Alison Weir selected articles (2001 - 2017)

Only the News That Fits: How American Media Erase Palestine – Even Alternative Media
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew Blog - Americans need to know important facts that they aren’t learning in the very filtered reporting we get. We need to know what’s happening in Palestine, and what’s enabling this in the U.S. The latter stories are even more covered up. Read more...

Diverse groups push for ‘Anti-Semitism Envoy’ who monitors criticism of Israel
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew Blog - A former Antisemitism Envoy adopted a new, Israel-centric definition for antisemitism, and then used it to train U.S. diplomats. The envoy position has proved a revolving door to Israel lobbying organizations (see video). Now groups from the ADL to the Southern Poverty Law Center are disturbed that Trump isn't filling the position. Read more...

International campaign is criminalizing criticism of Israel as ‘antisemitism’
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew Blog - For two decades, some Israeli officials and Israel partisans have worked to embed a new, Israel-focused definition of antisemitism in institutions around the world, from international bodies and national governments to small college campuses in heartland America. This effort is now snowballing rapidly. As a result, advocacy for Palestinian rights is well on the way to being curtailed and even criminalized as 'hate.' Read more...

Israel's New Travel Ban
Alison Weir, Dissident Voice - Israel recently banned foreigners who support boycotts against Israel from being allowed to enter Israel. People have objected in outrage to the law, particularly Westerners with family in Israel. Alison Weir objects, but for a different reason: She’s not trying to visit Israel, she wants to go to Palestine. Read more...

Meet Dan Lederman: South Dakota politician for Israel
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew Blog - Like most successful politicians, Lederman worked to develop friendly relationships with voters. JTA reports that these are useful in promoting Israel: "Such first-name-basis relationships in a state with only 800,000 people help Lederman advance a pro-Israel agenda, one that he prominently displays on his website’s home page..." Read more...

Trump’s "Muslim ban": Israeli strategic plans to "remake the Middle East" from 2001 and before targeted the same countries
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew Blog - With just a single exception, all of these countries were targeted for attack by certain top U.S. officials in 2001. In fact, that policy had roots that went back to 1996, 1991, 1980, and even the 1950s. Here we will trace this policy back in time and examine its goals and proponents. Read more...

Remembering Hedy Epstein
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew - Hedy stood up for the underdog, opposed abuse of power, and worked valiantly and consistently for a kinder, more just world. And in so doing she inspired multitudes. For her, "never again" meant Never Again. Read more...

State lawmakers object to billboards honoring Navy veterans, questioning US foreign aid
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew - Fourteen Pennsylvania House of Representatives members from South Central Pennsylvania are demanded that billboards they deem critical of Israel be removed from area highways. Read more...

Guest commentary: The fact on $10 million per day to Israel
Alison Weir, Contra Costa Times - Local residents recently partnered with my organization to put up a billboard that informed East Bay residents: "We give Israel $10 million per day. That money could send our kids to college." The billboard has triggered common pro-Israel talking points. Let me address these false claims. Read more...

U.S. aid to Israel prevents peace
Alison Weir, The Orlando Sentinel - In addition to the deep financial burden these disbursements impose on Americans, our money enables Israeli violence and aggression that causes continuing instability and tragedy throughout the Middle East. This prevents peace, endangers Americans, and is a continual cause of misery. Read more...

MSNBC, Martin Fletcher Disavow Image of Palestine Being Wiped Off the Map
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Following an unusually honest report on Israel-Palestine, MSNBC Live backpedaled to Israeli talking points that were both illogical and uninformed. Let us look at what happened. Read more...

"Israeli army begins deploying in Jerusalem against attacks" – Deconstructing AP bias
Alison Weir, Associated Press Deconstructed - Once again, the Associated Press provides a blatantly slanted news report on Israel-Palestine. The problem is, AP’s slant is only blatant to those who know the full facts. This is the article that hundreds of newspaper wire editors around the US, most of whom have never visited the region and whose information comes largely from AP, are seeing. Read more...

