Awhile ago the pro-Israel editor of the College of Charleston’s online campus newspaper published two articles containing offensive accusations against me — one even before I spoke on campus and one afterward.
The newspaper has now finally posted my response – but it isn’t listed in any of the website’s menus; standard practice would be to list it in the Opinion section.
In other words, editor Sarah Sheafer (who calls Israel her “second home”) has officially “published” my response, thus finally adhering to journalistic requirements, while keeping the op-ed virtually invisible to the vast majority of the newspaper’s readers.
My emails to Sheafer about this bizarre situation have brought no change, and now the staff is gone for a week. I plan to continue to request that the newspaper include my letter in the Opinion section, where letters to the editor and op-eds would normally be… but perhaps not if they expose uncomfortable facts about Israel and its partisans…
On April 19th I spoke at the College of Charleston at an event sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and a local organization called Charleston Peace One Day.
The title of my lecture was “Israel-Palestine: What the Media Leave Out,” and in it I documented the extremely flawed nature of US news coverage of this conflict. This material was gleaned from 12 years of researching this subject, eight statistical media studies, independent reporting trips to the region, many dozens of articles on the topic, and an upcoming book.
Sadly, the two articles on my talk by the CofC student newspaper, one before my lecture and one after, exemplify the deeply faulty reporting frequently found in articles concerning Israel. In addition to numerous inaccuracies, they violated some of the basic principles of journalism.
Sarah Sheafer, the newspaper’s editor in chief, wrote both articles. Sheafer’s first article consisted of accusations by Israel-partisans claiming that I was “anti-Semitic” and labeling my talk – in advance – “hate speech.” Sheafer repeated inaccurate claims about me without investigating their veracity, and failed to include my very public rebuttals of these falsehoods. While Sheafer included interviews defending the event in the name of academic freedom and free speech, she did not include any defense of me or response to the terrible accusations about me.
Violating a fundamental principle of journalism
And in violation of the most basic tenet of fair reporting, she never attempted to contact me to respond to the claims. This ignored one of the most fundamental requirements of journalistic ethics: According to the Society of Newspaper Editors, “Persons publicly accused should be given the earliest opportunity to respond.”
Her piece similarly failed to quote anyone in favor of my my work, though I have been honored to receive plaudits from diverse sources and have been asked to speak at a multitude of universities and other venues both in the U.S. and abroad. Nor did her very long article contain any information about my multitude of articles describing Palestinian suffering under occupation or those on Israel’s lethal attack on a US Navy ship.
When I discovered Sheafer’s article and emailed and phoned her to discuss it, she did not return my call and did not respond to requests to print a rebuttal. (She did eventually email us back.)
Article #2
The second article followed my talk. This article again focused on defamatory claims (I am called anti-Semitic in the second paragraph), misquoted me at times, and incompletely depicted what took place, though it included some information from my presentation in the second part of the article (the part least likely to be ready by readers in a hurry).
While Sheafer stated that there was “incivility” during the event, the reality is that a large group of fanatic Israel partisans (perhaps in part stirred up by Sheafer’s first article) attended the event, shouted over my attempts to answer their questions fully and respectfully, and ultimately prevented CofC students from engaging in the kind of extended question-and-answer discussion that normally follows a presentation and that students have a right to expect. Particularly troubling is the fact that apparently some CofC faculty were involved in this behavior.
Several students wrote me after the event apologizing for this group. One said, “This conduct was deeply embarrassing to me as a student. I felt you were treated rudely and disrespected.” The person went on to write, “I respect how calmly you maintained your professional demeanor and continued to be courteous and respectful to the audience.”
Following my presentation, which included a video and numerous slides, Sheafer apologized for not contacting me for her previous story and finally interviewed me. However, she included none of the information I gave her in her second article. Nor did the newspaper print a formal correction or apology.
In the piece, she quoted many of the hostile questions addressed to me by a somewhat organized group that had clearly come to the event to do battle, and then either misquoted my answer, included only a small part of it, or, in most cases, completely left it out.
Perhaps this is because the questioners and allied mob largely shouted over all my answers to their questions; it’s possible that Sheafer often couldn’t hear my full responses. I certainly had trouble hearing myself.
More omissions
While Sheafer reported on my presentation and included much valuable information, she left out some of the most important points and watered down others.
She failed to report the fact that, in the current uprising, over 12 times more Palestinian children have been killed than Israeli children, and that 91 of them were killed before a single Israeli child was killed. She omitted the fact that US media consistently and erroneously term Israeli actions “retaliation,” and primetime news shows report on Israeli children’s deaths at rates up to 14 times greater than they report on Palestinian children’s deaths.
Sheafer similarly omitted the information I provided about a 2003 Capital Hill briefing in which a commission that included a four-star admiral, a rear admiral, and the highest-ranking recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor reported that Israeli forces had tried to sink a US Navy ship, had killed 34 American servicemen and injured over 170, and that rescue flights had been recalled because the President of the United States said he “didn’t want to embarrass an ally.”
These extremely grave statements on Capitol Hill by this extraordinarily high-ranking commission can be found in the Congressional Record.
Partisan bias
Perhaps Sheafer’s most significant violation of journalistic ethics was to assign herself to cover these events in the first place, rather than sending a neutral reporter.
The fact is, as Sheafer publicly admits, she has a strong emotional attachment to Israel, once writing: Israel is “the country I consider my second home.”
The particular article with this statement was written on Nov. 15th, 2012, the day a 10-month-old Gaza baby was killed by Israeli forces – the fourth Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces that week – though Sheafer mentions none of these deaths.
While Sheafer says that she condemns “some of [Israel’s] controversial decisions (i.e. illegal settlements),” her piece focuses on her intense anguish over Israeli difficulties, her deep empathy with Israelis (at one point she writes she wishes she were there), and, tellingly, her anger at those who criticize Israeli actions.
She wrote this column during an Israeli onslaught in which Israeli forces killed at least 169 Gazan men, women, and children, and Palestinians killed 6 Israelis, none of them children. (During the previous year, Israelis had killed 64 Palestinians in Gaza, while Gazans had killed no Israelis.)
None of these facts are in Sheafer’s column, “Israel At War.”
Destructive actions
While Sheafer and the group who disrupted this event consider themselves pro-Israel and brevity requires me to identify them as such, in reality I feel that their actions do not benefit Israelis.
Israel was created through violence and has been maintained through violence, a reality that is not only tragic for the Muslim and Christian victims of this violence, but is also tragic for Israelis themselves.
If Israelis are to live a normal existence free of war and conflict, it is essential that they change their policies and become a nation that treats all people with equality, an approach that many Israelis desire, and that they recognize the historic injustice at the core of the conflict.
Such a policy change, however, is unlikely to occur while American politicians continue to bankroll Israel to the tune of over $8 million per day and to provide diplomatic cover no matter what the Israeli state does. This blind support gives the Israeli government such power that its leaders feel free to ignore Palestinians, other world players, and dissenting Israelis alike.
Given this seemingly blank check of American financial and diplomatic support, Israeli leaders feel no need to negotiate honestly to reach a compromise in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians can share the land that is sacred to all three groups. This won’t change until Americans become sufficiently informed on this issue to demand changes to US policy.
It is essential that Americans learn the facts on this issue. I believe strongly that we have the power to bring peace to the core issue in the Middle East – a conflict that has spawned numerous wars, caused dangerous instability to the region and the world, and has placed Americans increasingly in danger.
It is sad that an event on this urgent issue was in many ways sabotaged. I hope that additional speakers providing factual information will be invited to lecture at the College of Charleston, and that they will not receive the treatment I experienced.
~
Alison Weir is the president of the Council for the National Interest and executive director of If Americans Knew. She is a former journalist and has a degree in journalism.
“…an article entitled “Jewish journalists grapple with ‘doing the write thing,’” in the Nov. 23, 2001 Jewish Bulletin of Northern California [interviewed Jewish] journalism students about how they would cover Israel. Its findings were inconclusive. Some students felt they would cover Israel impartially, some didn’t. The Bulletin described one of the latter, Uzi Safanov: “’I’m a Jew before being a journalist, before someone pays me to write,’ he said. ‘If I find a negative thing about Israel, I will not print it and I will sink into why did it happen and what can I do to change it.’ Safanov said that even if he eventually wrote about negative incidents that happen in Israel, he would try to find the way ‘to shift the blame.’”
