Alyssa A. Lappen

Alyssa A. Lappen describes herself as an "investigative journalist", former editor for mainstream magazines, or "a freelance journalist and poet, whose work frequently focuses on Jewish themes". Her recent articles often appear in right-wing websites like FrontPage Magazine, AmericanThinker, Midstream and JihadWatch.org. Her articles, which commonly defend Israel, are often published by Campus Watch, DiscoverTheNetwork, Israel Hasbara Committee.

Lappen is a regular attendee of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) events, and several of her photographs with the ZOA grandees can be found on Pamela Geller's website.

Lappen is a former "Senior Fellow" at the American Center for Democracy. She is also very active in submitting "book reviews" to Amazon (see below) and often copied through to other online book sellers websites.

Background
Between February 2006 and June 2007 a section of the Ariel Center for Policy Research's website, NATIV Online, listed Lappen as one of its "authors and associates." :  Alyssa A. Lappen is a US-based investigative journalist focusing on the Middle East and related issues. Her work has appeared frequently in FrontPageMagazine.com, AmericanThinker.com, the Center for Security Policy and other internet and print journals.

The current biographical profile on the Ariel Center for Policy Research website states that "Ms. Lappen is not associated with the ACPR or NATIV."

In December 2006, the website of the American Center for Democracy listed Lappen as a "fellow" of the organization and featured a biographical note which stated that : Alyssa A. Lappen is a Senior Fellow at the American Center for Democracy. She is a former senior editor of Institutional Investor, Working Woman and Corporate Finance. She was previously an associate editor at Forbes Magazine and an editor and staff reporter for several other publications. Since 2001, Ms. Lappen has applied her investigative reporting skills to the Middle East and matters of American Security. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Tulane University.

Contesting a media story
In 2004, Lappen was one of those arguing that the killing of Mohammed Al Dura, a child shot while sheltering from gunfire behind his father in a Gaza street, was a hoax. The shooting was filmed by a French TV camera team and broadcast around the world. An abstract of a talk by Lappen at a conference sponsored by Americans for a Safe Israel stated :  Alyssa Lappen a prominent participant in the efforts to expose media bias against Israel detailed the Mohammed Al Dhury (the child supposedly killed by Israelis while cowering with his father) fraud perpetrated by the French media, and circulated throughout the world as an example of Israeli cruelty.

Book reviews!
A long list of Lappen's reviews can be found here. (Notice that there are some product "reviews" -- which issue glowing remarks for Israeli products...)

Lappen submits lengthy "reviews" which have the following distinguishing characteristics:
 * 1) If a book is critical of Israel, then the book is attacked and denigrated;
 * 2) If the book is favorable to Israel, then the book is praised and receives five stars;
 * 3) If the book deals with "terrorism" or demonizes Islam, Lappen will issue glowing marks;
 * 4) Books that present a Palestinian narrative are denigrated.

In particular, Lappen has written glowing articles about Joan Peter's From Time Immemorial ("This monumental and fascinating book&hellip; "), a book that Prof. Norman G. Finkelstein has exposed as a hoax, a book written for crass propaganda purposes; Prof. Yehoshua Porath also wrote a blistering indictment of this book. In general, many of Lappen's reviews deal with praising books that are consistent with zionist dogma, and providing negative review that clash with her political conceptions.

Lappen also has reviewed several books published by Encounter Books, a publishing enterprise affiliated with David Horowitz and Peter Collier. Her reviews of such books are very predictable: these books receive glowing reviews.

There is now a community of Amazon reviewers who praise or criticize each other's work. The purpose of this aspect of the Amazon website was to provide useful feedback to book reviewers; however, some reviewers have transformed this aspect of the Amazon forums as a means to legitimize reviews by other like-minded individuals. Lappen is a contributor to such mutual public appreciation of others's reviews.

Islamophobia
Many of Alyssa Lappen's articles denigrate Muslims, suggest that they are inherently violent and taking over the United States. She has produced several interviews with Pamela Geller, the notorious Islamphobic blogger. Nowhere in the interview does Lappen challenge Geller, but it is more a conversation between two people sharing the same hatred.