U.S. massive aid to Israel must stop: My Word
Alison Weir, The Orlando Sentinel - U.S. politicians from both parties have given more of our money to Israel than to any other nation, thanks to the multibillion-dollar pro-Israel lobby. In fact, the U.S. historically has given more aid to Israel than to all of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America combined. Read more...

Donald Neff: a Journalist Erased From History for Reporting on Palestine
Alison Weir, Counterpunch - One of the top journalists to report on Palestine-Israel has died. Donald Neff passed away on May 10 in his hometown of York, Pennsylvania, at the age of 84. Neff brought honesty, precision, and courage to a topic of world-shaking significance that most top journalists feared or obfuscated. For this, he paid dearly. Read more...

 Please help us overcome the accusations against If Americans Knew 
Alison Weir, May 20, 2015 - I personally, and If Amerians Knew as an organization, are among those who have periodically been targeted by whispering campaigns. Please help us prevent these false accusations from impeding our important work. Read more...

Keeping "Hidden History" Hidden: American Historical Association Censors Ad for Book on Israel, Palestine & the US
Alison Weir, Counterpunch - The American Historical Association (AHA) has refused to publish a paid advertisement for my book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. Read more...

Christian Evangelicals increasingly support Palestinian human rights
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew - An article in Middle East Quarterly, a pro-Israel publication, reports that support for Israel is eroding among American evangelical Christians, with only 30 percent currently stating support for Israel above Palestinians. Read more...

Aid and Comfort to the Enemy: American Legion Honchos Betray Liberty Veterans
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Despite the USS Liberty crew’s extraordinary record of heroism, American Legion personnel have repeatedly treated Liberty veterans, their families, and their friends with arrogance, disrespect, and even disdain that many feel demeans these American servicemen, their ship, their service to their country, and the memory of their 34 fellow crewmembers who never returned. Read more...

The Extremist Origins of Education and Sharing Day: Why is the US Honoring a Racist Rabbi?
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - In two weeks, Americans will be officially called on to observe a day that honors Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and the Lubavitcher movement. Read more...

 Munich Olympics, Revisited: Do Only Some Massacres Matter? 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Everyone remembers the Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Olympic games, but no one commemorates the hundreds of people (mostly civilians) killed by Israel's heavy air attacks in Syria and Lebanon launched the following day. Read more...

  Congress Triples Budget Request To Israel  
Alison Weir, If Americans Knew - The budget committees of both the Senate and the House released a budget on December 10th included $284 million for U.S.–Israeli "joint defense" – in fact, primarily for defense systems in Israel. This money is on top of the $3.1 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel every year. It is also triple the already-generous $96 million the Obama administration had requested for the programs. Read more...

 A Modest Proposal to the Anti-Defamation League  
Alison Weir, Counterpunch - Your organization apparently finds those working on behalf of justice and equality for all abhorrent when this includes Palestinians. Happily, many disagree with you. In fact, a large and growing number of people (of all ethnicities, religions, races, and political persuasions) believe that universal principles of morality do not contain exceptions. Read more...

Anti-Semitism tag used as Israeli ploy
Alison Weir, The Argus Leader - In his recent My voice column, "The longest hatred: Alison Weir's speaking tour," Steve Hunegs tries to use defamatory claims that I am "anti-Semitic" to divert attention from the facts I provide on Israel-Palestine. Read more...

What will Obama do?
Alison Weir, Palestine News - President Obama's actions are unlikely to stray outside the parameters the Israel lobby is willing to accept. But there is growing movement that is challenging the lobby's stronghold on U.S. politics. Read more...

Myra Noveck & the New York Times: Another journalist with children in the Israeli military
Alison Weir, Counterpunch - The New York Times omits significant facts about Israeli violence against Americans, and continues to employ individuals with ties to the Israeli military to report on Israel/Palestine. Read more...

