Alison Weir (activist)
| Alison Weir | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Activist and writer |
| Known for | Founder of If Americans Knew President of the Council for the National Interest |
Alison Weir is an American activist and writer who focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew (IAK) and president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). She is known for critical views toward Israel.
Weir is author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, and she and If Americans Knew are known for critiquing media coverage of Israel. She has received both criticism and praise for her activism.
Weir traces her interest in the Israeli-Palestinian issue back 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 months of study, 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. After returning to the U.S., she founded If Americans Knew. 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.
Weir's writings include exhortations to action. In an article titled "Choosing to Act: Anti-Semitism is Wrong", 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."
Weir has called Israel a "violently imposed, ethnically based nation-state", and has written that "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to grave events in the world—and in our nation—today."
Ambassador Andrew Killgore wrote: "Alison Weir must be highly commended for throwing such a brilliantly hard light on the relationship between the United States and Israel." The Anti-Defamation League has called Weir "a prominent voice in the anti-Israel movement".
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