Alison Weir

Updated on Friday, June 3, 2011 at 09:50PM by [Alison Weir

...at this point my feeling is that the Israeli team is most likely there largely for humanitarian reasons. At the same time, of course, I suspect that the IDF and Israeli government are fully aware of their use in pro-Israel publicity, as well... while I'd like to think the best of the Israeli relief team in Haiti, I'd feel better about them if they'd use their media fame to speak out about Gaza, as some Israelis have done... In terms of the question of organ trafficking and theft in Haiti... I would tend to worry about this more in the future – when media attention is averted, yet the desperately poor remain.

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Quite a bit has happened since I wrote my articles. It turns out that Israel's chief pathologist and one of its highest paid public officials, at least, had admitted on tape in 2000 that he had taken numerous body parts from Palestinians (as well as from Israelis). I'll write more about this later, especially since the Israeli propaganda apparatus in the US and in Israel is attempting to bury this/spin it away. Also, additional stories have been published on the issue. I'll start posting some of them here:

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March for Humanity

In September 2003 hundreds of American elders of all ethnicities and backgrounds will march on Israel in a nonviolent quest for human rights, for global peace and stability, and for a reversal of the world’s wild drive into an ever-darkening future.

They will be joined by others from around the world determined to fulfill their obligation to their consciences and to their children, and by an equal number of Israeli citizens seeking an end to their government's violent oppression of their Palestinian sisters and brothers.

Together, this group of peaceful marchers -- who have decided that in the final third of their lives they will, briefly, trade comfort for discomfort, security for inconvenience -- will join together to save innocent lives that would otherwise be lost. With their reading glasses and stiff knees, graying hair and sore feet, this peace brigade will march on behalf of justice for Palestinians, peace for the world, and the end of a brutal and brutalizing system for Israelis.

For almost three years the Palestinian people have been pleading for an international presence to decrease the tragically escalating violence. Such an international presence would have saved lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, would have left children walking today who will now be forever crippled, would have left mothers happy who will now forever grieve.

Israel and the United States, however, inexplicably blocked the United Nations from providing such a life-saving body. But then, from around the world, individuals – some old, most very young – began to flow into Palestine to fill this need. They did what the world should have done, but didn’t, and some of them were beaten, imprisoned, maimed, and, finally, killed. Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall took the place the world should have filled, and paid with their lives for our negligence.

Now we have decided that it is our turn. No more will we allow our children’s courage to dwarf our own, our children’s vision of a compassionate world to be crushed by the forces of evil that we have feared to oppose. It is our time to step forward, and we will not be crushed.

Let the Israeli military – blithe destroyer of small bodies, breaker of young bones, crusher of sweet spirits – face a battalion of seasoned senior soldiers, veterans of life, survivors of youth.

Let the Israeli military -- who so courageously crushed young Rachel, who with such bravery shot 21-year-old Tom in the back of the head, who with such skill daily train their American-supplied sniper scopes on ragged, rock-throwing children -- let this valiant vanguard of violence now face a thousand nonviolent marching mothers, fathers, grandmothers and aunts, as the world’s cameras roll and history’s note-takers look on, ready to transcribe Ariel Sharon's attempt to stop the unstoppable.

Let the world – and particularly the American public – finally awake to our responsibility, and to our power. Let us bring an end to this carnage. It is long past time, and no one else will do it.

Please join us.

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The latest is the arrest of Bil'in leader Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Here is a message from ISM about what people can do...

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Yesterday people dressed as Mary, Joseph and shepherds wandered around Portland, Oregon, singing a revised version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem," handing out flyers and Bethlehem cards...

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This is an extremely important documentary, and one that it is unlikely we'll see on PBS, CNN, Fox, etc. The documentary was apparently broadcast on Britain's channel 4 on Nov. 16, 2009 and can currently be viewed on Youtube. The text of an accompanying pamphlet is below:

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I guess I should make it official: we have renamed our daily news site and are now calling it "Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines"

The purpose is, as always, to give the news that the mainstream media (and numerous not so mainstream ones) are largely omitting. The reports are mostly from the Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish press (which covers Israel, the Lobby, and related subjects extensively), with additional reports from various NGOs, the UN, eyewitnesses in the area, etc.