American media distortion on Palestine
Alison Weir, MEMO - "If American news organisations had been reporting fully and accurately on the region; if they had exposed the pro-Israel lobby's power and manipulation in the United States; if they had covered the damage done to Americans... I have no doubt that US policies would be vastly different than those we see today." Read more...

AP and Amnesty International: Are you just waiting for him to die?
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Samer Issawi has lived for 33 years, 1 month, and 27 days. I hope he lives another day. He has been on a hunger strike now for six and a half months. Gandhis’ longest hunger strike was 21 days. Yet, U.S. news outlets are not covering Issawi’s hunger strike. It appears that the Associated Press has not run a single news story on Issawi’s strike and refuses to answer queries on the subject. Read more...

The Empire Behind World’s Largest History Magazine Chain: How American History Magazine Censored Palestine
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - I found out that the magazines are part of a massive and lucrative empire based on bodybuilding and related products: an empire that has been investigated and convicted for using false claims to sell potentially dangerous “nutritional supplements�? and for publishing “obscene�? magazines, run by powerful people with powerful friends in high places who’ve opposed the regulation of such supplements. Not the profile readers might expect, though Publisher Weider is now interviewed in the media as an expert on American history – one whose commentary supports the alleged necessity of American wars in the Middle East... Read more...

Possible New CIA Director Already Compromised? Jane Harman and Israeli Spying
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Former Congresswoman Jane Harman allegedly promised to lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two top AIPAC officials, yet she's still being considered as a candidate for CIA director. Read more...

Children Shot in the Head: Not Just in Pakistan
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - U.S. media provides extensive coverage of a Pakistani girl shot in the head, reportedly by the Taliban, but ignores hundreds of Palestinian children shot in the head by Israeli soldiers throughout the past 10 years. Read more...

NY Times & CNN consider motorcycle and Israeli goats more important than injured Palestinian infants and toddlers
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - The New York Times and CNN ignore the injuries that resulted from Israel's latest assault on Gaza, but make sure to mention property losses. Read more...

NY Times headline reverses chronology, story leaves out important information
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - In its usual fashion, the New York Times headline tells readers that Israeli violence is defensive and came after Palestinians initiated the violence. In reality, it was the opposite, as the lead paragraph states: "Palestinian militants from Gaza fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells into Israeli territory on Monday, causing no casualties but some property damage, after an Israeli airstrike wounded at least 10 Palestinians in southern Gaza on Sunday." Read more...

US taxpayers paid more to Israeli defense budget than Israelis
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - American taxpayers give Israel over $3 billion per year (over $8 million per day), more than to any other nation, despite the fact that Israel is smaller than New Jersey and is in the top 30 richest countries in the world. Read more...

The Democrats’ Jerusalem Arithmetic: When Israel is concerned, half = two-thirds
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - A Pro-Israel party platform amendment is pushed through at the Democratic National Convention despite a clear "no" vote. Read more...

 Justice for All: Alexander Cockburn, Palestine, and U.S. media 
Alison Weir, Daily Censored - Longtime journalist Alexander Cockburn passed away on July 21st, an enormous loss. Cockburn was a brilliant, witty, and courageous opponent of falsehoods and injustice. AIPAC worked to get him fired early in his career because of his reporting on Israeli aggression. Read more...

U.S. college heads visit Israel, seek collaboration opportunities
Alison Weir, AlisonWeir.org - Once again, Israel is recruiting university presidents and chancellors. I wonder how these academics can justify not meeting with Palestinians, who have suffered diverse academic assaults from Israel – from ethnic/religious discrimination to their schools being shelled and students killed – while they're over there. Think of the astronomical wealth of the Israel Lobby, which can fund a multitude of such trips. Read more...

Daily Californian: How can they possibly justify publishing defamatory letters against me and not publish my letter in response?
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - In late May the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley campus newspaper, published letters to the editor defaming If Americans Knew and me personally. Read more...

