Wikipedia’s entry on Alison Weir is rife with falsehoods and bias
Wikipedia’s entry on Alison Weir is rife with falsehoods and bias
For many people, Wikipedia is a leading information source on various topics, partly because Google searches prominently feature it – often listing it as the top link for public figures. However, Wikipedia is not reliable.
Wikipedia’s entries are written and continuously edited by anonymous individuals with virtually no accountability. Sadly, this reality has left Wikipedia open to concerted efforts to control the narrative on certain topics, especially Israel-Palestine.
The Wikipedia entry on Alison Weir is among those targeted by Israel partisans. It contains numerous false claims and misinformation, which we will document below. The entire entry is largely based on 3 or 4 discredited articles and ignores the majority of Alison’s work and thousands of other, more informative sources.
It is crucial that Wikipedia correct this.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Background: Manipulation of Wikipedia
- Correcting the Wikipedia entry on Alison Weir
- Overview of problems with the Wikipedia entry on Alison Weir
- Annotation of the Wikipedia Entry on Alison Weir
Background: Manipulation of Wikipedia
Israeli government efforts to edit Wikipedia entries have been documented. In an article entitled “How Israel and its partisans work to censor the Internet,” Alison documented a number of these projects. Below are a few examples:
Such actions have had an impact. A website focused on Wikipedia said in 2014 that on the site there were “almost ten times as many articles about murdered Israeli children as there are articles about murdered Palestinian children,” even though at least 10 times more Palestinian children had been killed.
The website also pointed out: “While editors like Zeq (T–C–L) and CltFn (T–C–L) may get banned in the end, the articles they started remain.”
In addition, longtime activist David Rovics has documented how a handful of self-styled “anarchist” or “antifa” writers work to edit Wikipedia pages of longtime opponents of Israel’s massive human rights abuses against Palestinians.
These “antifa” activists (who in fact show an authoritarian bent) coordinate with a small group of mostly anonymous internet “trolls” to marginalize longtime opponents of Israel’s massive human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The people they have gone after include Norman Finkelstein, Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Alison Weir, Vijay Prashad, Max Blumenthal, and others, as well as Rovics himself.
This group also goes after progressive media, including CounterPunch, Mintpress News, and Dissident Voice.
Rovics argues that the cohort’s efforts work to “destroy the movement, one victim at a time.”
One of these writers, Alexander Reid Ross, has had his work retracted and discredited, yet continues unabated. The Grayzone reported: “Ross’ blog posts were so full of errors and slanderous attacks that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was forced to delete his entire archive.” Also see this piece by Vijay Prashad, another person the group has attacked.
One of the two co-founders of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, now frequently criticizes how it has evolved. He says: “People that I would say are trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum.” Among these were what he termed “the anarchist crowd” in an apparent reference to self-styled “antifa” writers.
Correcting the Wikipedia entry on Alison Weir
If Americans Knew urges Wikipedia editors to correct the outrageous inaccuracies and misleading claims in the entry, as well as to create a more balanced and accurate overall picture of the body of Alison Weir’s lifetime of work.
While Wikipedia claims to provide a process for the subject of an inaccurate Wikipedia page, and/or the subject’s associates, to correct the page, this convoluted process unfortunately appears to be just as vulnerable to manipulation as the entry itself.
Therefore, If Americans Knew will provide a public rebuttal here. We urge anyone who uses Wikipedia as a source of information, or who knows people who do, to refer to this.
Here is an outline of the overall problems with the entry. Below we will give specific responses to each inaccurate or misleading claim in the entry, including noting citation problems and providing alternative sources that Wikipedia could cite.
(Note: Given that various parties are clearly dedicating significant time to coordinated efforts to silence Alison and others whose dissent they wish to obscure, we’re certain that new misinformation, new accusations, and new accusers will pop up in the future as some are countered, along with new articles rehashing the same debunked claims. It is still imperative that Wikipedia push back by correcting entries now and continuously in the future.)
