Month: June 2012

After a great deal of back and forth (and efforts by others on my behalf), the Daily Californian has finally published a response by me to a non-factual, defamatory letter to the editor attacking me in late May.

While I am pleased that the newspaper finally printed something, I feel it’s unfortunate (and evinces a bit of a double standard) that the editors would not publish the original letter I submitted, restricted the information I could include in my rebuttal, posted my letter at the bottom of three letters (they had published the defamatory letters at the top of the section), failed to promote my letter in the paper’s Twitter account (which they had done with the one accusing me), and continue to feature the defamatory letters – weeks after they were published – at the top of their Letters to the Editor page.

However, I’m glad that they finally published the following. Thanks to everyone who helped with this accomplishment!

Personal attacks are invalid, misinformed

In her letter “Anti-Israel ad breaks trust, propagates lies,” (May 21-27), Thyme Siegel angrily attacks me, apparently under the erroneous impression that I was responsible for an ad in The Daily Californian that she found infuriating.

Her letter berates the newspaper for the highly factual ad, stating: “… an especial red flag should have gone up in taking money from anti-Israel activists.  Alison Weir, whose organization If Americans Knew is mentioned in the ad, is a full-time hater of Israel, a task of constant malice.”

In reality, I am a former journalist with a history of opposing discrimination. I had known little about Israel-Palestine most of my life, tilting toward Israel in my sympathies. When a Palestinian uprising erupted in fall 2000, I grew curious and began to investigate it.

I was shocked as I read Internet reports from regional media, humanitarian agencies and eyewitnesses. These differed so markedly from U.S. news reports that I decided to go see the situation firsthand.

I traveled by myself throughout Gaza and the West Bank and saw entire neighborhoods in ruins from Israeli shelling, ancient orchards that had been razed, children who had been shot.

When I returned I began If Americans Knew to provide the facts on a tragic issue to which Americans are intimately connected through our $8 million per day to Israel.

For my work, I am regularly called names. Following a 2003 debate at Berkeley, I received a death threat. Nevertheless, I plan to continue my efforts to give Americans the facts — especially since we have the power to bring justice and peace. It is my dream that today’s college students will do this.

— Alison Weir
Council for the National Interest and If Americans Knew

(On the website version my name was originally omitted at the end of the letter. When some readers notified me of this, I contacted the newspaper and they corrected this typo the next day.)

Some people have sent me letters they had sent to the Daily Cal in response to published letters to the editor that contained false information on Israel-Palestine and that attacked If Americans Knew and me personally. (See more details here.)

A few were written before the Daily Cal refused to publish my own letter in response to the personal attacks against me, and some were written afterward to object to the Daily Cal’s deeply unethical conduct.

These excellent letters contain important factual information and thoughtful analysis. It’s a shame that the Daily Cal so far hasn’t printed any of them, since they would help to inform the newspaper’s readers on a critically important topic that is at the center of events affecting all Americans and millions of people in the Middlle East. They also discuss core principles of journalistic ethics, surely an important and relevant discussion.

Please read these and tell others of this situation.

Daily Californian Editors:

I am more than shocked, I am, frankly, angry, at your apparent refusal to publish a letter by Alison Weir that not only responds to a personal attack on her but distorts the truth about the origins of the 1967 Six-Day war, one of the most significant events of the 20th century which was initiated by Israel in the early morning hours of June 5, of that year, by bombing Egypt’s airfields and virtually wiping out its air force. It’s a fact easily checked.

As a student of the Middle East and as someone who has been a journalist for many years, cutting my newsprint teeth at the UCLA Daily Bruin, and who is more than familiar with the standards of professional journalism I find your decision indefensible. When someone is attacked in print . that person is entitled to respond in the same publication. It is as simple is that. Your decision, however, is consistent with a campaign initiated by the Zionist Organization of America, on the extreme right of the Jewish organizational spectrum, to use Title VI, a law designed to protect minorities against discrimination, to stifle legitimate criticism of the state of Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians on college campuses by defining it as anti-Semitism. Those who declare the truth and those who speak it to be anti-Semitic and try to silence them, as does the ZOA, are only courting trouble. Is that the sort of company you wish to keep?

Jeffrey Blankfort
UCLA l957

To the Editor

In the letters of May 21-27 Thyme S. Siegel and Vladimir Kaplan falsely state that in 1967 Israel was attacked by all its neighbors. Maybe the writers are too young to remember that Israel was the first to attack when they bombed the Egyptian Air Force as their planes sat wing to wing on the tarmac. As Egypt was the object of aggression, Arab countries with which Egypt had treaties were bound to come to their aid.

At the end of six days Israel held not only the West Bank and Gaza but the Golan Heights which they have annexed in violation of international law. Today, as represented on the last map, much of the West Bank is covered with Jewish-only settlements dividing the territory into smaller and smaller enclaves of Palestinians. Each and every settlement built in these Occupied Territories is also in violation of international law.

The writers take issue with some of the facts in the ad. There is no doubt that at the start of the Zionist project less than 5% of the population of Palestine was Jewish. As more and more Jews came into Palestine, pressure was put on European powers to divide up the land.  With justification the Palestinian Arabs felt that they did not want to give up the land on which they had lived for centuries. It has been well documented that while a number of Palestinians fled in fear of the fighting a larger number were ethnically cleansed, a fact that Israeli historians Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris have documented.

It would do well Siegel and Kaplan to do some research.