Another also spoke of the need to protect Israel: “’On campus there is already so much anti-Israeli sentiment that we have to be careful about any additional criticism against Israel,’ said Marita Gringaus, who used to write for Arizona State University’s newspaper. ‘This is our responsibility as Jews, which obviously contradicts our responsibilities as journalists…’”
Thirteen years ago I knew very little about Israel-Palestine. Like most Americans, this seemed to be a distant, confusing conflict that had little to do with me. I was unaware –again, like most Americans – that American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day, more than we give to any other nation.
I was unaware that our nation has vetoed numerous United Nations efforts to reign in Israeli aggression; resolutions that were supported by almost every other country around the world. I was unaware that US actions were enabling a massive land theft and ongoing ethnic cleansing that has caused profound tragedy in the Middle East, deep damage to our own nation and endangered American lives.
My personal awakening to these facts and others began in the autumn of 2000 when the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada began and was, for a while at least, in the American news. I grew curious about this conflict, determined to follow the news on it, and noticed quickly how one-sided the news coverage appeared to be. While we heard from and about Israelis frequently, the Palestinian side seemed to be largely glossed over at minimum, and was sometimes completely hidden.
I began searching for additional information on the Internet and was astounded at what I learned. Israeli forces were killing hundreds of largely unarmed Palestinian men, women and children; many of the children were being killed by gunshot wounds to the head.
While some Israelis were also being killed during this period, these deaths were far fewer and virtually invariably occurred after Palestinian deaths. Over 90 Palestinian children were killed before a single Israeli child. Over 140 Palestinian men, women and children living on their own land were killed before anyone in Israel was.
As I learned the nature of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the true history of the region, it began to seem to me that this was the longest and possibly most significant cover-up I had ever come across. I finally decided to quit my job as the editor of a small community newspaper in northern California and go and see for myself what was going on, travelling to Israel-Palestine as a freelance reporter in February and March of 2001.
When I returned I created an organisation called “If Americans Knew” to provide the full facts to my fellow citizens and to study why and how US news coverage was failing to do this.
Israel-centrism and patterns of distortion
We have conducted a number of statistical studies on this issue and found that US media were covering Israeli deaths in far greater detail than they were covering those of Palestinian.
For example, the New York Times was reporting on Israeli children’s deaths at a rate seven times greater than they were covering Palestinian children’s deaths; this didn’t even include the far larger number of words and amount of personal information given about Israeli victims compared to Palestinians. We also found that primetime network news programmes were covering Israeli children’s deaths at rates up to 14 times greater than the coverage given to Palestinians.
I discovered a system of reporting from the region in which a violent conflict between an officially “Jewish state” and the Muslims and Christians it had dispossessed (and was in the process of dispossessing further) was being covered most of the time by journalists with legal, familial or emotional ties to Israel. A great many are Israeli citizens (though this is almost never disclosed) or married to Israelis, their children also being Israeli.
I discovered that the Associated Press control bureau for the region, from which virtually all news reports that appear in US newspapers were transmitted, was located in Israel and was staffed almost entirely by Israeli and Jewish journalists (many of whom had served in the Israeli military).
I learned that the son of the New York Times bureau chief was serving in the Israeli military while his father was reporting on the conflict. In fact, I discovered that it was common for journalists in the region reporting for American media to have close personal ties to the Israeli military; that at least one staff member had been serving in the Israeli military even as he was reporting for the NY Times; that US News & World Report’s senior foreign correspondent, who had covered and written about the Middle East for more than 40 years, had a son serving in the Israeli army during the time he was reporting there; that Middle East “pundit” Jeffrey Goldberg, whose commentary pervades both the print and broadcast media, is an Israeli citizen who served in the Israeli military.
I learned that CNN anchorman Wolf Blitzer lived in Israel for many years, at one point travelled around the US as the “voice of Israel” and had worked for an Israel lobby publication.
I learned that Time magazine’s bureau chief was an Israeli citizen, and that NPR’s long-time correspondent from the region had an Israeli husband who had served in the military and may be an Israeli citizen herself.
I also discovered that this pattern of Israel-centrism went beyond the regional reporting. In fact, the regional filtering of the news may not even be the most significant factor in the broken media reporting on this issue that Americans receive.
Within US-based journalism per se I discovered patterns of Israel-centrism that were deeply troubling. In some cases I personally experienced the intentional suppression of information on Palestine. Following are a few examples.
San Francisco Chronicle
While I was on my first trip to the Middle East I had met with a managing editor at the San Francisco Chronicle before I left and told him of my intention to report from the region. He had been quite interested and asked me to send him my first-hand reports.
During my trip, despite the difficulties in doing this, I sent him several reports at a time when almost no other American journalists were in the West Bank or, especially, Gaza. None were printed.
Finally, he sent me an email saying that he might be able to publish some of my reports, but that this would be “political”. This was unusually honest but quite troubling. It should not be “political” to publish on-the-scene reporting.
While he never explained the obstacles confronting such reports, I suspect they had to do with the fact that the top editor at the time, Phil Bronstein, tilts toward Israel; that numerous advertisers were pro-Israel; that the pro-Israel power structure is extremely strong in California; that pro-Israel organisations in the US invariably mount protests and boycotts if newspapers stray too far from their preferences; and that others are frequently afraid of being called “anti-Semitic” and of the potential damage honest journalism on this topic could do to their careers.
A few years later a journalist who had worked for the Chronicle for many years, Henry Norr, was fired by Bronstein. While a different rationale was put forward for Norr’s termination, Norr himself believes that the real reason was his activities related to Palestine. He had written a column about an Intel factory constructed illegally on Palestinian land and had also given a lunchtime briefing to staffers about a trip he had taken to the West Bank.
Still another former Chronicle journalist has described the inner workings related to news coverage of Israel-Palestine; that most of those editing wire copy were Israel partisans, that this journalist was largely kept away from editing reports on the issue; and that there was an atmosphere in which anti-Arab cartoons were sometimes posted on a bulletin board.
In 2004 our organisation conducted a statistical study of the Chronicle’s coverage during the first six months of the Second Intifada and discovered that the Chronicle had covered 150 per cent of Israeli children’s deaths and only 5 per cent of Palestinian children’s deaths. Before releasing it to the public I phoned Bronstein to meet with him to present it in person, the normal protocol. He failed to return my phone calls. At a public forum I again requested such a meeting. In front of a large audience Bronstein promised to meet. Yet, he later again refused to return phone calls and this meeting never transpired.
We then released our report publicly and distributed it as widely as possible. In addition, some groups and individuals disseminated thousands of fliers containing some of our key charts and statistics, headlined “What Children Matter?” These activities, of course, received considerable attention, and I feel were far more valuable than a meeting.
Gannett Newspapers
Gannett is one of the top news chains in the US. According to its website, it consists of 82 daily newspapers, including USA TODAY, and it reaches 11.6 million readers every weekday and 12 million readers every Sunday. USA TODAY is the nation’s top newspaper in print circulation, reaching 6.6 million readers daily.
In addition to its newspapers, Gannett owns 23 TV stations, which reach 21 million households, covering 18.2 per cent of the US population. It also delivers news on 9,500 video screens located in elevators of office towers and select hotel lobbies across North America.
In 2001 a Gannett reporter who was writing a series of articles in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, heard about my trip to the region six months before the attacks and phoned me for an interview. He was extremely interested in my story and ended up calling me several more times for follow-up interviews, asked me to send him all my reports from my trip, and upon receiving them he was quite complimentary about their quality.
The reporter then sent a photographer to take pictures of me in my home for the article, had her express mail them to him, and said the story would be coming out soon.
We were in the process of creating the If Americans Knew website at the time and hurried to make this live, since this would be major exposure.
