. Human Rights in History,' in Oct 1960:
'Jordanian Ambassador Muhammad Hussain El-Farra began the General Assembly debate by saying that any consideration of global antisemitism had to be tempered by the 'practices adopted against the Arab minority in Palestine by the very people complaining of antisemitic demonstrations.'
Karameh.
Operation Karameh took place on March 21, 1968, three days after a land-mine attack destroyed an Israeli school bus, killing two people and injuring 28. Israeli forces crossed into Jordan to attack Fatah infrastructure at Karameh, which contemporary Israeli and later historical sources described as a major Palestinian armed-group base. The evidence indicates that civilians were warned before the operation through leaflets. Sources also report that much of Karameh's civilian population had already left and that some young local men had reportedly been forcibly recruited by Palestinian organizations.
According to Israeli operational documents and accounts (confirmed in 2011), commanders instructed troops not to kill women, children, or elderly civilians and to distinguish civilians and unarmed Fatah members from armed personnel offering resistance. These instructions establish the intended rules of engagement. The fighting involved Israeli forces, Fatah and other Palestinian fighters, and the Jordanian Army, which intervened directly; Israeli forces subsequently withdrew after taking control of much of Karameh. The operation damaged Fatah's infrastructure but did not end Palestinian armed activity in Jordan, and Fatah subsequently shifted important concentrations toward the Salt area, where Israeli forces later conducted air strikes against reported headquarters, training facilities, and other military infrastructure.
The accusations
On March 22, 1968, el-Farrah accused Israel of so-called “genocide.”
By May, he had followed in Shukeiri’s 1961 propaganda by invoking the “apartheid” analogy.
Following the August 4 operation on Salt, Voice of Fatah followed el-Farrah with the “genocide” accusation as it was announcing that it will target civilians (AP, Aug 7: "Arab Guerillas Warn Of Strikes Against Civilians"), as if it had not already been doing so up to that point.
Research by this poster:
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Op. Karameh: Israeli Orders to Spare Civilians, Warning Civilians to Leave, and the Targeting of Fatah Terrorists in 1968 - El-Farrah championing false "genocide" accusation.
https://justsayingitoutloloud.blogspot.com/2026/09/operation-karameh-israeli-orders.html