Israeli Journalist reports that Israel Is Pushing US into War with Iran
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - Israel and its lobby in the U.S. "have been leading the charge" for an American war against Iran for years, Israeli journalist Larry Derfner reports, "and they're hardly hiding it." Read more...

 Did the New York Times Lead Anthony Shadid to His Death? Burying the Story along with the Body 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - The night before he left on his fatal trip into Syria, Anthony Shadid told his wife: "If anything happens to me, I want the world to know the New York Times killed me." Read more...

 Jodi Rudoren, Another Member of the Family: Meet the New York Times’ New Israel-Palestine News Chief 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Replacing Ethan Bronner is Jodi Rudoren. Read more...

As Israeli girls run away to Arab villages, Israel's "Anti-Assimilation Organization" and "Pro-Jewish Identity NGO" are on the job
Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest - Israel National News reports that a young Jewish teenager fell in love with an Arab, converted to Islam, and decided to marry him, running away from home to do so. The parents, horrified, called the police, and after weeks of searching, located her. While many parents would quite likely be concerned at a young daughter running off, there is another dimenstion to this story. It turns out that Israel has something called the "Lehava anti-assimilation organization." Read more...

 Bush & Obama? Israeli assassinations and US Presidents 
Alison Weir, AntiWar.com - On January 13th the Atlanta Jewish Times featured a column by its owner-publisher suggesting that Israel might someday need to “order a hit” on the president of the United States. Read more...

 The Real Story of How Israel Was Created 
Alison Weir, AntiWar.com & CounterPunch - To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 UN action on Israel-Palestine. The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect. Read more...

 Shop Talk: The Sacramento Bee 
Alison Weir, Editor & Publisher - Editors at McClatchy’s Sacramento Bee recently made a series of questionable decisions in their coverage of a local event. They ran news stories about opposition to an upcoming event beforehand and accusations against it afterward, but didn’t cover the event itself. Read more...

 US Ambassador: Support for Israel drives all US policies 
Alison Weir, Antiwar.com & CounterPunch - While many Americans may believe that US policies are designed to address American needs, America’s new Ambassador to Israel explains that this is far from the case. Read more...

 Spinning the Egyptian Anti-Israel Protest 
Alison Weir, Antiwar.com - Today’s New York Times front-page story on Egyptian protests against the Israeli embassy largely neglects a primary cause of the anger: Israeli forces’ killing of five Egyptian policemen. Egyptian anger over these deaths grew even greater when Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak refused to apologize. Read more...

 American Taxpayers Pay and Pay: Subsidizing Israel’s Ascendancy Over the U.S. 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch & Antiwar.com - Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper recently published an article calling Israel “The New Golden Country” for young people from around the world. It reports that Israel boasts “an ever-increasing GDP, a strong currency, and a lower unemployment rate than the US.” Read more...

Israeli video games in Gaza: “Minimal collateral damage”
Alison Weir, CounterPunch & Antiwar.com - He looks at the camera with bright eyes and the beginning of a smile, wearing a miniature dark blue zipper sweatshirt, the cuffs folded up a bit to make it fit. I can imagine his mother dressing him that morning, making sure he would be warm enough. I wonder if she’s the one who took the picture. Someone has written on the photo “kisses.” Read more...

 Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up 
Alison Weir - You might think that 20 percent of the American Congress going on all-expenses-paid, week-long junkets to a foreign country – paid for by a lobby for that country – would be newsworthy, especially when the top congressional leaders of both parties are leading the trips. You would be wrong. Read more...