A little later I went on a speaking tour and a reporter from a community newspaper in a tiny newspaper chain in New York State interviewed me for his paper. A few days later he wrote to me saying that the newspaper owner had killed his article. He said this was the first time this had ever happened to him.
I then realised that I had never seen the Gannett newspaper article on me and If Americans Knew. I emailed the reporter, told him about this incident, and asked him if I had missed his article or whether the same thing had happened to him. I hadn’t missed it. He said that his editor had similarly killed the story.
I later saw an article by this reporter about Americans visiting Iraq who were highly critical of the US government. It is interesting that this subject matter was permissible, but not a feature on someone critical of Israel.
National Public Radio – Vermont and Michigan
Several years later I was on a speaking tour in Vermont and New Hampshire and was to be interviewed on a local affiliate of the influential National Public Radio network. When I arrived at the radio station it turned out that the radio host who had agreed to do this was not available and another person was going to do the interview, someone called Neal Charnoff.
Charnoff and the programme producer took me back to the studio where they would record the interview for later broadcast. Oddly, the regular sound engineer was told he could go outside and take a break, and the producer took over.
The host began his first question with a statement that my articles contained “anti-Semitic” overtones. I interrupted him immediately, said this was untrue, and asked him what he was talking about – which specific articles or statements that I had written did he claim were “anti-Semitic”?
He could not answer. I wondered if he had even read anything I had written or whether he was simply repeating the unfounded accusations by the Anti-Defamation League, a fanatically pro-Israel organisation that has been implicated in a vast spying operation on Americans.
Flustered at the embarrassment at having made a statement based on no evidence, he began the interview again in a more normal fashion. I told him about my trip to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and what I had found.
Within a few minutes, and sooner than the scheduled end of the interview, he stopped it. He turned off the equipment and said they would not be airing it.
I was shocked and asked him why not. There was then a brief conversation in which he, and to a lesser extent the producer, defended Israel against the statement of facts I had made about what I had seen. The producer, who seemed to be more reasonable – and who also may have realised that Charnoff’s intention to kill the interview so publicly would reflect badly on the station – said that she was sure they would be able to broadcast something.
They eventually did so. They did not, however, include information on my upcoming talks in the area, information that would normally have been included. I noticed later that Charnoff’s interviews frequently seem to focus on the Jewish experience and that a disproportionate number of the authors, musicians, etc., that he highlights on his programme are Jews.
Another incident took place in another NPR affiliate, this one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, location of the University of Michigan, one of the top public universities in the United States.
One way that we and other groups try to get around the media’s reluctance to report fully and accurately on Palestine is through the placement of paid advertising. Sometimes even this is censored.
WUOM, the largest NPR affiliate in the state of Michigan, apparently at the direction of its head, Steve Schram, refused to run a spot giving the name of our organisation. Then, when we challenged this censorship, the station supplied a number of fraudulent and ever-changing explanations. Only after fighting this over a year and involving the university administration and a small sit-in in the WUOM office were we able to force them to include our name in a paid advertisement.
American History Magazine/Weider History Group
Still another incident occurred when we tried to buy an advertisement in American History magazine. The ad was to promote the autobiography of CNI’s founder, former US Congressman Paul Findley. We were told that the magazine would not publish the advertisement because CNI was “anti-Israel”. In fact, they informed us that none of their other 10 magazines would run the ad either.
We were amazed to learn that almost all the national popular history magazines in the United States are published by the Weider History group; American History, World War II, Military History, Vietnam, Armchair General, the Civil War, etc.
According to its website, the Weider History Group is the largest chain of history magazines in the world, making its pro-Israel bias particularly important. George Orwell’s words suggest the significance of the Weider censorship within its history magazines: “Who controls the past controls the future.”
As their censorship of our ad because they considered us “anti-Israel” would suggest, the Weiders are very close to Israel. The co-founder of the Weider empire is one of six North American chairmen of the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, which takes political leaders, corporate executives, investors and entertainment personages on private trips to Israel to increase their support for the country.
A Weider foundation has given large grants to another Aish HaTorah-connected organisation, the Los Angeles-based American Friends of Aish Hatorah, a nationalistic Israeli organization that promotes Israel in the United States and has a programme to create and equip advocates for Israel on American campuses. Aish has been connected to the production of pseudo-documentaries promoting Islamophobia that were distributed in America.
The Weiders originally brought future movie star and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the US and played a major role in building both his personal and political career. Weider patriarch Joe Weider once proclaimed proudly, “We created Arnold.” As California governor, Schwarzenegger promoted Israel, stating, “I love Israel. When I became governor, Israel was the first country that I visited.”
The Media role in US policy formation
Thirteen years ago when I grew curious about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I had no idea that my questions would lead me to discover such an extraordinary pattern of influence on behalf of a foreign country in the US media.
This influence, I believe, may be the single most significant factor in creating America’s uniquely massive support for Israel. If American news organisations had been reporting fully and accurately on the region; if they had exposed the pro-Israel lobby’s power and manipulation in the United States; if they had covered the damage done to Americans by policies centred on what would “benefit” Israel rather than Americans (though not, I believe, those Israelis dreaming of peace), I have no doubt that US policies would be vastly different than those we see today.
Moreover, I feel that it is US support for Israel that has supplied the economic, military and diplomatic support for Israel to continue with astoundingly aggressive and oppressive policies. As such, exposing and overcoming pro-Israel power over information in the US about Israel-Palestine may, I believe, be the most important activity that those seeking justice and peace in the Middle East can undertake.
Providing Americans with the full facts on the region; on the determining influence on our media, our government and our country by Israel and its partisans; and on the devastating, wide-ranging damage created by the current situation, will eventually, I have no doubt, bring the momentous change that is so urgently needed. In fact, given that the US has a history of being a very changeable country, if enough resources are devoted to this effort, such a transformation could occur in less time that some long-time observers might expect.
~
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. She is the author of Against our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of how the United States was used to create Israel. For copies write to contact@ifamericansknew.org.
It all started out simply enough. The nonprofit Council for the National Interest, of which I am president, recently tried to buy an advertisement in American History magazine.
The ad was to promote a new book by CNI’s founder, former Congressman Paul Findley, offering discounted copies through the CNI website.
The book, Speaking Out: A Congressman’s Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War, is a fascinating memoir of Findley’s nine decades of life. It describes his depression-era childhood, World War II service in the South Pacific, experiences as an editor of a small town corn-belt newspaper, and 22 years as a Congressman grappling with everything from farm issues, to Vietnam, to Israel-Palestine.
The ad featured the cover of Findley’s book and four strong endorsements, including the following by Bill Moyers:
“There is a place in America called Findley Country. Inspired by its founding father, the people who live there cherish principled politics, political courage, and speaking truth to power (even when it hurts). Paul has given us a lively recollection of a robust and honorable life in public service, grounded in a patriot’s devotion to the country he loves.”
American History magazine refused to run our advertisement.
In fact, Advertising Director Julie Kershenbaum gratuitously informed us that they would not publish it in any of the 10 other U.S. history magazines owned by the same company. She said that the chain’s CEO and publisher, Eric Weider, had personally made the decision.
The reason? CNI is allegedly “anti-Israel.”
In reality, CNI is a nonpartisan organization founded 20 years ago by highly principled former U.S. Congressmen and diplomats. Our board members include several ambassadors.
CNI provides in-depth, transparently sourced information on the history and current situation in Israel-Palestine, on U.S. Middle East policies, and on their impact on American citizens, in line with our mission to work for U.S. Middle East policies that serve the national interest; that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens; and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity.
We oppose failed national policies that prolong the tragic violence in the Middle East, that place perceived Israeli interests over American ones, and that drain billions of dollars from the American economy.
Although many Americans are unaware of this, Americans are closely connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We give well over $8 million per day to Israel, a state smaller than New Jersey. On average, Israelis receive 10,000 times more U.S. foreign aid per capita than other people throughout the world. And this costs us significantly more – some analysts have placed the total cost at approximately $15 million per day.
We feel that it is essential that Americans become thoroughly informed about this conflict, which has cost multitudes of lives and created potentially catastrophic instability in the Middle East for over 60 years.