Memorable Quotes
From an Amazon review:
 * MEMRI is a critically important source of news from the Middle East for anyone who cares about the future of civilization. For more than six years, this non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. has brought to a global audience the English translations of Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Hebrew and other Middle Eastern news, speeches, broadcasts, textbooks and even television series such as the anti-Semitic "Horseman Without a Horse" broadcast in Egypt during Ramadan several years ago... (cont'd)

Recent Articles
To score cheap propaganda points, Zionist organizations have put Shoebat on tour around the US, and Lappen quotes him extensively. Her technique amounts to the journalistic equivalent of quoting the village idiot. Shoebat often talks about the hateful nature of "jihad theology", and Lappen uses this to smear the ISM and its founders:"'Not surprisingly, Beit Sahour is also home to Ghasson [sic] Andoni and George Rishmawi, are the co-founders of the Rapprochement Center. They also co-founded the International Solidarity Movement with Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro. Both organizations appear to be driven by the malevolent jihad ideology that Walid Shoebat describes.'"Now, even a group advocating non-violent resistance and dialog with the Israelis is smeared with Lappen's favorite term of abuse. Never mind that most of the leading Palestinian activists of the ISM are Christians and that roughly a third of the overall ISM membership is Jewish (including one of the co-founders, Adam Shapiro) – they still deserve Lappen's "jihadist" scurrilous smear. It is too much for Zionists to acknowledge that there are sensible and courageous Palestinians seeking to defend their rights using non-violent means. Lappen and her FrontPage ilk smear Palestinians in the ISM and all other Palestinians with wide brushstrokes, and in the process demonize and dehumanize all Palestinians.
 * Columbia U's Radical Middle East Faculty, FrontPage/Middle East Forum, 18 March 2003. This is an attack on Columbia Univ.'s Middle East Departments, and Rashid Khalidi in particular.  This article received the "thumbs up" favorable rating in Campus Watch.
 * Peeling Columbia’s Middle East Mask, Dhimmi Watch, 9 December 2003.  (Dhimmi Watch and Jihad Watch are websites run by Robert Spencer).  This article describes the monitoring of a (Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures) MEALAC conference and many of the statements made by the academics involved are criticized because they conflict with zionist dogma.  Again, Lappen reserves most of her efforts to attack Prof. Rashid Khalidi.   Prof. Jeff Halper, the founder of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD) is also attacked for working against the demolition of Palestinian homes – seen by Lappen as merely destroying the houses of Palestinian terrorists.
 * Hamas and the Palestinian Authority Are One: An Open Letter To President Bush, Think-Israel, 19 June 2003. This article rails against the "road map" negotiations on the grounds that the Palestinian Authority will not do anything about Hamas violence. The article seeks to portray Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as colloborators rather than groups don't want to be seen as having to do anything with one another. That is, smearing Palestinians with one brush -- all of them are Lappen's target.
 * The Ravages Of The Jihad-Occupied Mind, FrontPage, 17 February 2004. This article is primarily about the views of Walid Shoebat, a Palestinian who grew up in Beit Sahour and later converted from Islam to Christianity. Now he is an ardent supporter of Zionism, broadcasts a program from a extreme settler radio station near Ramallah, and appeared on tour of the U.S. tour claiming that Palestinians are anti-Semitic and intent on violence.  While on tour, Shoebat wears a kippa and states the "he is a Zionist".  Here is CounterPunch's take on  Lappen's article :

He denounces American "imperialism" on Al-Jazeera Television. A former Zionist, he refers to jihadist suicide bombers as "martyrs." He praised Mideast scholars for ignoring the issue of terrorism, and he regularly repeats the most twisted and paranoid claims of Islamist regimes as though they were historical fact. He is Stanford Middle East history professor Joel Beinin, and his influence extends far beyond his classroom. If one individual can showcase all the flaws of Middle East Studies in academia, Joel Beinin is that man. A former president of the Middle East Studies Association, Beinin teaches Middle East history at Stanford University. This professor’s politics color his work; the result is mediocre scholarship, baseless conspiracy theories, and partisan classroom instruction.
 * "Stanford's Islamist Threat", FrontPage, 21 Dec. 2004. Prof. Beinin is a reputable Israeli scholar teaching at Stanford University who happens to be critical of Israeli state policies and zionism in general. Here is the top section of her strident article (reprinted on the Challenging Islam website):

The tone of the remainder of the article is much the same.

Affiliations

 * American Center for Democracy – Senior Fellow
 * AmericanThinker.com – frequent contributor
 * Ariel Center for Policy Research – Listed as author and associate
 * Right Side News – "journalist"

Articles published in

 * Campus Watch
 * Discover the Network
 * Family Security Matters
 * FrontPage Magazine
 * Midstream
 * Pajamas Media
 * Right Side News
 * Terror Finance Blog] – contributor
 * WorldNetDaily

Contact
Website: www.alyssaalappen.org

Resources

 * Paul de Rooij, "Undermining Civil Society: David Horowitz's Corrosive Projects", CounterPunch, 11 April 2005. Contains an analysis of the key Horowitz projects and with specific references to the activities of Alyssa Lappen.