Alison Weir’s recent talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “If Americans Knew,” has sparked a lot of valuable debate and discussion on Wesleyan’s campus. Weir’s point that the American media over-represents the Israeli side of the conflict is significant, and she brought up the important issue of American funding of Israel. Weir also did an excellent job of humanizing the daily struggles of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. However, the talk as a whole was not a constructive basis for understanding the conflict. Weir did not discuss the rationales given by both sides for their violent actions, which is essential in gaining a holistic understanding of the conflict and how the conflict can possibly be solved.
As a group whose primary objective is to educate about Israel-related issues, we find it necessary to respond to Weir’s one-sided presentation. Weir claims that because the Israeli side is overrepresented in the media, she is merely counterbalancing the effects of the media by presenting only the Palestinian side. However, while mention of Israeli casualties may indeed be more prevalent in the American media than mention of Palestinian casualties, this coverage rarely includes the type of sensationalized personal stories and shocking images of violence that Weir continuously presented in her talk. Furthermore, in the question and answer session, several audience members admitted to being unfamiliar with the Israeli side of the issue.
In her talk, Weir gave a distorted history of the Arab-Israeli conflicts. She said that the 1948 UN partition plan gave 55% of the land to the Jews and 45% to the Palestinians, and suggested that this unfair division prompted the Palestinians to react with the 1948 war. Weir neglected to mention that much of the land given to the Jews in the UN partition plan was virtually uninhabited desert, and did not make it clear that the war began when Israel was attacked by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. In addition, on her website, Weir describes the start of the 1967 war as being a “Pearl Harbor-like” attack by Israel. She does not mention that the attack was in response to signs of hostility, such as the closing of the Straight of Tiran and the amassing of troops and weapons on Israel’s southern border. Finally, Weir completely avoided the 1973 war, in which Israel was attacked by several neighboring nations on Yom Kippur (a very important Jewish holiday).
Much of what Weir presented was personal opinion that was not based in fact. For example, she described experiencing nearby Israeli gunfire in her travels. She later learned about journalists who had been shot, which led her to the conclusion that the Israeli army was intentionally trying to “send her a message.” There are no facts to show that the army was deliberately shooting because of her, and Weir did not tell us the circumstances of the other journalists’ deaths. This sort of opinion was interspersed throughout the presentation with statistics and history reports, giving the impression that everything she said was fact and could be taken at face value.
Weir concluded her talk by reading a letter she had written from Gaza, in which she called checkpoints “death points,” and put words in the mouth of a hypothetical Israeli soldier, such as “Don’t cross us, Arab, or give us a bad look, or we’ll shoot.” Although Weir has the right to express her thoughts in this way, such sensationalism only impassions people and distracts from constructive discussion. Kol Israel, as an educational group, encourages you to seek out as many perspectives as possible and engage in respectful dialogue about this incredibly complex issue.
Kol Israel’s goal is to promote support, awareness, and understanding of Israel and Zionism on campus through cultural and political education. Kol Israel has no specific political agenda, and our group encompasses a wide range of opinions. Kol Israel meets on Tuesdays at 9:30 in the Bayit.
Leave a Reply