Overview of problems with the Wikipedia entry on Alison Weir
- False and misleading claims have been inserted throughout the entry, citing a handful of articles with demonstrable problems by biased or unreliable publications or writers, which reference each other as sources. The specific falsehoods are documented in the annotated section below. We will highlight just one egregious example here: At one point, Wikipedia cites a Tablet article to attribute a quote by a 19th century Jewish writer to Alison! [Click to jump to this example below.]
- The Wikipedia entry gives undue prominence to these unreliable attack articles again and again, while failing to quote many other articles, posts, and videos about Alison that do not smear her. A balanced entry would draw on many more of the available sources.
- The underlying issue, regardless of which few attack articles are cited, is that the Wikipedia entry (1) gives undue prominence to a few minor elements out of Alison’s enormous body of work and interviews, and (2) it significantly misrepresents those elements. The specific topics are addressed below. In doing so, the Wikipedia entry entirely omits or minimizes other elements of Alison’s work that have had much larger impact and distribution. This creates a misleading picture of her work and impact, making the whole entry unbalanced and deceptive.
Annotation of the Wikipedia Entry on Alison Weir
The Wikipedia entry is reproduced below in its entirety, with annotations highlighted in yellow:
Note: Wikipedia entries can and often do change from day to day. The specific Wikipedia entry annotated here is archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240920194437/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Weir_(activist) [accessed on September 09, 2024]
Alison Weir (activist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the British author, see Alison Weir.
Alison Weir is an American activist and writer known for her interest in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew (IAK), president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI), and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
She is known for her critical views toward Israel and its supporters[1] and for critiquing media coverage of Israel.
Notes from IAK:
- The mention of Alison’s media criticism should have a citation. For example: Examining Big Media’s ‘Israeli-Centric Perspectives’ — FAIR, Analysis of Media Coverage of Israel/Palestine
- The citation for the first part of the sentence links to an inaccurate article by Israeli journalist Yair Rosenberg in Tablet Magazine, which is full of misinformation and should be considered an unreliable source. (A Mondoweiss article reports Rosenberg “has been a Netanyahu ideological ally.”) Wikipedia should remove that citation.
- This sentence does not maintain a neutral point of view. There are many other statements and sources about what Alison is known for that Wikipedia could include, drawing from the multitude of sources and work listed in the overview section above.
Activism and views
Weir traces her interest in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to the autumn of 2000, when the Second Intifada began. At the time she was “the editor of a small weekly newspaper in Sausalito, California“, and noticed that news reports on the conflict “were highly Israeli-centric”. Wanting access to “full information”, she “began to look for additional reports on the Internet”. After several months, she decided that “this was perhaps the most covered-up story I had ever seen” and quit her job in order to visit the West Bank and Gaza, where she wrote about her encounters with Palestinian suffering and with the “incredible arrogance, cruelty, selfishness” of Israelis.
Notes from IAK:
While traveling in the West Bank and Gaza in early 2001, Alison wrote extensively about what she saw, giving specific eyewitness accounts of the “Palestinian suffering” that this Wikipedia sentence references so vaguely. She also wrote, “Again and again, I can’t believe the incredible arrogance, cruelty, selfishness I’m seeing.” She clearly did not say that all Israelis were arrogant, cruel, or selfish and would never make such a foolish claim. In fact, she often cites Israeli journalists and activists in her articles. Why not simply cite the full sentence, which is very short, instead of truncating it in order to insert words she never wrote ー unless the editors’ goal was to misconstrue her words?
Wikipedia should include other more representative quotes from the passage cited. If it also keeps the existing quote, the sentence should be quoted in full.
It would be more accurately representative of the passage to include one or more quotes about the Palestinian suffering she witnessed, or her report of being shot at by Israeli forces. (This was shortly after Israeli forces shot an American working for the Associated Press, destroying her pelvis, and before Israeli forces bulldozed American Rachel Corrie to death.)
After returning to the U.S., she founded If Americans Knew.[3] [non-primary source needed] Weir’s official biography says her activism draws on her history of involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement, her work in the Peace Corps, and her childhood in a military family.[4]
Weir has alleged that Israel’s US supporters are responsible for involving America in wars.[5]
Notes from IAK:
The citation and wording here are highly problematic. Alison has written about extensive evidence regarding efforts by specific Zionist individuals, organizations, and even the Israeli government to promote war policies in the U.S. However, it is inaccurate to say she claimed “Israel’s US supporters are responsible for involving America in wars.” This indicates that she says all supporters of Israel in the U.S. support war, which is incorrect and which she does not say.
