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SAN FRANCISCO - As soon as I saw If Americans Knew, I realized that it presented a challenging, fact-filled look at how Americans remain insulated from their own government's policy actions in the Middle East, most specifically in and about Israel. What I found interesting was that a person like Alison Weir, who had no natural affiliation to either side of the situation, should have launched such an effort. G21 conducted and e-mail interview with Ms. Weir last week for your benefit. She was quite forthcoming and provided some of the most detailed answers of any interview subject in recent memory.G21: The positions taken at If Americans Knew are certainly not part of the mainstream discourse about the Middle East. What led to you espouse your positions about this situation?
ALISON WEIR: I'll first describe what led me to become involved in this issue, and then I'll clarify our positions.
Five years ago, when the current Palestinian uprising began, I knew almost nothing about Israel and Palestine. I'm neither Jewish nor Muslim nor Arab and had never paid attention to this issue before. At that time, I was the editor of a small newspaper in Sausalito, California, very involved in local issues.
But then the current Intifada began in fall of 2000 and I began to be curious about the subject. As I researched it more and more, I was increasingly shocked and outraged at what I found -- and, particularly, by how much of this was being omitted by the American press. After s everal months of this, I finally decided to quit my job and travel to the region as a freelance journalist to see for myself what was going on.
In my month traveling alone throughout the West Bank and Gaza, I saw devastation far beyond what our media were reporting. I saw entire communities in ruins, cropland destroyed, children maimed.
When you've seen what I saw, it changes your life -- especially when you know that you and your friends and your community are responsible, and have the power to stop it. I returned determined that I would tell people the truth, and founded a nonprofit organization to work on this. Since then I've traveled back to the region several times, read dozens of books, interviewed numerous experts from diverse specialties, and researched media coverage extensively.
G21: That's certainly a compelling personal story. So go ahead and outline the positions you've reached for us.
ALISON WEIR: At If Americans Knew, our position is very simple (I'll quote the opening statement on our website):
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's major sources of instability. Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation. It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power - and duty - to bring a resolution."Now let's examine this view, point by point, and consider how each matches or departs from mainstream discourse:
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's major sources of instability."
While this fact is less frequently stated than in the past, I suspect that very few, if any, Americans with knowledge of history would disagree. Most experts consider the region a tinderbox and fear that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at its core could provide the spark that will set it - and the world - aflame. Let us look at the history:
There have been seven major wars in the region in the past fifty years, all of them with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at their core. American military personnel have been involved in at least four of these wars, British and French forces in at least four of them, and numerous additional nations have been involved in the last two.
Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons and came extremely close to using them in 1973. Israel has never signed a single nonproliferation pact, and frequently wields the implied threat of its substantial nuclear arsenal to intimidate other nations in the region - and world.
Because Israel has a record of attacking its neighbors - mounting massive invasions of surrounding territory in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1982 - and continues to wage military operations in Lebanon and Syria at will (most recently Jan 17th) its possession of nuclear weapons causes other nations in the region great concern. It is only natural to expect some to conclude that they must now develop a nuclear deterrent in response to Israel.
"Americans are directly connected to this conflict"
This position is also widely shared by others - when they know the facts. Sadly, however, because the media so rarely report on US financial aid to Israel - and virtually never give the total - many people are unaware of this enormous connection to the violence.
Similarly, the media extremely rarely report on US diplomatic initiatives in the United Nations and elsewhere to block international actions on Israel, so this substantial connection also is widely unknown. Again, let's look at the facts:
Similarly, American officials shield Israel from efforts to require it participate in real peace negotiations. The Clinton team of "honest brokers," meant to mediate, were in actuality all Jewish-Americans with a record of close ties to Israel. A typical such American "honest broker" is former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. Originally Australian, Indyk had American citizenship quickly conferred on him when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC - the powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization) chose him to serve as the Middle East advisor on the National Security Council. (In 2000, incidentally, Indyk's security clearance was lifted by the State Department for a month for "suspected violations" of security standards. Nevertheless, he remains among the pantheon of "American experts" on this area, and the media report little about his allegiance to Israel.
- American taxpayers give Israel over $10 million per day (far more than we give, by the way, to any other nation on earth - more, for example, than to all of sub-Saharan Africa put together). With this money Israel has financed a military force more powerful than all others in the region, combined. In fact, it is generally rated at least the fifth most powerful military on earth. Keep in mind, by the way, that Israel has a population smaller than the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Of equal importance, American officials regularly act on behalf of Israel in the international arena. For example, in the United Nations alone US representatives have vetoed numerous Security Council resolutions [regarding] ... Israel.