Yet, because the owners of what may be the world’s largest publisher of history magazines are partial to Israel, readers of 11 key American history magazines will neither be permitted to read about Findley’s autobiography nor even see the CNI name.
Troubled by this censorship, I phoned Publisher Eric Weider to discuss his decision. When he failed to return my calls, I began to research his company. Who were the people deciding what information could or could not reach American history fans?
While many people might picture the publishers of these magazines as scholars dedicated to the disinterested study of history, I discovered a very different situation.
Instead, I found out that the magazines are part of a massive and lucrative empire based on bodybuilding and related products: an empire that has been investigated and convicted for using false claims to sell potentially dangerous “nutritional supplements” and for publishing “obscene” magazines, run by powerful people with powerful friends in high places who’ve opposed the regulation of such supplements.
Not the profile readers might expect, though Publisher Weider is now interviewed in the media as an expert on American history – one whose commentary supports the alleged necessity of American wars in the Middle East.
The Weider History Group’s Eleven Magazines
The entity known as the Weider History Group publishes several history-related websites and eleven magazines: America’s Civil War, American History, Aviation History, Armchair General, British Heritage, Civil War Times, Military History, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vietnam, Wild West, and World War II.
All but one of these publications were originally independent magazines. Some of them are decades old. Civil War Times has been around for half a century; American History since the 1960s.
In 2006 the Weider History Group took over them all, acquiring them from another magazine chain.
Not everyone was pleased with the change. Civil War Times Editor Chris Lewis eventually resigned over the new direction the magazines were taking. He circulated an email explaining why he had decided to leave:
“I am a lifelong reader and care a great deal about this publication—which is why I cannot be a part of the ‘new direction’ that the magazines in this group are either already going in, or will be going in soon. There is no respect here anymore for history, historians or the core audience.”
The Empire that Owns American History
The Weider History Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Weider Health and Fitness, Inc., which in turn is part of a larger Weider empire valued at a billion dollars. The Weiders were initially Canadian promoters who are known for largely creating the business of modern bodybuilding and its multitude of spin-off products. Brothers Ben and Joe Weider founded the empire 70 years ago. Ben later said that his original dream had been to be an architect but that anti-Semitism had prevented this. Today, the principals are Joe Weider and Ben Weider’s son, Eric.
By the 1990s the Weider empire consisted of numerous brands and over a thousand products. These include bodybuilding extravaganzas and competitions; a wide range of exercise equipment and purported body enhancing devices; diverse publications; and a dazzling collection of “fitness products” and “nutritional supplements”– pills, powders, potions, and programs.
The latter are a large part of the Weider empire’s moneymaking machine. They include weight gain products, weight loss products, muscle health products, etc. An example is Weider BodyShaper Diet & Energy tablets “for Mental Energy and Thermogenesis.”
While many people purchase Weider products and some may deliver fully on their extravagant promises, federal investigations have found that a number of them do not.
Weider merchandise has been the subject of a number of federal investigations, and Weider companies have been found guilty of fraud on several occasions. The Weiders have worked to prevent legislation that would have further restricted the kinds of supplements sold by their companies.
In the 1970s U.S. postal officials found the Weider company had engaged in false claims involving a number of its products: “Slimmer Shake,” also known as “Weider’s Weight Loss Formula, XR-7;” “Slim Guard;” “Joe Weider’s Crash Weight Gain Formula #7;” “5 Minute Waist Slimmer Plan;” “5 Minute Body Shaper Plan;” and “Beauti-Breast of Paris,” a device which promised to enlarge breasts.
In 1981 the FTC found the company had made fraudulent claims regarding its “Slim-Quick formula.” The FTC also concluded that under some circumstances the weight-loss concoction could be significantly dangerous to health and required the company to add warning labels.
In 1986 the FTC forced Weider Health & Fitness Inc. to refund the purchase price paid by those who bought its “Anabolic Mega-Pak” or “Dynamic Life Essence” pills.
In 2000 Weider Nutritional International settled an FTC complaint involving false claims for PhenCal and was required to pay $400,000, a sum unlikely to have caused much pain to a billion dollar operation.
An Empire Built on Bodybuilding
The foundation of the Weider empire was originally the business of bodybuilding, and this still remains a significant part of its focus. According to anthropologist Alan Klein, the Weiders own “the largest conglomerate of bodybuilding products in the world.”
The Weiders founded the International Federation of Body Builders (IFBB) in 1946 and Joe Weider has been called the “czar” of bodybuilding.
In a 1998 book, former Mr. Universe Bob Paris stated that the Weiders “control bodybuilding.” (To learn more about bodybuilding see the montage at the IFBBpro website. As of this writing, the Weider history magazines have a banner ad on the site.)
Paris writes that the Weiders would pressure the most promising young bodybuilders into signing contracts with them. Anyone who publicly criticized or questioned any of the policies of the IFBB or its officers, Paris wrote, could be suspended. The officers seem to have mostly been the Weiders themselves or their friends.
Paris states:
“[T]he Weider brothers claim that the IFBB and the Weider companies are separate and completely unrelated. Only the most naive fool would believe that. They should simply say that, yes, they are completely linked… but of course if they did that, then nasty words like monopoly or conflict of interest would start getting thrown around….”
Another writer reported that a connection to the Weiders spelled success for an aspiring bodybuilder, but for a price: “…from that point on, the bodybuilder’s career is owned by the Weider corporation.”
The Arnold Schwarzenegger Connection
It was the Weiders who discovered future movie star/California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and brought him to America. They got the aspiring bodybuilder an apartment, bought him a car, and crafted him into a celebrity, tutoring him on everything from his exercise regimen and real estate investments to how to wear his hair. Joe Weider told the New York Times, “We created Arnold.”
The Weiders supported Schwarzenegger for California governor and remain close to him. Schwarzenegger declared July 9, 2007 “Joe Weider Day.” As we will see, there is a further connection. But first, we need to examine another aspect of the Weider business machine.
The Weider empire has also long included an array of magazines, mostly focused on bodybuilding and fitness. A few in past years seem to have crossed the line into lewdness and Joe Weider was twice indicted for producing and distributing obscene literature. In 1957 he was placed on a five-year probation.
In 2003 the Weiders sold this line of publications (the more obscene ones had been abandoned) to American Media, which also publishes the National Enquirer and Star tabloids, for $350 million.
This was less than a clean break, however, as the businesses seem to have arranged a mutually beneficial association, some of it apparently touching on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Joe Weider remained in charge of the magazines under American Media, while American Media director David Pecker signed a contract to co-sponsor major bodybuilding contests with the Weiders.
With this new Weider-Pecker alliance came a change in how American Media’s tabloids covered Schwarzenegger, who was then running for California governor, and whose previous steroid use, sexual affairs (one allegedly with a minor), bullying groping incidents, etc. were the kind of fodder that often fuels tabloids.
According to an article in the San JoseMercury News, “Tabloids Starry-Eyed for Schwarzenegger,” by Dion Nissenbaum, Pecker promised Weider that his tabloids would “lay off’’ Schwarzenegger and “not dig up any dirt” on the gubernatorial candidate. In fact, following its deal with Weider, American Media now seemed to be promoting Schwarzenegger.
The Mercury News reported that American Media produced a 120-page glossy magazine called Arnold, the American Dream, “crammed with flattering photographs” that auspiciously hit the streets just as Schwarzenegger headed into the final lap of his campaign for governor.
The next year, after Schwarzenegger became governor, Pecker made him executive editor of Flex and Muscle & Fitness, promising him an estimated $8 million over the next five years for helping to “further the business objectives” of the company, according to the LA Times.
If anyone wondered how a sitting governor of one of the nation’s largest states would have time for such a position, Advertising Age reported that this was “a largely honorary position” and according to a Schwarzenegger aide “would only take up a ‘nominal amount’ of the governor’s time.”
The following year Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have cracked down on the use of supplements by student athletes.
A number of these supplements have been tied to serious health consequences. The medical community has warned that potential health effects include liver cancer, heart disease, impaired testicular function, and neurodegenerative effects.