In addition, rather than mention any of the evidence Alison documents, the entry cites an article in The Times of Israel, written by Israeli journalist Marcy Oster. The article focuses on unfounded accusations from the ADL, American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs, and the Progressive Zionists of California. All are Israel advocacy organizations known for maligning supporters of justice for Palestinians.
A neutral Wikipedia entry would cite Alison’s detailed articles and statements directly, which would show them to be well documented.
For example, the entry could reference the video, “How Pro-Israel Neocons Pushed Iraq War, which cites Israeli journalists, and Alison’s articles discussing this, e.g. “Israeli Journalist reports that Israel Is Pushing US into War with Iran,” “Israel escalates efforts to get US to attack Iran, as it did Iraq,” and “Will the Israel Lobby Cause America’s Downfall?”
Notes from IAK:
Regarding Nazis and Zionists, Alison discusses this in an article published by CounterPunch and in her book. It is strange to include this one element from the book while excluding the extensive and highly cited other information covered in the book. It is not clear that it’s worth including this topic in the Wikipedia entry at all, but if it is included it should (1) be part of a summary of the book as a whole and (2) include Alison’s sources for this information.
- At least as relevant from the book are a number of very strong statements it cites from U.S. State Department officials who opposed the 1940s creation of Israel on land already inhabited by Palestinians, saying it would be immoral, destabilizing, and counter to U.S. interests.
- If the topic is included, Wikipedia must at least state that Alison sources her information on this topic to writings by such significant authors as Hannah Arendt, Edwin Black, Lenni Brenner, and Tom Segev, among others. A more accurate statement on this topic would say something like: “Her book cites writings by Hannah Arendt and others alleging that Nazi and Zionist leaders collaborated to displace Jewish residents from Germany to Palestine during World War II.” For context, here is an excerpt of the book on that subject. This segment is so heavily documented that the citations for the section are longer than the section itself.
Notes from IAK:
Alison never said this. This is a prime example of a tiny social media conversation being drastically misrepresented and presented out of context ー classic hallmarks of smear campaigns ー and given inappropriate prominence in the Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia’s citation for this sensationalist and inaccurate statement is an article in Tablet by Israel partisan Benjamin Gladstone, “Young Anti-Zionist Jews Claim to Speak For My Generation. They Don’t. It’s Time We Called Them On It.” In the same paragraph, Gladstone also attacks Israeli activist Miko Peled.
Gladstone’s link for this claim is a 2016 If Americans Knew Facebook post inviting conversation on a prominent Times of Israel report titled “Obama nominates Jewish judge Merrick Garland for Supreme Court – Garland will become fourth Jewish jurist on bench if confirmed.”
The post did not say there were “too many Jews” on the court (offensive and inflammatory language that is nothing like Alison’s precise and heavily cited writing and speeches). Rather, it invited consideration of the impact that a lack of diverse backgrounds among justices might have. It noted an imbalance in which Muslim Americans, Protestant Americans, and Asian Americans had no representation on the court.
The post discussed legal cases regarding Israel-Palestine, as well as the topic of disproportionate representation, saying in part:
Whether or not Judge Garland would be a neutral arbiter of justice on Israel (and this may entirely be the case, even if it turns out he has personal or family connections to Israel), there is a matter of fairness that may be of concern. It seems questionable for one small group to have enormously disproportionate representation on the highest court of the land, while other groups of equal or greater number, have none. Opinions on this may differ; it is certainly appropriate to discuss.
The post argued that it’s often considered appropriate to discuss issues of representation: “When there was concern that there were no women on the court, such concerns were not ‘anti-male.’”
It also noted that others who had raised similar concerns were former AIPAC staffer MJ Rosenberg and former chair of the Jewish Committee On the Middle East Mark Bruzonsky.
