Sacramento resident Alison Weir, an internationally recognized writer and speaker, will speak from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Stephens Branch Library, 315 E. 14th St. in Davis, on “Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.”

Weir’s talk will include little-known information from her upcoming book on the topic. Weir is president of the Council for the National Interest, a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by former congressmen and top diplomats, and a founder of If Americans Knew, a think tank that focuses on Israel-Palestine.

Weir has written extensively on the Middle East conflict, traveled independently in the West Bank and Gaza, and traveled the world to speak about her experiences and her findings.

She has spoken at venues including Harvard, Stanford, the Naval Postgraduate Institute, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, numerous other campuses, Capitol Hill, at Asia media summits in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and at the University of Qatar. She recently returned from a speaking tour in England and Wales.

A New York Times report on Weir’s presentation stated, “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.”

Former Rep. Tom Campbell has praised Weir’s other presentations on the current situation in the Middle East as offering “a powerful, well-documented view of the Middle East today,” adding that “American policy makers would benefit greatly from hearing her first-hand observations and attempting to answer the questions she poses.”

Campbell called Weir “intelligent, careful and critical.”

In March of 2004, Weir 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.”

Her Davis appearance is sponsored by the Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights. It is free and open to the public.

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