 Media omissions on Itamar: Murdering babies is “permissible” when they’re Palestinian 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - US media widely and repeatedly reported on the horrific March 11th murder of three small Israeli children and their parents. While no one yet knows who committed this grotesque act, reports presume that the murderers were Palestinian, and for this reason the incident is receiving major attention. Various heads of state, including President Obama, have condemned it. Read more... | Download Booklet

 Denying Nazi-Zionist collusion: The Sacramento Bee, Darrell Steinberg, and Islamophobia 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - In an inversion of journalistic ethics, the Sacramento Bee reported on opposition to an event before and after it took place, but didn’t cover the event itself. It featured an entire report on accusations against a flier, but didn’t include a response from the flier’s authors. Read more... | Download Booklet

 Critical Connections: Egypt, the US, and the Israel Lobby 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch & Antiwar.com - Minimally explored in all the coverage of the momentous Egyptian uprising taking place over the last 10 days [Jan-Feb 2011] are the Israeli connections. Read more...

 Gabrielle Giffords, Tom Hurndall and Palestinian Children: Shot in the Head 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - There is something particularly horrifying when someone is shot in the head. Perhaps it’s the gruesome image, the destruction of the brain, the clear intent to kill. The recent shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is made even more nightmarish by the location of her devastating injury. Those of us who focus on Israel-Palestine are acutely aware of this horror. Read more...

 The NYT and the Flotilla Inquiry 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - The New York Times, whose regional bureau chief has a son in the Israeli military, reports that Israel has just appointed a panel charged with investigating its attack on an aid flotilla that killed nine aid volunteers, including a 19-year-old American. Read more...

 As Israel kills and maims, Outrage is directed at Helen Thomas 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Whenever Israel commits yet another atrocity, its defenders are quick to redirect public attention away from the grisly crime scene. Currently, there are headlines about allegedly anti-Semitic comments made by senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Pundits across the land evince outrage at her off-the-cuff 25-second statement made to a man who appears to be holding a camera right in her face. Read more...

 My "Relationship" With Tom Campbell: A Wrench in the Israeli Gears 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - It’s interesting to find myself a small factor in the California race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. But before I get to that, it’s necessary to take a look at the campaigns themselves, and the system in which they’re running. Read more...

 US Media and Israeli Military: All in the Family 
Alison Weir - Recent exposés revealing that Ethan Bronner, the New York Times Israel-Palestine bureau chief, has a son in the Israeli military have caused a storm of controversy that continues to swirl and generate further revelations. Read more...

 Ethan Bronner's Conflict With Impartiality 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Ethan Bronner is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. As such, he is the editor responsible for all the news coming out of Israel-Palestine. It is his job to decide what gets reported and what doesn’t; what goes in a story and what gets cut. Read more...

 Calling Bono: Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist ... in Graves and Prisons 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - In your recent column in the New York Times, "Ten for the Next Ten," you wrote: "I’ll place my hopes on the possibility – however remote at the moment – that...people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi." Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories. Read more...

 Obama Administration Takes from American Farmers, Gives to Israel 
Alison Weir - At a time of financial crisis in the United States in which thousands of Americans have lost their jobs and homes, an Israeli news service reports that President Obama has just signed a presidential memo eliminating a tariff on Israel that protected American dairy farmers and that raised money for the American economy. Read more...

 Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova to Palestine 
Alison Weir, Washington Report - In August Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing grisly evidence suggesting that Israel had been taking Palestinian internal organs. The article, by veteran photojournalist Donald Bostrom, called for an international investigation to discover the facts. Read more...

 Videos: Alison Weir on Organ Harvesting and Israel 
Divining the News - Three videos from an interview with Alison Weir discussing allegations of Israeli organ harvesting, the Israel lobby in the U.S., and her response to accusations of anti-Semitism. WATCH

 Israeli Organ Harvesting: The New "Blood Libel"? 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Last week Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years. Read more...

 Commentary: Saving Lives by Saving Money 
Alison Weir, The Gilmer Mirror - Imagine you could help people abroad by keeping your money home. Imagine you could help bring peace to the Middle East, build a safer world and alleviate massive misery. Imagine you could begin to eliminate the requirement for long airport lines, the justification for frisking old ladies, the alleged need to discard our most cherished principles in a quest for ‘security’ against an ill-defined enemy. Read more...