Finally, the post argued for the value of diverse voices (a value frequently espoused in the U.S. these days): “While many people may transcend their potential chauvinism and bias – whether it be based on ethnicity, race, gender, or religion – most of us feel that both fairness of opportunity and fairness of outcome are better served by diversity than by extreme overrepresentation of some groups and underrepresentation of others.”
Incidentally, it turns out that Garland is a member of a Washington DC synagogue whose website says that one of “the primary reasons members belong to Temple Sinai” is “concern for Israel as a Jewish homeland.”
Notes from IAK:
This is the most outrageous and wildly inaccurate claim in the whole entry, and illustrates the extreme unreliability of Wikipedia on topics related to Israel-Palestine.In reality, this quote is from a Jewish author writing in the 1800s! It was quoted by another Jewish writer, a Palestine supporter named Roger Tucker, as one small part of a very long article.
Alison reposted that article on her low-traffic personal blog as one of a roundup of articles by other pro-Palestine writers discussing efforts to effectively “cancel” a pro-Palestinian Israeli journalist that were causing a big controversy among activists at the time. Alison republished a roundup of articles from other sources to showcase the conversation around this controversy.
Yet, an anonymous Wikipedia editor literally attributes this 1894 statement to her, again citing the Tablet Magazine article by Yair Rosenberg mentioned above. Wikipedia should correct this immediately and block future edits citing the unreliable Tablet article.
Notes from IAK:
This is another case of giving undue prominence to a few articles in Alison’s huge body of work, and it is also presented in a misleading and outlandishly biased way that, among other things, completely erases Palestinian voices. If this tiny portion of Alison’s work is discussed at all, it should be balanced by other information from her more prominent work.
Even more importantly, Wikipedia must correct its language to be accurate and maintain a neutral point of view. If this sentence is kept in the entry, it should give information about her sources and it should remove the absurd “blood libel” smear.
Alison documented numerous credible claims by legitimate sources and experts in the field, reporting on expert testimony from Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Chancellor’s Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, the founder of Organ Watch, and the author of scholarly books and articles on organ trafficking. (She was the pundit the mainstream media called upon for expert commentary on the topic.)
Palestinians have repeatedly raised concerns of organ harvesting over many years. A fair mention of the subject would cite statements by living family members of alleged victims. The current formulation literally erases Palestinian voices, instead prioritizing medieval Europeans over living Palestinians.
Finally, there are problems with the citations given for this sentence. The first citation is the Tablet article by Yair Rosenberg mentioned above, which should be excluded as an unreliable source. The second one is the Times of Israel article by Marcy Oster also discussed above. Neither provides any links for their claims.
Finally, the third citation links to the shorter of Alison’s two detailed, thoroughly cited articles, published by Counterpunch and the Washington Report for Middle East affairs. It omits the second, longer and even more cited article, and it also omits any mention of her follow-up discussions on why she wrote the articles and updates on the claims. If this is to be included at all, it should reference accurate and complete information.
Notes from IAK:
No, Alison has not and does not partner with white supremacists or Holocaust deniers. This is an absurd accusation. This inflammatory accusation is clearly designed to silence Alison and intimidate people out of reading her work or speaking up about the plight of Palestinians, and Wikipedia should remove it immediately.
The first citation for this is the Benjamin Gladstone article in the Tablet mentioned above. Interestingly, Gladstone’s citation for this outlandish claim provides no evidence of Alison “partnering” with anyone. Rather, it simply is a link to a video of her being interviewed by phone on an obscure internet radio program hosted by a man named Clayton Douglas. (As discussed in detail below, granting an interview does not constitute a partnership. Moreover, Alison has never claimed to vet interviewers and has always held that it is crucial to share documented information and principled opinions with every audience available.)
The second citation is to the aforementioned article in The Forward about a detailed report Weir had written, although the Forward article does not even link to her actual article.
Neither citation actually even mentions the American Free Press, a conservative magazine, so that part of the false Wikipedia claim is entirely uncited.