We also try to include links to additional information, to make the context clearer to those new to this issue.

We seem to often be finding stories that others have missed, so I suggest that people check the site regularly. Even more important, please tell others about it.

Please help spread the word!

We have created small business-sized cards giving our website (and statistics on deaths and aid to Israel), which people can order to disseminate widely. I always carry these in my pocket, to give out, place on car windshields, etc.  I feel that when more Americans visit out website, our news site, and the numerous other excellent websites that we point people toward, the media misinformation and omission on Palestine will be overcome and Americans will demand new policies.

You can order these cards on our site directly or by sending an email to orders@ifamericansknew.org -- tell us how many you want and give us your mailing address. If you can accompany this with a donation, that would be great -- we request $2 per 50 cards, plus postage.

Also, please join our extremely low-volume email list!!

Don't worry -- we send very few messages. However, when we have new materials or there is something critical that we feel you would want to know about, we send the information out on this list. (Also, this is the way that we alert people when I'm giving talks in their state.)

Since we have several new projects coming up soon, we hope you'll join this now!

When you do a search of Google maps for "Israel," you get a map that shows the entire area of mandate Palestine as Israel, despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not part of Israel and are, in fact, the Palestinian Territories -- or, to be more precise, the Palestinian Occupied Territories, as the UN, the International Red Cross, and others refer to them. Similarly, when you do a search of Google maps for "Palestine" or "Palestinian," you only get Palestine, Texas. There is no result that gives the Palestinian Territories.

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Yesterday, I discovered that Obama had signed a presidential memo changing a policy in which Israel, like almost all other nations, has been required to pay a protective tariff on dairy products exported to the U.S.

This tariff is to protect American farmers, who have been devastated in recent years, many losing their farms. This year has been particularly disastrous.

I phoned numerous officials at the Agriculture Department, the US Trade Representative, and the various dairy farmers' organizations and discovered that no one had even heard about this change.

While the Israeli media have covered it, the American media have been completely silent on it.

I think people need to know about this policy change -- created through an almost completely covered-up presidential memo -- and so I wrote an article about it.

I think that American dairy farmers should be informed about this; I hope people will help get this information out.

Even people who are opposed to protective tariffs, I assume, dislike cover-ups and policies that smack of special interest favoritism.

I just received a phone call from Steve Schram, Director of Broadcasting for Michigan Radio. On the phone also was Rick Fitzgerald, from the University of Michigan Office of Public Affairs. It was clear that Mr. Schram did not want to discuss Michigan Radio's previous actions, and I decided not to push this. The main point is that they are now willing "to consider" an ad from us. I told him the likely content of such an ad -- basically, what we requested before -- and he agreed "to consider it." I said that I would submit this before the end of the day, and he said that he would respond quickly. I asked that this be by the end of the week, at the latest, and he agreed. I suspect that all the phone calls and emails that the station has been receiving from throughout Michigan and all over the US is the reason that management has finally been forced to do the correct thing.

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Updated on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 07:33AM by [Alison Weir

...Michigan Radio's bizarre failure to respond to my phone calls and emails. This conduct is arrogant, and -- particularly now that it is sending misleading emails about me to the public -- highly unethical.

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Updated on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 05:18AM by [Alison Weir

Weeks ago our organization tried to place an ad with NPR's affiliate in Ann Arbor, Michigan Radio, about my speaking tour in Michigan. (They officially call this a "sponsorship" -- for $1,000 you receive about 10 announcements.) Michigan Radio is a service of Michigan Public Media, the public broadcasting company at the University of Michigan, and consists of the following stations, licensed to the Regents of the University of Michigan: * WUOM 91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit * WVGR 104.1 Grand Rapids * WFUM-FM 91.1 Flint Michigan Radio refused our ad, saying that our organization was "political," even though: * We are a 501c3 educational organization -- our website provides facts on Israel-Palestine and does not advocate for or against any particular parties, candidates, or bills before Congress; * It had run ads from the Jewish Federation of Detroit, which states on its website that it advocates for Israel; * I am told that it has run ads from the Ann Arbor chapter of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which lobbies for Israel and other issues. (Since Michigan Radio management has not returned my phone calls I have been unable to confirm this with them).

