If Americans Knew

If Americans Knew presents itself as a research and information institute focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. policy in the Middle East, and American media coverage.[2] It says it produces informational materials, organizes forums, conducts media studies, and provides speakers and written materials.[2] Critics including the ADL describe the organization as a prominent part of anti-Israel advocacy, while IAK rejects that characterization and presents its work as nonpartisan public education.[3][2]

Alison Weir has described her interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as beginning in the autumn of 2000, when she followed news coverage of the Second Intifada and came to believe that American reporting was one-sided.[6] She subsequently left her job and traveled independently as a freelance journalist through Gaza and the West Bank in February and March 2001, after which she launched If Americans Knew.[2]

IAK describes itself as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) independent research and information-dissemination institute.[2] Its stated objective is "to provide information that is to a large degree missing from American press coverage" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related U.S. foreign policy.[2] Weir described the organization's purpose as creating "a nonpartisan, journalistic organization" to give the American public information about the conflict and the U.S. connection to it.[6] IAK's mission statement, as quoted in an ADL backgrounder, holds that when Americans know the facts, they will "in the final analysis, act in accordance with morality, justice, and the best interests of their nation, and of the world."[5]

IAK's earliest documented activities included compiling statistics on what it characterized as pro-Israel bias in major U.S. print and television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle among its targets, and distributing its findings at lectures, rallies, and conferences.[5] In September 2003, the organization presented a poster display at the United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People; the ADL reported that the display depicted Israel as committing terrorism and harming Palestinian children as a matter of policy.[5]

IAK also produced documentaries to advance its positions. One, titled "The Easiest Targets: the Israeli Policy of Strip Searching Women and Children," alleged that women and children were illegally strip-searched and humiliated by Israeli border guards and airport security officials. Its trailer featured interviewees Weir described as having "very strong, very patriotic credentials," including Paul Findley and Eugene Bird, both associated with the Council for the National Interest.[5] Weir is also identified as the narrator of the 2006 documentary Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority, written, directed, and produced by Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish; the ADL characterized that film's account of the Israeli-Arab conflict as distorted and anti-Israel.[7]

In November 2012, IAK and the Council for the National Interest launched the "Stop the Blank Check" billboard campaign opposing U.S. financial and military aid to Israel. The campaign ran in multiple cities, including Des Moines and Orlando in 2015, and deployed the slogan "$8 million a day to Israel just doesn't make sense! STOP The Blank Check.org."[8] A separate IAK campaign, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," began in December 2013; its billboards suggested that Bethlehem was inaccessible to visitors and linked to anti-Israel literature.[8] IAK also sponsored a campaign called "Bethlehem in 2014," which included Christmas cards and a billboard in Atlanta depicting a modern-day Joseph and Mary blocked by the Israeli security barrier, based on graffiti artist Banksy's imagery.[9]

In Washington, IAK partnered with Jewish Voice for Peace, CODEPINK, Sabeel, and the Answer Coalition in a campaign described as "Shut Down AIPAC" and "Skip the Speech."[10] In 2024, a digital billboard truck operating along the Las Vegas Strip — funded by Nevadans for Palestinian Liberation and the Ibn Asheer Institute of Islam — displayed images from wartime Gaza, the slogan "From the river to the sea," and the If Americans Knew website; the ADL reported that the associated fundraising campaign raised more than $9,000 on Every.org, though it did not identify IAK as the truck's sponsor.[11]

Beginning in 2003, IAK issued media report cards assessing coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stating its aim as helping outlets cover the subject accurately and enabling readers to evaluate news sources.[12] Its most detailed published study examined Associated Press dispatches sent on the U.S. print wire during 2004, using LexisNexis to locate articles and B'Tselem data for death figures, and limiting its comparison to Israeli deaths caused directly by Palestinians and Palestinian deaths caused directly by Israelis.[12]

The study reported that AP headlines or lead paragraphs mentioned 141 Israeli deaths against an underlying count of 108, while mentioning 543 Palestinian deaths against an underlying count of 821. IAK calculated that Israeli deaths received prominent coverage at roughly twice the rate of Palestinian deaths, while asserting that 7.6 times more Palestinians than Israelis were killed during the period.[12] On children specifically, the study found that AP mentioned 9 Israeli children's deaths and 27 Palestinian children's deaths in headlines or lead paragraphs, against underlying counts of 8 Israeli and 179 Palestinian children killed. After excluding repeated mentions of individual deaths, IAK calculated that AP covered 88 percent of Israeli children's deaths but 13 percent of Palestinian children's deaths.[12]

The study also noted that among deaths AP described as occurring during a "clash," all 47 were Palestinian, which IAK argued may have conveyed a more mutual confrontation than the underlying deaths reflected.[12] The organization acknowledged methodological limits: the study measured only headlines and first paragraphs, not full articles, and noted that repeated reporting on single deaths could cause mention counts to exceed actual death totals.[12]

IAK says its public outreach has included supplying speakers and written materials to venues such as Harvard Law School, Stanford, Columbia, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, the National Press Club, and the Naval Postgraduate School.[2]

Its public profile has also been linked to close coordination with the Council for the National Interest. In June 2010, Weir was named president of the council, succeeding Eugene Bird, while retaining her position at IAK and dividing her time between the two organizations.[3] A 2013 Times of Israel report on an ADL assessment named IAK and the Council for the National Interest together among ten organizations the ADL considered the most influential and active anti-Israel groups in the United States. It described both as advocacy organizations run by Weir and reported the ADL's view that their central argument was that U.S. policies friendly to Israel damaged American foreign policy.[13]

IAK and its founder have attracted sustained criticism from pro-Israel organizations, and Weir has faced allegations from both critics and some erstwhile allies. The ADL has characterized Weir's rhetoric about Israeli influence over American politics and mainstream media as employing antisemitic imagery, portraying Israel and its agents as forces controlling U.S. policy through intimidation and deception.[3] NGO Monitor has identified IAK as a BDS-aligned group and alleged that Weir participated in a 2014 Holocaust-denial conference in Iran and promoted the claim that Israel harvested Palestinians' organs — characterizing the latter as a "modern blood libel."[4] JNS similarly published allegations that Weir promoted blood-libel claims.[10] These are attributed, contested allegations rather than independently established findings.

In 2015, several other anti-Israel organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace, publicly distanced themselves from Weir over allegations of antisemitism. On July 16, 2015, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation expelled IAK from its coalition.[8][14] IAK's own account disputes the characterizations and describes the allegations and expulsion as politically motivated.[14] A 2019 event at Clovis Community College featuring Weir drew criticism from several Jewish organizations; the college president stated that the institution was not co-sponsoring the talk and was not associated with Weir.[15]