January 1991, Page 91

Publishers' Page

The Pivotal Year

This is the first month of what can be the pivotal year for US policy in the Middle East. If the Bush administration plays it right, not only will there be no war this year in the Gulf, there may never again be any need for the US to play policeman in the Middle East. Not for the rest of this century, or the next one either.

This We Believe

We believe that the US applies a double standard to the Arabs and Israel, for domestic political reasons. We believe this underlies all US foreign policy problems in the Middle East. It also underlies many of the tribulations suffered by our Middle Eastern friends, from Morocco to Pakistan. Because it subsidizes increasingly extremist Israeli governments, this double standard even underlies Israel's own sea of troubles.

Why We're in the Gulf

We wouldn't have troops in the Gulf if Iraqi President Saddam Hussain hadn't hoped to capitalize upon Arab resentment of perceived US support for Israeli expansionism. Our Middle Eastern allies would have had the arms they needed to defend themselves, if it hadn't been for the successful machinations of Israel's US lobby in Congress.

New Proponents of Common Sense

Many Americans coming back from the Gulf are going to understand this clearly, just as have the American educators, technicians, and businessmen who preceded them in the Middle East. We think they'll all support the Bush administration if, before or after the battle with Saddam Hussain is won, it takes up Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's current challenge.

America's Other Middle East War

As this issue of the Washington Report demonstrates, Shamir has already declared all-out political war on the Bush administration. On the other hand, never in history has Israel so desperately needed a US financial bailout. Shamir is counting on Israel's US supporters to make life so miserable for the Bush administration that Shamir will get the money, instead of Bush getting the peacemaking concessions the US must have from Israel if our whole Middle East position is not to come tumbling down.

Israel's American Fifth Column

As readers of the Jewish weekly press are well aware, Shamir's allies include B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which is supposed to represent all national Jewish organizations but which has fallen under the control of the pro-Likud hard-liners. Other national Jewish organizations seem to have run for cover or turned mute.

Israel's Media Holy Warriors

It makes a lot of editors of those Jewish weekly newspapers, some of whom are still the kind of old-line liberals who once earned American Jews a place of special honor in American political life, very uncomfortable to report all this. In the second half of 1990, they've watched Israel's media holy warriors, like A.M. Rosenthal, William Safire and Charles Krauthammer, openly demand a US-Iraqi war.

America's Pro-Israel War Lovers

It makes liberal Jewish observers even more uncomfortable to see Jewish former high officials in the US government, under Republican administrations at that, strike out in support of Shamir's policies, and against those of the Bush administration, as do Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle.

They're Not Fooling Anyone

However, Richard the Rascal and Henry the Horrible aren't fooling anyone, anymore. They want the US to neutralize the Iraqi army, now, so that the extremists now running Israel can continue holding the West Bank until the opportunity arises to expel all of the Palestinians into a destabilized Jordan. Just as they tried to turn Israel's savage actions at the Hararn Al-Sharif into a "Palestinian attack on Jewish worshippers, " they'll support the next Israeli provocation, and the next and the next, even if Israel's Mossad finally has to hire a Palestinian maniac to blow up a busload of US or Israeli schoolchildren in order to trick Americans and Arabs into killing one another. Israel's current right-wing Likud government is determined to end any hope that the US will go into the next century with friends anywhere in the Middle East, other than Israel.

Does the President Understand?

We think George Bush and James Baker understand this. They have the power to stop it. They know, however, that when they do, Israel's American fifth column will go all out to cripple them politically, using its powerful supporters in the media.

Think Before You Act

That's why we think this is the crucial year. That's why our readers might think before they speak or act right now. Are you really speaking for yourself, or are you being manipulated?

Congress and the Gulf

Leadership to halt the Israeli-orchestrated rush toward war in late November and December came from Congress. Bless them. Leadership to restore balance to US Middle East policy can't come from Congress, however. It's Israeli-occupied territory. AIPAC's long-term lease won't expire until there is true campaign finance reform or a limitation on terms in office, or both.