However, a search of the AFP website reveals a few articles about Alison. For example, one reports on a talk she gave at a rally in Dearborn Michigan: “Hard Realities of U.S. Aid to Israel Outlined in Michigan Speech.” Another is about her book: “Historical Book on Israel Censored in U.S.” And another is an interview with Alison about the Palestine issue. (AFP also has published interviews with Medea Benjamin and with then-head of Jewish Voice for Peace Rebecca Vilkomerson, as well as articles about numerous others working on the Israel-Palestine issue.)
Alison and If Americans Knew strenuously object to any claim that they “partner with” or “work with” outlets or individuals who have interviewed Alison, reposted her work, or written about her or If Americans Knew.
A Youtuber or a website interviewing or writing about Alison does not constitute “partnering” with them. That kind of extreme guilt-by-association claim is both designed to quell all dissent and is patently absurd. It would be like saying that because Barack Obama was quoted on Fox News or CNN, he had partnered with them and was responsible for anything else either outlet ever did.
For those who are interested, here is some additional context: Alison has been interviewed by a great number of radio, TV, internet, and print journalists and independent content producers over the last 20+ years. She has not discriminated about where she would appear, instead attempting to get information out whenever and wherever she could. She has appeared on a wide spectrum of outlets, from a rightwing Israeli radio program to Iranian TV to left-wing platforms and a whole host of U.S. programs all across the political spectrum (a few are here).
Time permitting, Alison has agreed to as many interviews as possible, with the goal of reaching as many audiences as possible with factual information about Israel-Palestine. She has always held that it was crucial to share documented information and principled opinions with every audience available. There has been an incredible media blackout on this issue, particularly during the earlier years of her work, and at times almost the only hope of getting information out was via small and alternative programs and sites.
While some liberal advocates of Palestinian justice or other causes object to being interviewed on conservative stations, she has argued that it is especially essential that the listeners of these programs learn the facts on Israel-Palestine. She has consistently held that the best chance to affect U.S. policy is informing as many U.S. voters as possible about the horrible tragedies of Israel-Palestine, and the best means to counteract Islamophobia is to get factual information to rightwing audiences in addition to left-leaning ones.
Notes from IAK:
Once again, this assertion is based entirely on the same obscure, inflammatory, and dishonest articles as much of what has come before it: the entirely unreliable Yair Rosenberg Tablet article, the Benjamin Gladstone Tablet article, and the Forward article, also discussed above.
The reliance of the Wikipedia entry on these highly flawed sources paints a clear picture of an entry that has been hijacked by internet trolls aimed at preventing important facts from reaching a wide audience.
They ignore Alison’s hundreds of interviews, most often on liberal programs, and instead repeats inaccurate claims by critics who honed in on one interviewer with an obscure internet radio program, who interviewed Alison by phone a few times.
The Douglas show is an extremely obscure internet program with almost no followers. The transcript of this interview seems to have first been highlighted on an antifa related website that was launched in 2010 to target If Americans Knew and Alison. The site seems to have been launched by an Israel partisan and antifa associate named Robert Foster Ogman.
On the Douglas shows, Alison informed listeners in detail about Palestine, spoke against racism, reminded Douglas that many Jewish Americans and Israelis oppose Zionism, conveyed her belief that all people should be treated with compassion and respect, and opposed violence, eliciting his agreement with many of these views.
She didn’t use her airtime to try to address the somewhat long, rambling statements that Douglas occasionally strung together over the somewhat fuzzy phone line before getting to his questions for her, and instead focused on conveying her message to whatever audience might hear it.
Apparently Douglas played a quote from David Duke to Alison, but she did not hear who the source was and as such was not responding to Douglas playing Duke’s words.
Many people have written to If Americans Knew in support, condemning smears on Alison based on this minor exchange.
Regardless, no matter what individuals think of the Douglas interview, it is highly inappropriate for Wikipedia to highlight it while omitting the hundreds of other interviews Alison has taken part in, virtually all on more significant platforms with vastly more listeners.
Notes from IAK:
Once again, the entry intentionally misleads readers by using the words “worked with” to describe people who have quoted her work or who she has briefly met. The citation for this claim again links to the Forward article mentioned above.