Incidentally, it used to be rare for the US to block resolutions. Israel's presence on the scene changed that.
Because of this massive financial and diplomatic support for Israel, Americans hold a major responsibility for Israeli actions. It is our position that the American public should be accurately and fully informed of this connection. What Israel does or does not do, therefore, is not an abstract issue. We are paying for it. Our officials are enabling it. The world knows that. Americans need to know it, too.
Americans are "increasingly imperiled by its devastation."
Again, this statement is shared by people who know that:
This is a strong statement. Let me provide just a little of the massive evidence for it. To keep this to a manageable length, I'll just list the facts, and provide links to additional information:
- Americans hold a great deal of responsibility for Israeli actions (as demonstrated above)
- Israel uses our tax money and diplomatic cover to carry out systematic human rights abuses characterized by ferocity, cruelty, and ruthlessness against men, women, and children, on behalf of a system based on discrimination.
The list could go on and on.
- Israeli soldiers have regularly targeted children. In the first three and a half months they killed 84 children - the largest single cause of their deaths was "gunfire to the head." By the way, not a single Israeli child was killed during this entire time. Thousands of Palestinian children have been shot. When you visit Palestinian hospitals you meet these children. They have bullets in [their] heads, backs, legs; shattered femurs, mouths with teeth shot out. (For example, see Shoot to Maim.)
- Israel imprisons - often without trial - thousands of Palestinians. These prisoners are routinely beaten, frequently tortured, frequently kept in filthy, intolerable conditions. Over 300 of them are minors. Children are often arrested at night, beaten by the arresting soldiers, and thrown in prison without even being charged. Their parents are unable to defend them. A human rights lawyer in Ramallah told me that he can do little for them, other than being a witness to the injustice of the proceedings when they are finally brought to a military court. (For more on this see: http://www.dci-pal.org/. For more on Is rael's brutality toward prisoners see http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/torture.html)
- Israeli forces have demolished thousands of Palestinian homes and have razed thousands of acres of Palestinian croplands - ancient olive groves, orchards, strawberry fields, etc. This is collective punishment, and is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. It is cruel, unnecessary, and intended to push Christians and Muslims off the land so that Israel may acquire it for Jewish-only habitation.
The point is that the American public, without knowing it, is paying for this devastation. We, therefore, share responsibility for it. We are the source of this misery.
This means, of course, that we are at potential risk from those who would defend their families. We have seen from the twin towers tragedy what it feels like to be attacked - to have loved ones killed, innocent people mutilated, heroes burned to death. We have seen in our own nation the subsequent determination to prevent such attacks from recurring by mounting a violent defense targeting those we are told are the source of potential future attacks.
Israel's brutal use of our tax money not only wreaks tragedy in the region, it endangers Americans at home and abroad.
G21: How do you respond to individuals who might feel your positions give comfort to members of the Intifada and others who use violent methods to oppose Israel's claim to a right to exist and its policies to uphold that right?
ALISON WEIR: My position - that an informed American public will stop financing and enabling Israeli violence - ends the cycle of violence at its source. When Israeli leaders stop receiving a blank check from American taxpayers with which to continue their fifty-year-long attempt to crush and eliminate an entire population, they will be forced to negotiate a compromise that will finally bring peace.
In the meantime, it is not surprising that Palestinian resistance fighters use violence against their invaders. They're in massive company: the French resistance in World War II, American soldiers in the Revolutionary War, Polish fighters against the Nazis and then against the Soviets, etc.
What's widely unknown, however, is that Palestinians frequently use nonviolent resistance, as well.
In fact, for decades they used little violence in response to their 1948 expulsion, when approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians - somewhere between 700,000 and 850,000 men, women, and children, Christians and Muslims, were forced off their land - so that Israel could be established as the "Jewish State."
These Palestinian farmers, villagers, teachers, shopkeepers, etc. expected that the world would stand up for their right to return to their homes. The world passed numerous resolutions in the United Nations that these people, of course, had the right to return. When Israel refused to allow them to return - calling those who tried to come back "infiltrators" and shooting them - the world did nothing but attempt to pass more resolutions, which the US increasingly began to block. [CONTINUES NEXT PAGE.]
WEIR INTERVIEW PAGE 1 2
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