 USS Liberty Remembered 42 Years Later 
Alison Weir - Today, the 42nd anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a memorial service was held at Arlington National Cemetery, sponsored by the White House Commission on Remembrance. About 8 Liberty survivors were in attendance and a few dozen friends, family, and supporters. Read more...

 Guest Opinion in The Oregonian: The truth about Israel 
Alison Weir - In his op-ed "If there were no Israel," Edward Glick asks what the Middle East would look like if Israel had never existed. Instead of answering this, however, he simply gives his own xenophobic distortion of the region today. Worse still, he doesn't explore how many of the region's real woes are attributable to Israel's violent creation 60 years ago and of its actions since. Read more...

 Alternate View of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 
Alison Weir, The Hillsboro Argus - Eight years ago I shared the typical American's lack of information on Israel-Palestine. I had watched "Exodus," was sympathetic to Israel and horrified at the Holocaust. I knew little about Palestinians beyond what I read in newspapers and saw on TV. Read more...

 Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed? 
Alison Weir, Poynter.org - On January 27th media headlines trumpeted that Palestinians had broken the latest cease-fire: a bomb had killed one Israeli soldier and injured two or three. Virtually every media outlet reported this action as a major breach in the ceasefire that had begun on January 18th: Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, CBS, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the McClatchy Newspapers, etc, all pinned the resumption of violence on Palestinians. There's just one problem. Israeli forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times. Read more...

 Is "pundit" actually Israeli military officer? 
Alison Weir - CNN, CBS and others use an analyst who appears to be in the foreign military on which he is commenting and yet don't divulge this fact. Read more...

 Letting AP in on the Secret: Israeli Strip Searches 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Alison Weir details an Associated Press cover-up of Israel's long-standing practice of strip searching civilians of all ages and both sexes, in response to AP's report on the attack on Mohammed Omer. Read more...

 Should the U.S. End Aid to Israel? Funding Our Decline 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - On April 1st I participated in a debate in San Francisco that raised the question of US aid to Israel. It was highly appropriate that this debate was held two weeks before tax day, since in Israel's sixty years of existence, it has received more US tax money than any other nation on earth. Read more...

 What Our Taxes to Israel are Funding 
Alison Weir, Greenwich Citizen - Over a month after my talks at the Greenwich Library, I find that Israel loyalists are still publishing astonishingly inaccurate tirades about me in local newspapers. While the name-calling is unfortunate, it is excellent that discussion of the profoundly important topic of Israel-Palestine is continuing. Read more...

 Alison Weir’s Letter to the Editor of the Greenwich Post 
Alison Weir, Greenwich Post - A recent letter writer to the Greenwich Post challenges a statement on our website synopsis of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "When the inevitable war broke out the outcome was never in doubt, according to U.S. intelligence reports from the time. The Zionist army consisted of over 90,000 European-trained soldiers and possessed modern weaponry, including up-to-date fighter and bomber airplanes. The Arab forces, very much a third-world army, consisted of approximately 30,000 ill-equipped, poorly trained men. The U.S. Army, British intelligence, and the CIA all agreed: it would be no contest." Read more...

 American Media Miss the Boat: For USA Today, Freedom of the Press Means the Right to Report It Wrong 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - Capitol Hill, October 2003. It is a historic occasion. An independent, blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded. Read more...

 G21 Podcast Interview with Alison Weir | Read the Description 
Tod Parish & Rod Amis, G21 - Austin, TX, USA - ALISON WEIR is the Executive Director of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit organization that provides information on Israel-Palestine, with particular focus on media analysis of this issue. Read the Description | Listen / Download

 Some Muslims Are Not Bad: The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - I attended an extremely disturbing event Thursday night. It was hosted by WETA, the PBS station in Washington DC, and was part of the national launch of an 11-part PBS series, "America at a Crossroads," to begin airing April 15. It featured clips from the series followed by a panel discussion with some of those involved in the films, moderated by Robert MacNeil. The panel discussion represented a "wide" spectrum of opinions: all the way from, at one end, suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists to, at the other end, suggesting that some Muslims are not terrorists. Read more...