 – Jan Bauman, D
Daily Cal, 1951-1952

To the Editor of the Daily Californian:

 

The ad depicting the reality of Israeli theft of Palestinian Lands with accurate maps has generated 2 letters by Thyme S. Siegel and Vladimir Kaplan. The two writers engage in ad hominem attacks with charges of “anti-Semitism”, “lie”, “fabrication”, “manipulation” and even “destructive venom” then proceed to propagate myths that have long been discredited.  Perhaps the writers are confused and not aware that Israel itself called its attacks on Arab states in 1967 preemptive.  Preemptive means you attack first.   Perhaps they swallowed the fiction of Israeli victory through a “miracle”.  Perhaps they are not aware that several Israeli leaders admitted Israel’s premeditated attack.  The late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said,  “In June l967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” (New York Times, August 21, 1982.)  General Mattityahu Peled, a member of the Israel General Staff during the 1967 attack said: “To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analysing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal [Israeli army].” [Ha’aretz, 19 March 1972.
]

 

The maps in the ad should not surprise anyone familiar with the  tragedy in Palestine.  Similar maps are  in Israeli government issued textbooks. A similar version is published by the authoritative Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD.org.)   I advise letter writers to examine the facts and educate themselves. 

 

Margaret Fouda,

Kensington

 

To the Editor:

Lest any reader be tempted to believe the hysterical, hateful and highly incorrect rant by Thyme Siegel, I suggest they read a reputable book to get the facts, such as The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine written by the renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

Iran supplied bombs used by Gaza? What nonsense! We all know that it was Israel that dropped bombs on Gaza during the 2008-2009 assault, killing 1,400 people, of whom 300 were children. The illegal weapons used by Israel, such as the phosphorous that burned children to death, were paid for by us – the US tax payer.

Jane Jewell, San Rafael

My response to the letter “Ad illustrates essence of Anti-Semitism, lies by Mr Kaplan”:

The cry of “anti-Semitism”, when used to silence anyone who dares to criticise Israel, completely upstages the story of the little boy who kept crying “wolf”. I thought it had been knocked on the head a couple of years ago at UC Berkeley, during the divestment campaign against the Israeli Occupation, when one of the leaders of Jewish Voice for Peace pointed out that there were more Jewish supporters of the divestment campaign in the room than Jews opposing it. 

While the movement for justice for Palestine is made up of people from all walks of life, it contains a disproportionate number of Jews who are speaking out against Israeli Apartheid and taking the lead in bringing justice for Palestinians. To name just a few:

Ilan Pappe, Israeli author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine;

Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions;

Bekah Wolf, founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project;

Anna Baltzer, Jewish American author of Witness in Palestine;

and Rae Abileah, founder of Young Jewish and Proud, who speaks out against the Israeli government’s policies at every opportunity.

Yet supporters of the Apartheid State of Israel continue to try to play the ‘anti-Semite card’, despite the fact that its effectiveness in suppressing those speaking out for justice ended a long time ago, and it’s continued use is getting more and more comical.

 – Jane Jewell

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 to 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

Update: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 at 6:23AM

Last night I finally received a response from the Daily Cal:

Hi Alison,

We have decided not to publish your letter to the editor. Please direct any further questions to me or Stephanie Baer, our Editor and Chief and President (editor@dailycal.org), and not to any of the other editors.

Jonathan Kuperberg

It’s interesting that Kuperberg and Baer don’t wish the other editors involved. I would like to hope that some of them may have a sense of the extremely unethical stance their newspaper is taking and may not be happy about it.

I remember being a student editor many years ago on the Michigan Daily. It’s hard to believe that I would have gone along with such a blatant abuse of journalistic power. It would be wonderful if some of the staff would be  sufficiently ethical, fair-minded, and courageous to speak out about it.

I’ll now try to meet with the staff to discuss this situation. Having published a highly defamatory, personal attack against me, they at least have the obligation to meet with me and explain why they feel they are justified in refusing to publish my response.

Apart from the importance of the principles involved, I have strong connections to UC Berkeley. I used to have an office in Berkeley and have many friends there. All three of my children graduated from Berkeley (with honors!) and one received a Master’s degree from it. My former husband was on the faculty of its journalism school.

While the Daily Cal is a very small, largely student newspaper, it is significant in that it is one of the few ways to reach students and faculty at this major American university (Berkeley is often listed as the top public university in the country and rivals far more expensive places like Stanford, Harvard, and Yale in the excellence of its academics).

I’m reminded of the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) official awhile ago who proclaimed their plans for Berkeley – and beyond (watch video here). In reference to a divestment resolution on Israel that the majority of the UC Berkeley student senate had endorsed, AIPAC’S Director of Leadership Development Jonathan Kessler announced:

“How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley? We’re going to make certain that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. That is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.”

How dangerous that this tiny, powerful special interest group is targeting our universities – and that this has been going on for so many years (see “Pressure on Campus: Interest groups successfully stifling academic discourse,” published 27 years ago).

More people need to learn about what’s going on and, in the parlance of Paul Findley’s seminal book, join those who dare to speak out about it. The soul of our country and millions of lives depend on it.

* * *

By the way, regarding the ad that was published:  While I’m extremely pleased that this excellent ad contained information and images from our website and cards, our organization can in no way take credit for the ad. If Americans Knew did not create it, place it, or sponsor it (although, given sufficient financial resources, we would be pleased to place and sponsor such ads in other newspapers in the future). As we stated in the post about the ad on our website, this was done by a Rhode Island based foundation, Justice First Foundation. The ad did not mention me.

Update: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 at 11:52AM

A number of people have emailed me excellent letters they’ve sent the Daily Cal. So far, none have been published, so I’ll post them in a new section above.