Following Schwarzenegger’s veto, critics accused him of a conflict of interest, since supplements constituted a large portion of the advertising in the magazines that were paying him so generously for his work.
Advertising Age also made a point of noting that Schwarzenegger’s veto of legislation that would have regulated supplements “highlighted Mr. Schwarzenegger’s decades-long relationship with Joe Weider, the godfather of the supplement business.”
While Schwarzenneger was governor, and since, he has also worked to promote Israel. In a speech at an event at the Israeli Consulate Schwarzenegger proclaimed, “I love Israel. When I became governor, Israel was the first country that I visited.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of being there many times,” Schwarzenegger said, “and have seen it from a bodybuilding point of view, from a tourist’s point of view, from an entertainer’s point of view, from the governor’s point of view, forming trade relationships with Israel in order. I have been a long-time friend of Israel.”
The Orrin Hatch Connection
The Weiders have a history of working against public health regulation of supplements, despite evidence that some supplements can be dangerous to health – sometimes fatally so.
In 1994, according to a report on Weider Nutrition International in the International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.29, the Weiders worked with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch to successfully counter the FDA’s attempts to regulate supplements. Many Weider companies are headquartered in Utah.
The company history reports that a bill sponsored by Hatch entitled “the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act” was passed “to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from over-regulating the health products industry.”
“Later that year,” the report states, “Weider Nutrition honored Senator Hatch for his work on the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Salt Lake City to present Hatch with Weider’s first annual award for major health contributions.”
A 2001 article in the Washington Monthly, “Scorin’ with Orrin: How the gentleman from Utah made it easier for kids to buy steroids, speed, and Spanish fly,” gives the details.
Washington Monthly reports that the FDA had not bothered to participate in debates over Hatch’s bill, because it believed the law was so obviously bad it would never pass. However, Hatch sneaked the bill through in a late-night session, the magazine reports. Afterward, a pharmacist and public health expert appalled at the bill remarked: “I do not understand how a single member of Congress voted for it.”
Washington Monthly concludes, “Thanks to Hatch, the U.S. now has standards as low as those in many Third World countries for the sale of many products with serious, pharmacological effects. The results have been deadly. Between 1993 and 1998, the FDA linked at least 184 deaths to dietary supplements, which are now suspected of contributing to the sudden deaths of three football players in August.”
Six years later, a number of athletes who had taken American supplements were devastated when they failed drug tests at the 2000 Olympics. Unbeknownst to these athletes, the supplements contained substances banned internationally because of the dangers they posed to health.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) warned athletes to avoid American supplements, particularly those manufactured in Utah, which had become known as the “Cellulose Valley of the U.S. supplement industry.”
When Olympic officials and others specifically blamed Hatch for the problem, Weider and other manufacturers met with him to encourage him to keep the supplements as unregulated as possible. Washington Monthly reports that Hatch’s office “apparently reassured them that the senator would continue to defend their interests.”
While Hatch is reportedly a true believer in alternative medicine, the article pointed out: “There’s big money in dietary supplements, and Hatch has taken his fair share in campaign contributions.”
Loren Israelson, executive director of the Utah Natural Products Alliance, which represents the Utah supplement industry, lauded Hatch’s commitment: “He is by far our greatest advocate. No one rises to the issue the way Sen. Hatch does. He’s a true believer in natural health.”
Weider Foundations
The Weider empire is not limited to the U.S. The Weiders have promoted bodybuilding (and Weider products) worldwide. There are now IFBB groups in 182 countries, and there are photos of Weider with diverse government officials, including Ronald Reagan, Yasser Arafat, and Menachem Begin.
Multimillionaires often set up tax-deductible foundations and the Weiders have created several.
The Ben Weider foundation has donated gyms around the world as part of their bodybuilding outreach, including in Israel and Palestine. Ben endowed what is now known as the “Ben Weider Jewish Community Center in Montreal” and also supported two Lubavitch institutions, a charismatic and sometimes controversial branch of Orthodox Judaism. He was an admirer of Lubavitch head Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, a religious leader who was a major force in Israel; Israeli leaders – including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Benjamin Netanyahu – would often visit him when they were in the U.S. and seek his advice. A widely revered but controversial leader, Schneerson was held by some followers to be the Messiah. Less widely known is the fact that he made statements that Jews are a different and superior species to non-Jews.
There is also a Joe Weider Foundation; Joe Weider is CEO and Eric Weider has been CFO and is currently President. This entity has given several large grants to a Los Angeles-based organization called American Friends Of Aish HaTorah. Aish HaTorah is an Israeli organization that opposes Jewish assimilation and promotes Israel in the United States. It has been connected to the production of pseudo-documentaries promoting Islamophobia that were distributed in the U.S.
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, a strong Israel proponent himself, calls Aish “just about the most fundamentalist movement in Judaism today. Its operatives flourish in the radical belt of Jewish settlements just south of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, and their outposts across the world propagandize on behalf of a particularly sterile, sexist and revanchist brand of Judaism.”
Among its multitude of activities, Aish has a program to create and equip advocates for Israel on American campuses. These “Hasbara Fellows” as they’re termed, operate on over 120 campuses.
Joe Weider is one of six North American chairmen of The Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah. This focuses on bringing political leaders, corporate executives, investors, and entertainment personages on private trips to Israel to increase their support for Israel.
Weider Empire Acquires History Magazines
The same year the Weiders sold their muscle and fitness magazines they began their foray into history magazines. Working out of the same San Fernando offices, they published the first in their new chain, Armchair General, the following year. A Reuters story on the launch announced:
“The Los Angeles publisher that made its fortune on the dreams of armchair musclemen everywhere now wants to get Americans pumped up on a new avocation — becoming armchair generals.
“Eric Weider, whose family firm sold mainstream America on bodybuilding and Arnold Schwarzenegger, on Tuesday launched Armchair General, an ‘interactive’ war magazine aimed at selling military history to the masses.”
The Weiders’ market analysis showed a potential readership of “more than 35 million lifelong devotees.” Eric Weider, who had moved to California from Canada many years before, became an American citizen around this time.
While Eric Weider appears to be a genuine history buff, he apparently has no training or degree in history. He has a Master’s degree in business administration and has spent most of his life working in his family’s business empire, mostly in its bodybuilding and “nutritional supplements” divisions.
A Business Week c.v. lists the following positions: President and Chief Executive Officer of Weider Health and Fitness Inc., President of the Joe Weider Foundation, Chairman of Schiff Nutrition International Inc., Director of a number of public and private companies in the United States and Canada, including Nutripeak, Inc., Hillside Investment Management, Inc., Organ Recovery Systems and Life Science Holdings, and Weider Health and Fitness, a subsidiary of Schiff Nutrition International Inc.
Nevertheless, TV and radio shows hosted by such people as Tucker Carlson and Al Rantel feature Eric Weider as “an historian” to provide what is promoted as expert commentary on current events and today’s wars.
Weider is an engaging speaker, but the history he cites is highly selective and is used to support military action in the Middle East. On the Rantel show he suggested that American presidents should ignore polls indicating what Americans want and instead “instill the will” to fight.
The Weider History Group and Israel-Palestine
A survey of the publications’ website, HistoryNet, shows most articles and commentaries regarding Israel-Palestine to be Israel-centric. They often extol the Israeli military.
The publications’ articles during and following Israel’s 2008-9 massive attack on Gaza largely consisted of cheering Israel’s victory. The articles failed to mention that this allegedly proud conquest (fueled by massive American money and weaponry) was over one of the world’s poorest populations (largely thanks to Israeli policies). They also failed to mention that Palestinians have no navy, no air force, and no real army, and that their resistance groups are minimally armed.
When Israel finally ended its three-week long invasion of the densely populated enclave (during which Israeli forces had killed 1,400 Palestinians, 470 of them women and children; many others elderly men), a Weider HistoryNet article bemoaned Israel’s decision “to break off its punitive expedition into Gaza prematurely—despite the superb performance of the Israel Defense Force….”
The HistoryNet articles emphasized Israel’s need “to defend itself” against Palestinian rockets, but they failed to report that these are largely small, homemade projectiles and that Palestinian resistance forces began firing them only after Israel had already invaded Gaza numerous times and killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians of all ages.
