Conceived by Emanuel Neumann, a member of the Executive of the Zionist Organization, late in 1931, following the 1930 publication of the Passfield White Paper by the British government, which was seen as a retreat from the commitments of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine.
The Committee was launched at a public dinner in Washington on January 17, 1932, and attended by members of both houses of Congress, and government dignitaries, including Vice President Charles Curtis.
[3] The ZOA helped mobilized political support in the United States for Israel, with large scale funding and pressure on Washington and on public opinion.
They opposed the social and economic policies of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his Mapai (Labor) Party, according to historian Zohar Segev.
Their interventions were rejected and Israeli politicians agreed that American Zionists had a major role in funding but not in policy guidance.