Bill Weinberg, a New York journalist who appears very conflicted on Israel, periodically makes false statements about me (and others), so I thought I'd post a letter to the editor I wrote to the Village Voice in response to one of his diatribes:
To The Editor:
Re “Standing up for Gaza but not with certain groups” (talking point, by Bill Weinberg, Aug. 28):
I recently learned that Bill Weinberg listed our organization first among allegedly impure groups with which Mr. Weinberg would not deign to stand, despite his proclaimed love for the Palestinian cause.
I wondered what evidence he had provided for our dastardly designation.
Was it because I traveled throughout Gaza and the West Bank as a freelance reporter in 2001, discovered the carnage, and began an organization called If Americans Knew to give people the facts?
Did he dislike our designer’s infographics about Gaza, reaching millions — our Web master’s creation, considered one of the top sites on Palestine?
Did he dislike my recent book on the history of the Israel lobby with its almost 8,000 sales?
No, none of this is mentioned. Mr. Weinberg’s “evidence” consisted of two items. The first was an extraordinarily creative (and erroneous) Sherlock Holmes-like deduction: “It is obvious from its name that this is basically a right-wing nationalist formation with (at least) an anti-Semitic streak.”
The second was an equally creative (and erroneous) description of an alleged If Americans Knew flier that contained, he wrote, “a big quote from Gilad Atzmon,” an Israeli author who apparently causes Mr. Weinberg such anguish that when he heard Atzmon praised, “[a] wave of existential loneliness swept over me.”
The problem is that there is no such If Americans Knew flier.
Poor Mr. Weinberg, in his agony over those not marching to his own, highly flawed tune, simply got things wrong.