They also neglected to mention that, before the invasion, these rockets had killed a total of approximately 19 Israelis – ever. (The total fatalities from Gaza rockets through November 2012 are 29. During the same time, according to the Israeli organization B’Tselem, Israeli forces killed over 4,000 Gazans.)
The articles erroneously claimed that Israel invaded Gaza because the Palestinian Hamas group had violated a ceasefire agreement with Israel. In reality, it was Israel that had violated the ceasefire three times – killing seven Palestinians – before some Palestinian groups then resumed rocket fire.
Finally, the Weider articles failed to inform readers that Israel had been planning the invasion for six months ahead of time, as revealed by a Jewish Chroniclearticle applauding Israel’s effective “hasbara” (propaganda) campaign during the operation.
Eric Weider himself has occasionally posted pro-Israel comments on the site’s forums. In one he responds to a member’s posting about Israeli fighters flying over Gaza several times a day to create sonic booms in order to frighten the people below, who would dive for shelter. Weider comments: “Next thing you know the Israelis will start talking excessively loudly! Their cruely [sic] knows no bounds!” In another thread, Weider states, “It is important to recognize that there is a lot of anti-semetic [sic] inspired Anti-Israel sentiment in the world.”
Eric Weider and George Washington
Eric Weider expresses great admiration for George Washington and has begun a petition to restore his birthday as a federal holiday. He has written: “If I have a historical role model I would say that I most admire George Washington and I do my best to conduct myself in a way that he (and my father) would approve of.”
Yet, Weider seems to be violating one of Washington’s major recommendations:
In his Farewell Address, Washington warned against a “passionate attachment” to any foreign nation, saying that such attachments were “particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.”
If Eric Weider looked at the CNI website when he decided to censor it from his 11 magazines, he saw prominently displayed on the homepage a picture of the American forefather who he has called “first in his heart.”
Under this he saw an excerpt from his role model’s famous speech in which Washington warned: “Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”
On our homepage Weider would have also seen a history article on the U.S.-Israel relationship that contains considerable new, somewhat explosive information. Much of this would quite likely be of interest to readers of American history magazines, if they were allowed to learn of it.
Determining the future through controlling the past
It is disturbing to find that a chain targeting American history enthusiasts is exploiting its considerable power in furtherance of a political agenda of such monumental significance.
Multitudes of lives have been lost and destroyed in Middle East wars – many thousands of them American. Israel is the core issue in the Middle East and key cause of hostility to the U.S., is a factor in the American economic crisis, is embedded in U.S. electoral politics, and plays a significant role in many aspects of American policy formation. It is essential that Americans become well informed on Israel and on our relationship to it.
Author George Orwell’s words capture the profound significance of the Weider censorship within its history magazines: “Who controls the past controls the future.” Or, in the words of someone who posted to an online bodybuilding forum about the Weiders’ ownership of history publications: “Of course, if you control the writing of history… you gain power.”
The way to avoid a dangerously darkening future, I feel, is to free the past to full, open, and unfiltered inquiry. Our forefathers created freedom of the press because they rightly understood the necessity of a fully informed populace for the survival of our democratic republic.
The only way to counter the manipulation of powerful media owners is to expose their actions widely and to demand better. I hope all those who love knowledge, who care about the United States, and who value the lives of others on the other side of the world will help disseminate this information. It is time to stop allowing those who own the press to abuse their massive power.
“In fact, the Wilkerson report does not refute the notion of an Israeli link; he addresses only Israeli-U.S. contacts in early 2002, whereas by later in 2002 and 2003 the evidence is overwhelming that Israel and particularly the Israel lobby were pushing hard for the war.” – KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Jerusalem – The organizers of Israel’s J14 movement demand social justice. Outraged by the increasing concentration of wealth and the soaring cost of living, many Israelis have stood up and called for cheaper housing, food, education, and taxes, among other things.
Last summer, eight consecutive weeks of social justice demonstrations brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets of every major city. Demonstrators occupied city centers across the country, and tent cities popped up in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Akko, Eilat, and elsewhere.
In what turned out to be the climax of the movement, nearly half a million people marched through Tel Aviv. “The people demand social justice,” announced Daphne Leef, the woman who triggered the movement last year by setting up a tent on Tel Aviv’s chic Rothschild Boulevard after being evicted from her apartment.
The J14 movement has drawn a diverse crowd most demographics of the political and social spectrum. Its leaders insist that their cries for social justice are on behalf of everyone—Arabs as well as Jews, in other words. Their demands, they say, are social and not political, and their methods are strictly peaceful.
Yet the state has responded to this year’s protests with police violence. Last week, Daphne Leef was aggressively arrested by police officers after trying to pitch a tent in downtown Tel Aviv again. She and 11 other activists, observers say, were dragged on the concrete and thrown around before being stuffed into police cars and hauled off.
Last Saturday, thousands of J14 protesters marched through Tel Aviv and blocked off the Ayalon, a major freeway that connects the city to every highway in the country. Police were quickly deployed and broke up the demonstration by force.
However, many 1948 Palestinians—those who have Israeli citizenship—feel excluded by the limited scope of the J14 movement.
“Arab conditions are not the same here. Due to class differences, our problems are much different than the Jewish population,” Abu Toameh, a communist student activist, told me.
“We have trouble expanding our villages or buying commercial land. The price of apartments in Tel Aviv, which has an extremely low Arab population, doesn’t address our immediate concerns.”
Israel’s Channel 10 reported that Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino issued orders to police intelligence to carefully document the “involvement of the Arab community in the protests.”
Unable to appeal to a significant percentage of Palestinians inside Israel, it goes without saying that they have failed to garner the sympathy of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Two weeks ago, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) issued demolition orders to Susiya, a small West Bank village in the South Hebron Hills. Over 50 buildings, the IDF said, were illegally erected without permits.
The buildings, in fact, are tents hastily constructed with cinderblocks and rain tarps. They will be destroyed—displacing some 300 villagers, 120 of which are children—in order to make space for the expansion of the neighboring Jewish settlement.
The police violence in Tel Aviv pales in comparison to the IDF’s response to a demonstration in Susiya last week.
“Once the march started, the soldiers began to shoot tear gas and noisy bombs. We were peaceful, but they blocked the road and threatened to spray us with high-pressure water hoses and began to spray more tear gas,” said Roberto, an Italian activist who went to Susiya to show solidarity.
As government-sanctioned settlements continue to expand throughout the West Bank, it’s hard to imagine that the thousands of Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories feel much solidarity with protesters who demand cheaper housing in the middle class neighborhoods of Tel Aviv.
Under the constant threat of the Israeli Air Force’s bombs, how does it look to the youth of Gaza to see images of Israeli liberals banging on drums in city squares and demanding cheaper cottage cheese?
The J14 movement has a chance to assume revolutionary dimensions. The concept of social justice, however, is hollow unless activists are willing to link their struggle to that of Palestinians against the occupation. If they fail to do so, social justice will remain a broad concept without a meaningful realization.
While their intentions are good, J14 must widen the scope of its demands. Otherwise, achievements will be limited and unimpressive. The much greater injustices cannot be ignored: the violent reality of the 45-year occupation of the West Bank and the daily bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
~
Patrick O. Strickland is a freelance writer living and traveling on both sides of the Green Line in Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is a weekly Israel-Palestine correspondent for Bikya Masr and writes regular dispatches on his blog, http://www.patrickostrickland.com. He is a graduate student of Middle Eastern Studies.
In late May the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley campus newspaper, published letters to the editor defaming If Americans Knew and me personally.
As soon as I became aware of these letters, online, I phoned the person responsible for the letters section, Jonathan Kuperberg, to ask if they had also been published in the print newspaper. I did not reach Kuperberg but left him a voicemail politely asking this question. Kuperberg did not return my call, but I have since learned that they were also in the print publication distributed all over the campus (and probably beyond).
I then wrote a letter to the editor (see below) and sent it to the Daily Cal early the next morning, May 30th. The following day, when I again had received no response, I re-sent the letter and copied other Daily Cal editors.