 Humiliation and Child Abuse at Israeli Borders & Airports: Strip-Searching Children 
Alison Weir in Counter Punch - Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens. While organizations that focus on Israel-Palestine have long been aware that Israeli border officials regularly strip search men and women, If Americans Knew appears to be the first organization that has specifically investigated the policy of strip searching women. In the course of its investigation, If Americans Knew was astonished to learn that Israeli officials have also been strip searching young girls as young as seven and below. Read more...

 Just Another Mother Murdered 
Alison Weir in Counter Punch - Almost no one bothered to report it. A search of the nation’s largest newspapers turned up nothing in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Houston Chronicle, Tampa Tribune, etc. Read more...

 AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy 
Alison Weir - In the midst of journalism’s “Sunshine Week” – during which the Associated Press and other news organizations are valiantly proclaiming the public’s “right to know” – AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting. Read more...

 Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound? 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - Why don’t Americans Know what’s going on in Israel/Palestine? The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care. Read more...

 My Bethlehem Experience 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - Last night at something called “The Bethlehem Experience,” a local church’s reenactment of Bethlehem 2000 years ago, I handed out “Bethlehem Christmas cards” designed by Quakers in Michigan. These wonderful cards have a photo of the Israeli wall imprisoning Bethlehem on one side and information on the situation in Bethlehem on the other. The wall photo shows a painting on the wall of a young girl holding balloons that are carrying her aloft and over the wall to freedom. Read more...

 Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You’re Against Torture, So Why’d You Give Israel a Pass? 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - I’ve just phoned The Daily Show at 212.767.8600 and left you a message; I also faxed you at 212.468.1890. I hope other people will also! I’m sure glad you’re against torture. I just wish you were also against torture by Israel. I was pretty astounded to hear you chatting with John McCain last night, nodding along as AIPAC-buddy McCain explained that the US should emulate Israel, “which doesn’t torture people.” Read more...

 Letter to Los Angeles Times: Palestinian Deaths 
Los Angeles Times - In the July 13 story on the suicide bombing in Israel, which killed three Israelis, you include information about Israeli deaths going back to 2001. Nowhere is there mention that Palestinians have also been killed during this period -- in far greater numbers. In fact, in the current intifada about 250 Palestinians were killed before a single suicide bombing occurred in Israel. Read more...

 The Coverage—and Non-Coverage—of Israel-Palestine 
Alison Weir in AMEU’s The Link - In the fall of 2004, we visited the Palestinian Territories. Such a simple statement, and such a complicated reality. Let me try again... In the fall of 2004, we visited a large, open-air prison. A prison whose guards keep people out, when they choose to, as well as in, humiliating and violating those they dislike; a prison into which the jailers periodically shoot and send regiments of destruction; a prison full of mini-prisons and convoluted rules that change with the wind. A complicated, teeming prison in which there are wedding festivals and dancing; where babies laugh and the tea is flavored with mint and sage; and where desperation silently waits. Read more...

 New York Times Distortion: Up Close and Personal 
Alison Weir in Znet - A little over a week ago, some members of our organization, If Americans Knew, met with New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent to discuss the findings of a detailed study we had completed of two years worth of Times news stories on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Okrent was going to be writing a column discussing the paper’s coverage of Israel/Palestine, and we felt our study would be an important resource. Read more...

 Uprising on the Anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s Death 
March 15, 2005 - There is a quiet battle going on for the memory of a young woman who could have been my daughter, or perhaps yours. On one side are those who would like to erase her from history her actions, her beliefs, her murder. If they are unsuccessful at that, they will settle for posthumous slurs on her character, falsifications of her death. Read more...

