In this 50-minute interview on
CD, Alison Weir, founder of If Americans Knew, discusses the Israeli-centrism
of the U.S. mainstream media and how it’s harming Palestinians, specifically
children.She also details the damage
this does to the reputation and the very fabric of the United States, and
explains how it's up to all of us to help change this.
Weir details many examples of how
the U.S. mainstream media downplays Palestinian deaths and exaggerates Israeli
fatalities, however scarce they may be.
The mission of If Americans Knew
is to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance
that are unreported, under reported, or misreported in the American media.
CD, 50 minutes
Israel is the largest recipient
of U.S. aid in the entire world. It receives more aid than that given to all
the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, put
together.
Israel receives about $7 million
dollars per day from the United States, and there is evidence that the total
cost to American taxpayers is closer to $15 million a day. Yet this information
is almost never printed in American newspapers. Coverage of the Middle East in
general, and of Israel in particular, virtually never reports this enormous
American connection with this region.
Empowered by American money,
Israel is occupying land that does not belong to it, is breaking numerous
international laws and conventions of which it is a signatory, and is
promulgating policies of brutality that have been condemned by the United
Nations, the European Union, the National Council of Churches, Amnesty
International, the International Red Cross, and numerous other international
bodies. This truth is also rarely reported.
Through the money and weaponry
provided by the United States, Israel is imposing an ethnically discriminatory
nation on land that was previously multicultural. There is ethnic and religious
discrimination inherent in its national identity, and a doctrine of the
supremacy of one group over all others permeates its political, financial, and
military policies. This also is virtually never reported.
There are a variety of
organizations and individuals in Israel who are protesting their government’s
policies, and who are working strenuously and courageously on behalf of human
rights and justice. It is their intent to create a just and fair nation with
equal rights for all its citizens. They are refusing to serve in the military
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and are actively trying to prevent Palestinian
homes from being bulldozed. These actions are also not covered in the American
media.
American support of the Israeli
government is against our national interest on every level: It places us at war
with populations whose desperate plight we are helping to create, and who,
quite correctly, place the responsibility for their sufferings on us. It makes
us an accomplice to war crimes and an accessory to oppression. This also is not
reported.
In analyzing the American media,
we are increasingly discovering a cover-up of appalling proportions. Israel is
being protected, the news about Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general
is being distorted, and the American public is being manipulated.
We believe strongly that if
Americans knew the truth about Israel and Palestine—about the massive amount of
our tax money that is being given away to Israel, and about the human costs of
Israel’s American-financed militarism—they would demand an immediate
re-thinking of our policies in this region.
It is the goal of If Americans
Knew to inform the American public accurately about this area. Most of all, it
is to inform Americans about our enormous, and too often invisible, personal
connection to it.
Americans, through our blank
check to Israel, are empowering the worst elements of Israeli society, and
undermining those working for a just, peaceful, and nondiscriminatory nation.
We are driving the violence in
this region. We can stop it.