The managing editor sent a short reply email saying that the opinion editor (Kuperberg) would be considering my letter and told me that in the summer they only print letters once a week.
The Daily Cal has now printed the next week’s letters to the editor and did not include my letter. In fact, although I know personally of at least four additional letters sent to them on this topic, they printed none of them.
Meanwhile, oddly, the defamatory letter against me remains at the top of their letters section.
It doesn’t take an expert to know that such behavior is unconscionable. Newspaper ethics codes – and normal concepts of fairness – affirm the right of a person accused of wrongdoing to respond. The American Society of Newspaper Editors Statement of Principles, for example, decrees: “Persons publicly accused should be given the earliest opportunity to respond.”
In addition, letters containing factual errors should also be corrected.
My letter, and at least one other, should have been published. Last night I emailed the editors asking when they are going to print my letter. None has yet replied. I have now phoned the office and finally reached an editor in person. She said that staff members were talking about this and that Kuperberg would get back me today. I thanked her and said I look forward to hearing from him.
I truly hope that this doesn’t turn into another Michigan Radio situation, in which the Ann Arbor NPR affiliate under director Steve Schram refused to run our announcement, refused to return email and phone calls, lied about their behavior to the public, and only finally aired our announcement over a year later following public pressure.
It would be nice if Kuperberg and the Daily Cal would simply do the right thing.
Below is my letter:
Commissioner pushes pro-Israel pro-war falsehoods
To the Editor:
I was saddened that an ad about Israel-Palestine in the Daily Californian (now posted on our website) elicited vitriolic, nonfactual letters attacking me personally and our organization, If Americans Knew.
It is particularly troubling to see such a letter by a City of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission member, Thyme Siegel (“Anti-Israel ad breaks trust, propagates lies,” May 21-27).
In her letter, Ms. Siegel claims that in 1967 Israel was “attacked by all its neighbors.” However, even Israel discarded this initial falsehood many years ago. In reality, Israel perpetrated a sneak attack on Egypt that wiped out most of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, launching what is called the Six Day war.
During that very rapid war of conquest, Israel also attacked a US Navy ship, killing or injuring 200+ Americans and destroying a $40 million ship (they eventually gave us $6 million compensation for the ship).
Even more disturbing than Ms. Siegel’s misrepresentation of history are her claims about Iran, in which she uses the same kind of inflammatory, inaccurate rhetoric that was used against Iraq, another perceived Israeli adversary.
Such mendacious rhetoric led to a tragic, unnecessary American war; the deaths of millions of Iraqi men, women, and children and thousands of Americans (many more left permanently maimed); and triggered a financial meltdown that cost multitudes of Americans their jobs, businesses, homes, and happiness.
It is time to expose and oppose the manipulation that has created war and misery for over 60 years. Americans give Israel over $8 million per day; we have the power to end the carnage. May this generation of college students be the ones to do it.
Sincerely,
Alison Weir
Executive Director, If Americans Knew, and President, Council for the National Interest
The International Movement for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine
June 30 – July 1, 2012
This is the final call to attend and register for the Munich Conference to launch the International Movement for One Democratic State in Palestine/Israel which will be held in Munich Germany on June 30 – July 1, 2012. If you did not register, please take the time to do so and to read the information below. Attached you find the following documents:
2. A copy of the Draft of the Munich Declaration of the International Movement for One Democratic State in Palestine/Israel for your input.
For those of you who already registered we are encouraged by your plan to attend and look forward to your active participation. This conference is designed to maximize cordial discussions among participants. All activists will be accorded equal time and treated equally to foster friendly relations and atmosphere.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for additional information.
Thank you!
Speakers – Dr. Ghada Karmi , Dr.Oren Ben Dor, Dr. Norton Mezvinsky , Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
Conference Statement:
The international project to create two states in Israel-Palestine has not only failed, it is leading to greater suffering and dangers for all. Under its cover, Israel has imposed conditions in the Gaza Strip that now shock the conscience of the world. The destruction of Palestinian homes and the hideous Apartheid wall present an appalling portrait of incremental ethnic cleansing. Conditions in the West Bank are argued by some to indicate superficial gains, but to everyone else look each day more like a Bantustan. Since 1948, Palestinians who are Israeli citizens found themselves deprived of equal human, economic, political, and legal rights, their land and natural resources expropriated, their culture co-opted, and their history falsified and maligned. The Palestinian people are being split geographically and politically and the Middle East is heading toward a future of endless conflict and war.
We will no longer watch passively while a fraudulent “peace process” builds such a future for Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Israel-Palestine and in the entire region. We propose to our brothers and sisters around the world that further delay in acting on the reality standing before us has become morally unacceptable.
The conflict in Israel-Palestine cannot be resolved until its fundamental source is addressed. That source is the premise of partition. We reject the Zionist claim that Jewish people have rights to a separate state in Palestine that deprives Palestinians of their rights to live freely and with equal rights in their ancestral homeland. But we reject just as strongly the equally racist idea that Israeli Jews and Palestinians are unable to peacefully share a non-ethnic democratic state and find a new future together in a unified country.
We declare our conviction that the only just, viable and stable solution to the conflict is to establish one democratic state in Palestine, in all the territory now controlled by Israel between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, with all Lebanese and Syrian lands to be returned to their rightful owners. A unified state is the only way to restore the rights of the Palestinian people and ensure true security, freedom, and equality for Palestinians, Israeli Jews and all the people of the land. We call on all who agree with us to join us in launching a global movement to establish this democratic state in historic Palestine for all its citizens: current Israeli Jews, Palestinians including those expelled from Palestine in the last century and their descendants. The new state shall be established on universal democratic principles that guarantee equality, non-discriminatory, and transparent laws and policies.
Building on the Madrid, London, Boston, Haifa, Stuttgart, and Dallas conferences and the various initiatives, in Munich we will assemble to affirm a unified Declaration for the International Movement for One Democratic State in Palestine and debate and agree on a plan of action. In league with those elsewhere who agree with us we will structure and launch an international Movement for One Democratic State that promises safety, freedom and equality for all the people of Palestine/Israel.
Who can participate?
We welcome and encourage groups/chapters that are active in Justice and Peace issues in Palestine to participate and send representatives to the conference. Certain individuals will be invited in their individual capacity for their contribution to the cause of ODS and justice and peace in Palestine/Israel. We will strive to adopt all decisions by unanimous consent. In the event that consensus is not reached, decisions will be adopted by a majority vote.
Date and place of conference:
The conference will take place on June 30 to July 1, 2012 in the city of Munich, Germany. Prior to the conference, all participants will be provided with copies of the various declarations and initiatives on the one democratic state in Palestine/Israel for their prior consideration. Participants will be asked to review them and suggest a unified declaration to be submitted to an address for this purpose prior to the Munich Conference. At the conference, the participants will only be asked to act on and adopt a common single Declaration for the international Movement of One Democratic State in Palestine/Israel.
Conference cost and registration:
Due to the fact that this conference is an independent initiative, all participants are asked to pay for their expenses and to make their own transportation and accommodation arrangements. The host group will provide participants with a list of recommended places to stay and directions. But it is up to the participants to make their own plans. To register please go to:
There are few crimes more despicable than stealing your neighbour’s water, and polluting what’s left, then watching him and his children suffer thirst, disease and ruin. Most of us would want nothing to do with the perpetrators of such evil.
British Water describes itself as the voice of the water industry. It talks about best practice and corporate responsibility, and lobbies governments and regulators on behalf of its members. No doubt it does a good job. It also has international ambitions including in the Middle East. So presumably it knows what’s going on water-wise in the Holy Land.
British Water should know, for example, that the 400-mile long structure known worldwide as Israel’s Apartheid Wall bites deep into the Palestinian West Bank dividing and isolating communities and stealing their lands and water.
If the wall was simply for security, as Israel claims, it would have been built along the internationally-recognised 1949 Armistice Green Line, although not even this is an official border. The wall’s purpose is plainly to annex plum Palestinian land and water resources for illegal Israeli settlements, and to that end it closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer.