 Levantamientos en el aniversario de una muerte en Español 

 The Meaning of Calm: Relativity, LA Times Style 
February 25, 2005 - Well, I just got hung up on again. This time by an editor on the Los Angeles Times foreign desk. He didn’t give me his name. I had called and attempted, as politely as possible, to give him a correction for the story on the Times’ website tonight. This will probably be their front-page lead news story tomorrow morning. Read more...

 Russia, Israel and Media Coverage 
February 17, 2005 - As is often the case with AP’s coverage of news having to do with Israel, there’s a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even when it involves oil and the United States. Read more...

 Making America as ‘Secure’ as Israel 
February 3, 2005 - When you’re receiving advice “free” or otherwise it’s wise to first evaluate the source. It’s probably not the best idea to hire a squinting optometrist, a limping podiatrist, or a toothless dentist. If you’re considering a heart surgeon and a search for his previous patients turns up too many graves, perhaps it’s time to reconsider. In fact, if he’s having heart pains, in all kindness perhaps you should call him a doctor. Read more...

 Heroism in the Holy Land: Chris Brown Beaten for Walking Children to School 
October 6, 2004 – There are a small number of people around the world who exhibit extraordinary courage. An even smaller number commit repeated acts of heroism. San Francisco resident Chris Brown is one of them. Read more...

 Censored 2005: Israel and Palestine, Choosing Sides 
The most monumental cover-up in media history may be the one I’m about to describe. In my entire experience with American journalism, I have never found anything as extreme, sustained, and omnipresent. Read more...

 “Close Your Organization or Die” 
October 18/19, 2003 - Left on our office voicemail at 2 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2003:
“Hi. I heard your speech today in UC Berkeley; the debate. I’m telling you this right now. On Monday, at 2 PM, you better not be in your office. Because me and my buddies, who were trained in the Israeli Army, will come and kill every single one of you son-of -a-bitches for what you are doing to destroy Israel. So watch out. This is not a joke. On Monday you better watch out. Don’t come to work. And close your organization or you’re going to die.” Read more...

 “Ferme ton organisation sinon tu vas mourir” 

 Alison Weir’s Opening Statement in Berkeley Debate 
October 2, 2003 - Let me begin by emphasizing that I have no reason to take a “side” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am not Muslim, I am not Jewish, I have no Middle Eastern heritage or family connections. But for the last 3 years I have spent most of my waking hours studying this urgent issue. Let me share with you my findings. Read more...

 Israel, We Won’t Forget Rachel 
April 3, 2003 - On March 16th, an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer two-stories high crushed to death 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, an American nonviolent human rights protestor. According to numerous witnesses and photographic documentation, she was killed intentionally. Read more...

 Choosing to Act: Anti-Semitism is Wrong 
Alison Weir - Perhaps one of the most difficult things for a decent person to do is to act in a way that feels somehow disloyal. To betray one’s family and friends, one’s deeply held principles, is wrenching, disorienting, shaming. For a decent person, it is profoundly difficult to do something that feels so immeasurably wrong. Read more...

 Unprinted Oped to San Jose Mercury News 
Alison Weir - Yesterday Israeli forces using American F-16s and American missiles killed more children. More children. Read more...

From Would-be Volunteer Peacekeeper to Involuntary Israeli Detainee
Alison Weir - Sometimes it seems essential to do more than you’ve been doing—to emphatically and physically oppose violence and injustice. Read more...

Being a Target
February 18, 2001 - I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I was sort of shot at yesterday. I say “sort of” because I don’t think the Israeli soldiers in their tower were trying to hit me, or the people with me... if that had been their purpose I have no doubt that they would have. There is massive evidence here that their aim is quite good. I think they were simply asserting their power. And I think they were trying to intimidate me, as a foreigner, into leaving the area. Read more...