This reports: “Her message has appeared in ‘The Final Call,’ a publication of the Nation of Islam, according to the ADL; she was photographed with Ashahed Muhammad of the NOI at an American Muslims for Palestine event.” As above, this in no way indicates that Alison “worked with” the Nation of Islam, and Wikipedia should remove this unsupported claim.
Furthermore, Alison is pleased to have conversations with many people of diverse backgrounds and found her few interactions with Final Call staff professional and pleasant. She dislikes the whiff of racism this Wikipedia statement contains. She is of course willing to be interviewed by Final Call.
Many others have also been interviewed by Final Call, including author Marc Lamont Hill.
The Final Call often has articles about Palestine, e.g.:
Weir’s writings include exhortations to action. In an article, she wrote: “Every generation has a chance to act courageously – to oppose the kind of injustice and unthinkable brutality that is going on in the Middle East right now. Or to avert our eyes, and remain silent.”[9]
Weir has written that “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to grave events in the world—and in our nation—today.”[10] In writing about antisemitism, Weir has argued, “in reality, equating the wrongdoing of Israel with Jewishness is the deepest and most insidious form of anti-Semitism of all.”[9]
Reception and controversy
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called Weir “a prominent voice in the anti-Israel movement”.[11] According to The Forward, “Though influential in anti-Israel circles, Weir has been accused of animosity toward the Jewish state and antisemitism, including by the Anti-Defamation League. In a 10-page report, the ADL describes Weir as someone who ’employs anti-Semitic imagery’ and portrays ‘Israel and its agents as ruthless forces that control American policy.'”[8]
Notes from IAK:
There are many problems with this section, specifically it (1) fails to maintain any semblance of a neutral point of view and (2) it relies on the ADL, yet Wikipedia editors themselves have raised specific concerns about using the ADL as a source.
- The section is titled “Reception and Controversy” and yet it focuses
only on accusations designed to undermine Alison and her work. The
first sentence contains non-neutral Israel-centric framing, which is not
surprising given that it is a quote from the ADL, an Israel advocacy
organization. Many people would term Alison as a prominent voice in the pro-justice, pro-human
rights movement. A neutral point of view would include some of the many
positive statements about Alison and her work in this section, such as
the praise her book has received from prominent people, and the fact it
has well over 1,000 5-star reviews
on Amazon. For example, Wikipedia could include any of these published
statements or characterizations of Alison (in no particular order):
- “The indefatigable Alison Weir’s If Americans Knew blog, one of the most reliable and versatile sources of news on Palestine/Israel.” – Professor Raouf J. Halaby
- “Internationally Renowned Media Critic and Middle East Expert” – Salem News
- “Ms. Weir writes and speaks widely on the Middle East and is the author of a meticulously sourced book on the history of the US-Israel relationship” – Arab World Books
- “Weir is generally considered the foremost analyst on media coverage of Israel-Palestine.” College of Charleston
- “Alison Weir is at the forefront of combating the biased coverage of Israeli – Palestinian conflict in the mainstream media and through her sincere efforts has revealed the plight of the Palestinian nation under the occupation of Zionist regime.” – Kourosh Ziabari
- “Alison Weir is contributing greatly to rectifying the distortion of the image of Palestinians in the American Media. Her work should be commended and supported. Her courageous voice, and the voices of other people like her, is revealing the truth and dispelling myths about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.” – Professor. Saed Abu Hijleh
- “Ms. Weir presents a powerful, well documented view of the Middle East today. She is intelligent, careful, and critical.” – Thomas Campbell, Former US Congressman (R-CA)
-
The citation for these exceedingly biased accusations is again the Forward article mentioned above. The article doesn’t provide the link to the ADL claims, making it hard for readers to evaluate them, but when we look at the ADL original, it has (unsurprisingly) misrepresented Alison’s work, as it does the work of virtually everyone who works on Palestine.
Recently, Wikipedia’s editors voted to declare the ADL “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources. JTA reported: “in a near consensus, dozens of Wikipedia editors involved in the discussion said they believe the ADL should not be cited for factual information on antisemitism as well because it acts primarily as a pro-Israel organization and tends to label legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism.” (More information on the ADL’s Israel advocacy is here.)