In 2004 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the construction of the wall is “contrary to international law” and Israel must dismantle it and make reparation for damage caused. The ICJ also ruled that “all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”.
But the wall marches on, aided by American tax dollars and America’s protective veto, so that Israel can wield complete control over the water resources it sees as necessary to the regime’s present and future needs. This makes the Palestinians, who sit on top of enough water to be self-sufficient, entirely dependent on Israel for God’s life-giver. Israel also consumes most of the water from the Jordan River despite only three per cent of the river falling within its pre-1967 borders. Palestinians now have no access to it whatsoever due to Israeli closures.
Most of the Coastal Aquifer, on which Gaza’s inhabitants rely for water, is contaminated by sewage and nitrates, and is unfit for human consumption. Children particularly are at great risk. The aquifer is depleted and in danger of collapse. The damage could take generations to reverse, say experts.
During Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead) in 2008-09 over 30km of water networks were damaged or destroyed in addition to 11 wells. A UN fact-finding mission (the Goldstone Report) considered the destruction “deliberate and systematic”. Proper repairs have been impossible these last three years because Israel blocks the import of spare parts.
“Thirsting for Justice” is an aptly-named campaign by the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group, a coalition of 30 Palestinian and European humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam. It calls on European governments to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and the Palestinians’ basic rights to water and sanitation.
Under the warped arrangements of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (1995) Palestinians are only allowed to extract 20 per cent of the “estimated potential” of the mountain aquifer beneath the West Bank. Israel not only takes the balance (80 per cent) but overdraws its sustainable yield often by more than 50 per cent. A Joint Water Committee was set up to implement the agreement but Israel was given veto power and the final say on decisions. As a result, a number of essential projects for Palestinians have been denied or delayed. To make up for part of the supply shortfall, Palestinians are forced to buy water from the Israeli national water company Mekorot, some of which is extracted from wells within the Palestinian West Bank. In other words they are having to buy their own water, and at inflated prices.
Oxfam, which is very active on the ground in Gaza, confirms that 90-95 per cent of water from Gaza’s only source, the Coastal Aquifer, is undrinkable. At the current rate the aquifer will be unusable by 2016 and the damage irreversible by 2020.
Gaza residents are restricted to an average of 91 litres of water per day compared to 280 litres used by Israelis. 100-150 litres a day are required to meet health needs, says the World Health Organisation. Marginalised Palestinian communities in the West Bank survive on less than 20 litres per capita per day, the minimum amount recommended by WHO to sustain life in an emergency.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are said to have full legal rights to nearly 750 million cubic metres of water but they have to make do with a trickle, or go without, while Israelis fill their swimming pools, sprinkle their lawns and wash their cars. In Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp the water is turned off for days. When the street taps come on again, usually for a few hours, there’s a desperate scramble to refill domestic tanks and other containers before the next cut.
Haaretz last month reported the French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee findings on the geopolitical impact of water in confrontation zones like Israel-Palestine.
According to the report, water has become “a weapon serving the new apartheid. Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the [illegal] settlers get priority for water”.
Israel is waging a “water occupation” against the Palestinians, says the report accusing the Israelis of “systematically destroying wells that were dug by Palestinians on the West Bank” as well as deliberately bombing reservoirs in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. Furthermore, “many water purification facilities planned by the Palestinian Water Ministry are being blocked by the Israeli administration.”
Head of the Palestinian Water Authority Shaddad Attili observed: “Palestinians need to be able to access and control our rightful share of water in accordance with international law. The Oslo Accords did not achieve this. Without water, and without ensuring Palestinian water rights, there can be no viable or sovereign Palestinian state.”
Not content with robbing the Palestinians of their water, the Israelis are in the habit of flooding Palestinian fields and villages with untreated sewage from their hilltop settlements.
Against this background British Water has decided to cooperate with MATIMOP, an Israeli government agency that has been ordered to enter into international agreements and “aggressively expand opportunities for Israel’s industry”.
Always eager to oblige, the UK Trade and Investment Department’s briefing on Environment Opportunities in Israel contains this advice: “Israeli companies are keen to form alliances with companies abroad, and this is where the UK can benefit. In addition, growing development and marketing costs compel Israeli environmental companies to seek cooperation with foreign partners. The UK are world leaders in many aspects of the environment and so the UK and Israel complement each other and have much to offer each other in this sector. Teaming up with Israeli environment companies will give UK companies access to innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. UK companies can also benefit by providing their experience in marketing and management for Israeli companies.”
British Water signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MATIMOP on 21 December, so close to the Christmas holidays that it went unnoticed here. The event was not even recorded on British Water’s website but it was proudly featured on the embassy of Israel site and treated by the Israeli press as a triumph. MATIMOP calls it “a strategic cooperation agreement”. Executive Director Israel Shamay said: “We are pleased to be working closer with British Water than we have worked with any foreign trade organisation before. The UK water sector is well respected internationally for its world-leading capabilities, solutions and services, making it the perfect partner to help commercialise and market Israeli innovation and R&D in this sector.”
British Water agreed the text for an announcement by the Embassy of Israel but didn’t release it themselves, apparently happy for Tel Aviv’s propaganda boys to take care of it. In the press release MATIMOP says: “Israel has been coping with water scarcity since its founding.” Yes, coping by thieving.
The Palestinians have been subjected to the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern times and are held prisoner within the fragmented remnants of their own country, unable to develop its resources or travel freely within it to find work, attend university, visit family, or worship at their holy places in Jerusalem. Is helping Israel to become a water superpower really the right thing for British Water to be doing?
British Water’s CEO David Neil-Gallacher was asked: “EU agreements require Israel to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” and provide for the agreement to be suspended otherwise. Does the MATIMOP agreement include similar good behaviour conditions?”
His reply: “The agreement with MATIMOP is a Memorandum of Understanding. Both parties are professional organisations with admirable aims and objectives.”
Another question: “British Water will be aware that Israel illegally occupies its neighbour Palestine and has seized control of its water resources. The path of Israel’s 400-mile separation wall closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer and encloses key supplies. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the wall in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is ‘contrary to international law’ and ‘all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction’. In the circumstances, should ethically-minded British companies allow themselves to become embroiled?”
Neil-Gallacher was unfazed: “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘embroiled’ or ‘ethically-minded’. The aim of the MoU is for businesses to work together for the good of the global water industry. It’s no part of our role to exchange philosophical concepts with you. The arrangement with MATIMOP is one of commercial intent for the benefit of UK and Israeli companies.”
Finally, “is British Water being evenhanded in this Holy Land confrontation zone? Are you offering help to the Palestinian Water Authority? Have you responded positively to the sea-water desalination project for Gaza and other programmes for West Bank towns and villages?”
Neil-Gallacher: “We notify our member companies of potential commercial opportunities wherever they may arise, leaving them — as they’re best-qualified — to weigh the relative attractiveness of different markets.”
David Neil-Gallacher is also Director-General of Aqua Europa, which does the same sort of job on a Europe-wide basis. This was his parting shot:
“Regions of tension are bound to engender strong views and conflicting principles, and it’s usually notoriously difficult to discern unequivocal moral ascendancy on the part of any of those involved. In my dealings with our companies active in the region, however, I’ve never seen any evidence that they are lacking in principle or moral locus. British Water’s perspective has to be a commercial one. We do our best to conduct our activities in the best interests of our part of British industry and strictly within the requirements of the law.”
How will British Water avoid complicity with Israel’s endless oppression of the Palestinians and the deadly strife with its other neighbours in the region? Perhaps Neil-Gallacher should ask one of his own member companies, Veolia, what can happen if caught up in Israeli projects that violate international law. Veolia dumps Israeli waste on Palestinian land and is helping to build and run a tramway connecting Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements. The company must rue the day it crossed the line to fall foul of those nice folks at BDS — the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement.
To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 UN action on Israel-Palestine.
The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.
In reality, while the UN General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.
Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.
Third, the US administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations, and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.
It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 per cent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 per cent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.
This article will examine some of the connections between the US and UK National Security apparatus and the appearance of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory beginning after the accident at Three Mile Island. … continue
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Silver Lining
