Everyone knows how easy it is to mislead with statistics: Nine out of ten dentists recommend Colgate toothpaste. They never said that 90% of all doctors recommend it, but that’s clearly the message they’d like you to take away. This isn’t a pro-Colgate bias, it’s intentionally misleading advertising.
Throughout her talk about the Palestine/Israel conflict, Alison Weir, executive director and founder of “If Americans Knew,” used deceptive statistics and rhetoric to achieve her goal of demonizing Israel. What saddens me is that a lot of people went to this talk not knowing much about the situation and hoping to learn. These are exactly the type of people of whom she took advantage because they don’t have enough background to notice how obvious her mistreatment of the information was. I’ll explain as much as I have room for here, but this is just the tip of the iceberg:
Her main arguments were as follows: 1) The media is distorted. 2) Thus, the extent of human rights violations and killings by Israel are wildly underreported. If americans knew, they’d pressure the government to withdraw our support for Israel.
Deception #1 – The Media: Many people have examined her data and found her studies to be blatantly unscientific. Consider this excerpt from an article from CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) examining her criticisms of the New York Times:
“The bulk of [Weir’s] study is based only on the headline and first paragraph—often just one sentence—…and completely ignores the remaining text of the articles. Only by ignoring most of the news coverage in this way can Weir reach her conclusions.”
“In the one month sub-study where If Americans Knew did actually examine news stories from start to finish, the group found the Times reported 82 percent of Palestinians killed. That is, Weir’s statistics show that most Palestinian deaths are in fact reported in the newspaper.”
To see the full article and the various ways her statistics mislead (which are extensive, but I don’t have room to include here), google “Camera: Alison Weir.” CAMERA seems to have a pro-Israel slant but is pretty fair in the critique of her numbers.
Deception #2—“Children”: What comes to mind when you think of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers? Would you include armed seventeen-year-olds who are killed in combat with Israeli soldiers? According to Alison Weir you would. She explains that there is a disproportional number of Palestinian children killed compared to Israeli children killed. The definition of children she uses is seventeen and under. Notice how strategic this since Israelis are drafted into the army at age eighteen, just past this cut-off.
On her website, the data she uses says that 58 Palestinian “children” were killed in 2005. The American Heritage Dictionary defined a child as an individual who has not yet reached puberty. Imagine how the connotation changes if you define children as twelve and under and called the rest teenagers. The 58 Palestinian children listed for 2005 turn into ten children and 48 teenagers. In between, you could call it nineteen children aged fourteen and under, and 39 fifteen-to-seventeen-year-olds.
She also emphasizes the fact that the single greatest cause of death to Palestinian “children” is gunshot wound to the head. Wait a minute though, does this point help her case or hurt it? A person shot in the head is less likely a child killed by Israeli recklessness than the result of a carefully aimed shot during combat. In our society we make distinctions between combatants and innocent bystanders, and it’s clear that Weir is describing some combatants as children to serve her agenda.
My point is NOT that all 15 to 17 year-old Palestinians killed by the IDF are militants/terrorists/freedom fighters, whatever your preferred terminology. My point is also NOT that the Israeli military has never killed innocent Palestinian children, or that this isn’t a tragedy. My point IS that without analyzing the context, her data about the numbers of “children” killed is not meaningful, and is clearly meant to mislead and exaggerate.
Everyone discusses this issue with some bias, including myself, but she crosses the line from bias to deception. Peddling misleading information makes it more difficult for those actually interested in learning about the situation to figure out what’s going on. Though she calls the US media distorted, her presentation was far beyond anything a news organization could say and still be taken seriously (which is why she generally isn’t). I know that there are many people who are opposed to the actions of Israel who have intelligent, meaningful input to contribute to the discussion, but Alison Weir is not one of them.
Much Love,
David “Dove” Altabef
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