Alison Weir
Alison Weir is the president of the Council for the National Interest, a former journalist and the founder of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the Israel-Palestine conflict, specializing in statistical analysis. Weir writes and speaks widely about Israel-Palestine, with particular focus on media coverage. Her articles on the subject have been published in anthologies both in the U.S. and abroad and in diverse online and print publications.
Ms. Weir has given talks at numerous universities, including Harvard Law School, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Yale, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Naval Postgraduate Institute; four times at the Asia Media Summit in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and has twice given briefings on Capitol Hill.
Former U.S. Congressman Tom Campbell (R-CA) said of her presentation: “Ms. Weir presents a powerful, well documented view of the Middle East today. She is intelligent, careful, and critical. American policy makers would benefit greatly from hearing her first-hand observations and attempting to answer the questions she poses.”
The New York Times reported of her lecture in Greenwich, Connecticut: “When the speech ended, Ms. Weir was met with thunderous applause, and across the room there was a widespread sense of satisfaction that someone was saying what needed to be said.”
In 2004 she was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a: “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights. The first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”
Website URL: http://www.alisonweir.org
Palestinian man wounds Israelis in Tel Aviv
IMEMC – Israeli sources report that a Palestinian man attacked a crowd of Israelis outside a nightclub early Monday morning, stabbing several of them with a knife.
The attack comes after a week of deadly Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that killed eighteen. A shooting attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians in southern Israel the previous week was initially blamed on Palestinians by the Israeli authorities, but was apparently carried out by Egyptians.
Palestinian prisoners' society launches campaign for man imprisoned without trial
The Palestinian Prisoners' advocacy organization Addameer has launched a campaign on behalf of a Palestinian who was recently re-imprisoned by Israel. Addameer calls the man a "Prisoner at Risk" and stated on August 25:
Ayed Dudeen, a father of six from Hebron who in June was released from over three and a half years in the Israeli prisons without charge or trial, has today had another administrative detention order against him approved.
After being re-arrested on 9 August, only two months after his release, Ayed Dudeen was given an administrative detention order by the Israeli Security Agency which was today confirmed at Ofer Military Court. He will remain in detention without charge or trial for 6 months.
As with all other administrative detainees, Ayed’s file remains secret, available to the military judge but not to Ayed or his lawyer.
Palestinian land to be confiscated for Israeli parking lot
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities in Jerusalem are to build a parking lot on privately-owned Palestinian land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the city, a local resident told Ma'an.The compound is to be built on 4,000 square meters of land owned by Kamal Ubeidat, who told Ma'an that he has a deed from the Ottoman era proving ownership of the land.
Small resistance group fires rocket, no damage
overnight Israeli air raid in Beit Lahia, August 25. [AFP/Mohammed Abed, File]
The rocket landed near Khatzerim, a village just west of the southern desert city of Beersheva, a police spokeswoman said.
An army spokeswoman said it was the fourth incidence of firing since the truce came into effect at 1 a.m. on Friday morning. "The rocket hit an empty area without causing injuries or damage," she said.
The Islamist group Tawhid wal Jihad claimed responsibility for firing a grad rocket towards Beersheva on Sunday morning.
Tawhid wal Jihad said in a statement Sunday that the shelling was in response to the assassination of Popular Resistance Committee Leaders in southern Gaza earlier this month.
Islamic Jihad truce 'to protect Palestinians'
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Islamic Jihad leader Dawood Shibab said Saturday that the movement agreed to a truce with Israel to protect the Palestinian people and leaders.
Islamic Jihad agreed to a ceasefire on Friday after a previous truce broke down when Israeli forces killed two Islamic Jihad militants, and the faction launched projectiles across the border.
Israeli settlers destroy Palestinian olive trees
SALFIT (Ma'an) -- Settlers on Saturday cut down Palestinian-owned olive trees in Salfit in the northern West Bank, witnesses said.A group of settlers destroyed eight olive trees and damaged two lemon trees belonging to farmer Abdel Razzaq Khaled Mansour in the Wadi Qana area of Deir Istaya, locals told Ma'an.
124 Out Of 193 Countries Recognize Palestinian Independence
Abbas willing to return to negotiations with Israel
Abbas added that the Palestinian decision to head to the UN this September to seek full Palestinian membership, and international recognition of the Palestinian right to statehood, does not aim at isolating Israel, or confronting the United States.
“Accepting Palestine as a member state at the UN will set the foundations for peace, justice, stability and coexistence, instead of the current aggression, assaults and injustice”, Abbas said, “We are asking the US, the West and Israel, to show us what plans they have, but so far, nothing has been presented”.
The Palestinian president also said that the Palestinians are demanding an independent state on 22% of the historic land of Palestine (The West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem”).
Video reveals brutal interrogation of young Palestinians
Independent – How Israel takes its revenge on boys who throw stones
The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep."
During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.
This rarely seen footage seen by The Independent offers a glimpse into an Israeli interrogation, almost a rite of passage that hundreds of Palestinian children accused of throwing stones undergo every year.
[Below is a video of Islam Tamimi's Kafkaesque military "trial."]
Israel has robustly defended its record, arguing that the treatment of minors has vastly improved with the creation of a military juvenile court two years ago. But the children who have faced the rough justice of the occupation tell a very different story.
"The problems start long before the child is brought to court, it starts with their arrest," says Naomi Lalo, an activist with No Legal Frontiers, an Israeli group that monitors the military courts. It is during their interrogation where their "fate is doomed", she says.
Sameer Shilu, 12, was asleep when the soldiers smashed in the front door of his house one night. He and his older brother emerged bleary-eyed from their bedroom to find six masked soldiers in their living room.
Report: Egypt convinced Israel not to assassinate Gaza Prime Minister
Egypt's Al-Ahram daily quoted Palestinian sources as saying Israel's plan, approved in the wake of last Thursday's deadly attacks in Eilat, was aborted after Egypt pressured Israel to back down.
National Summit to Reassess the US-Israel "Special Relationship"
The public is invited to a nonpartisan symposium Nov. 8-9 that will examine the impact of the US-Israel relationship on Americans. Panels will include top military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, governmental, and economic experts, as well as former Congressional representatives. Read more