Yet this source is still being used to malign Alison in the Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia must remove it entirely. Read Alison’s long refutation here of the ADL’s 10 page dossier on her. If the entry continues to give space to the ADL’s misinformation about her, basic neutrality would require it to also give space to refutations of those accusations.
The citation is again the article by Shane Burley, the self-designated “antifa” writer whose coordinated efforts to silence critics of Israel David Rovics reported on. Again, as mentioned above, Burley’s citation for the second claim is not supported by the article he links to. Additionally, this does not adhere to a neutral point of view.
Notes from IAK:
“Responded in detail” is an understatement. Alison addressed every point claimed by JVP management (and others) in exhaustive detail. At any rate, this section has two problems that should be corrected:
- The statement that she “granted interviews to people it believed held such views” is ambiguous. It should make clear that Alison allowed herself to be interviewed by people that the JVP authors objected to ー not that she interviewed them about their views, which the wording could seem to imply. Wikipedia should correct this to something more like “accused her of allowing herself to be interviewed by people it believed…”
- For neutrality and balance, this paragraph should mention that many more members of JVP at that time signed a letter opposing this decision by JVP leadership, and that a JVP chapter specifically sponsored a talk by her in defiance of the JVP leadership. The first fact is alluded to briefly deep in the next paragraph, but it should be included in the same paragraph reporting the action by JVP’s then-leadership. That is necessary for a fairer representation of the action and of the rank-and-file membership of JVP. Additionally, Wikipedia omits the context that the then-head of JVP’s husband worked for an Israeli company closely connected to the Israeli military, a potentially relevant connection in terms of assessing that leader’s position on Israel-Palestine issues.
More than 2,000 activists[citation needed] signed an open letter supporting Weir, including former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories Professor Emeritus Richard Falk; founding member of Birzeit University‘s board of Trustees Samia Khoury; Palestine Rapprochement Center Director/ISM co-founder George Rishimawi; activists Hedy Epstein, Ann Wright, Arun Gandhi, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, Greta Berlin, Paul Larudee,Philip Giraldi and James Petras; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee founder and former Senator James Abourezk; and many members of JVP itself. The letter stated that the undersigned were “dismayed by the recent unfounded attacks on one of the top organizations working on this issue, If Americans Knew, and its dedicated leader, Alison Weir”, and believed that the accusations against Weir were “scurrilous and without foundation”.[16][17]
If Americans Knew
Main article: If Americans Knew
Weir founded If Americans Knew (IAK) after her visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada in 2001.[18]
Weir describes IAK as “an organization that provides information on
topics of importance that are substantially misreported or unreported in
the US media” with a primary focus on analyzing media coverage of
Israel-Palestine.[3] IAK was condemned for antisemitism by Jewish Voice for Peace, U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation and the ADL.[19]
Notes from IAK:
This topic is already covered more thoroughly in the Reception and Controversy section of the entry, so it should not be repeated here. Wikipedia should remove it from this section and simply cover it in one section (with a neutral point of view). Additionally, the citation for this is yet again the Tablet article by Yair Rosenberg that is an unreliable source and should be removed.
Finally, this again fails to adhere to a neutral point of view, once more omitting the fact that thousands of people publicly objected to these misinformation-based smears.
IAK, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in California, describes its mission as follows: “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.”[20]
On December 16, 2012, IAK placed an advertisement in The New York Times featuring four maps purporting to show the Palestinians’ progressive loss of land to Israel between 1946 and 2010.[21]
Council for the National Interest
Main article: Council for the National Interest
In June 2010, Weir was named to succeed Eugene Bird, the longtime leader of the Council for the National Interest (CNI).[11]
CNI describes itself as seeking to “encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values, protects our national interests, and contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is CNI’s goal to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of foreign countries and their partisans.”[22]
Honors and awards
In 2004, she became the first woman to receive an honorary membership in the Phi Alpha Literary Society. Weir has also won awards from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Council on American–Islamic Relations.[4]
Book
Weir is the author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, published in February 2014. [citation needed] Senator James Abourezk called the book “a must for all Americans” in a review for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Notes from IAK:
There are many other reviews about the book by prominent people that Wikipedia leaves out.
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