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Please remember to check Israel-Palestine Uncensored, our news blog, for daily (almost) updates on events in the region largely going uncovered by US media...

Updated on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 07:22AM by [Alison Weir

...[petition calling for an investigation] A few weeks ago, following my article in CounterPunch "Israeli Organ Harvesting: The New 'Blood Libel'?"(now available in Spanish, French, and Italian), the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs asked me to write a piece on this topic for their publication. In conducting research for this -- largely from Israeli media, Congressional testimony, BBC reports, etc -- I found considerably more information. As a result, I have now produced two new footnoted articles -- one that is in the print edition of the November Washington Report (I urge people to subscribe to the magazine in order to get this shorter, more concise article) and a longer one that is on their website...

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With all the heat engendered by the recent Swedish article, “Our sons plundered for their organs,” I feel that there is a need for some clarification and logical discussion… Do I agree with the need for an investigation? Absolutely… When a multitude of people describe similar incidents, all pointing to the same serious human rights abuse, it is important to listen to them and investigate their concerns – particularly when there are additional, outside clues that seem to support their statements. …The world has a history of ignoring Palestinian (and others') charges – only to find later that they were true… ….Finally, there is one additional aspect to include when pondering this topic. A very small but significant minority of Israelis hold disturbing religious views that are directly related to the question of organ extraction… I am posting the following article for people to read in its entirety: The Jewish Week, April 26, 1996, pp. 12, 31 “Hero Or Racist? Are Jewish lives really more valuable than non-Jewish ones?” ….Clarification on Israel Shahak … the original version of my article contained a sentence in a parentheses near the end of the piece that may have seemed to say that Israeli professor and author Israel Shahak also believed there was a basis to the blood libel accusations. In reality, the findings that were similar to Toaff’s were Shahak’s information on Talmudic texts emphasizing vengeance, the profound anti-Christian statements to be found in numerous religious texts, and the extreme religious violence within some medieval Jewish communities, sometimes ordered by Rabbis, eg cutting out tongues, chopping off noses, etc – and NOT that there had been ritual killings of Christians. I urge people to read Shahak’s book along with Toaff’s to discover for themselves the similarities and differences…

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We were only allowed to spend 24 hours in Gaza prison - an intense experience filled with images of destroyed buildings and devastated lives... A giant ghetto filled with invisible starvation...  I haven't had much time to do any personal writing, but immediately began some short speaking tours and have been posting to our daily news blog as much as possible. There's so much to write about so many things... I hope to get to it one of these days. In the meantime, I hope people will read Israel-Palestine Uncensored to see the news not being covered by US media.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has finally given permission for the American Viva Palestinian convoy to enter Gaza. The convoy plans to depart their location in Cairo at 5 am Egyptian times and travel up to the border with Rafah at Al Arish, where the group plans to take dozens of wheel chairs and walkers, two ambulances, $250,000 of medical supplies, and other humanitarian goods to Gaza. The goal is to break the Israeli directed siege of Gaza, which has produced desperate conditions for the 1.4 million men, women, and children.

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Here are some photos from the rally in New York and of the humanitarian supplies we will be taking to Gaza.

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At If American Knew we've created a new blog featuring a diverse compendium of reports on Israel-palestine, focusing largely on news that is unreported or under-reported by US media. 

By scanning through this compilation each day, clicking the 'full story' link on items of particular interest, readers will obtain an overall view of this issue that we feel will be valuable in understanding current events -- and that is largely unavailable to those using only mainstream sources for their information.

We hope people will tell others of this resource and that it will provide a useful archive for writers and analysts.

I’ve discovered that the Anti-Defamation League, whose devotion to Israel-right-or-wrong many people feel is extremely destructive, has listed me first in those it has decided are “anti-Israel.”

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