The President and Israel

If the president takes the lead, however, Congress will eventually help him curb Israel. Look at how much sense Congress made in the hearings about force versus sanctions in the Gulf. But in taking on something as powerful as the Israel lobby, the president must lead.

When Knees Turn to Jelly

The president has been very macho in staring down Iraq's hard-eyed El Supremo. But the Bush knees may turn to jelly when he faces the prospect of hostile fire from now to elections by cold-eyed George Will, fork-tongued Thomas Friedman, and blurry-eyed and blurry-tongued Jeane Kirkpatrick, none of whom give him trouble on the Gulf, but all of whom will be planting media mines in his path to Jerusalem.

Getting Our Act Together

Our advice is to look down the road and stop thinking as Democrats or Republicans on this one. We would be giving exactly the same advice, and did, when it was Jimmy Carter trying to do the right thing and Israel's whole formidable American lobby, including powerful fifth columnists in his own party, pulled together to pull him down.

Much to Do, and Not Much Time

If you agree, or at least suspect that in our bumbling way we may have stumbled upon the truth, you must not sit this year out. If the president sets out to lead the US toward justice in Jerusalem, for the sake of all Americans, and for the people of the Middle East, our children, our grandchildren and generations to come, try to cool the second guessing, nit-picking, belly-aching, and hand wringing, and roll up your sleeves. There's much to do, and not much time to do it.

The Washington Report's Piece of the Action:

Let's get the word to the American people, particularly those in the Gulf, and those whose loved ones are serving in the Gulf. Their minds are focused on the problem. We can show them the solutions.

Our New Clothes

This issue consists of 96 pages, with a lot more color pages than ever before. There are economies of scale. With paid circulation up 35 percent in 12 months, one copy doesn't 20 to 30 hours on the radio. Anyway, we'd cost much more to print than the 60-page January 1990 edition, or the 54-page January 1989 edition. It's a lot more work to edit, but it also gives us more space to present a variety of views and useful information.

Mix It Up

We hope next to expand the advertising, but aside from that there probably won't be further major format changes this year. Having done our part to create a handsome and informative magazine, we hope our subscribers will do their part and introduce it to others. We don't mean only one local talk show host or your own member of the clergy. We mean 10 to 20 opinion molders, and members of your family and concerned friends. The tear-out sheet just inside the back cover shows you how. The postage paid envelope in this issue makes it easy. Don't just offer to hold our coat this year. Take off yours and mix it up.

The Marketing Plan

We've spent every cent that has come in from subscriptions on improving the format of the magazine and buying equipment so that we could do the typesetting in-house that we couldn't afford to buy outside. When people ask about our marketing plan, therefore, they get a rueful shrug. It's based upon appeals for help from existing subscribers, like the appeal just above.

And the Talk Shows

The publisher and executive editor also spend a lot of time on radio and television talk shows, at least one a day each, where we are allowed to give the listeners/viewers the toll free number for introductory copies of the magazine. It's brought us thousands of subscribers over the years, and, we suppose, exposed tens of millions of Americans to our views. But it's labor-intensive. For half an hour or an hour on the air, we may have 50,000 listeners. Of diem, however, perhaps only 50 call for a free copy, and, ultimately, perhaps 5 or 10 subscribe.

The Power of Advertising

All this is slow and sure, and we'll certainly continue. But there's got to be a faster way. We think it's paid advertising, and that's very expensive. It's something we'd like major donors to consider helping us with. For example, would you sponsor an advertisement in the A section, editorial page or in the Sunday opinion section of a major daily newspaper in your area? The ad would give our address and subscription data and credit you for paying the cost. Or would you consider going halves with us?

We think such advertisements might bringing 100 or 200 new subscriptions. That beats like to find out about this kind of advertising in major newspapers, and, of course, in magazines.

Please give us your ideas, with one caveat. We must write, or approve, the advertisement text, word by word.

Too Many Texts

The word "text" brings us to a painful subject. We're getting too many of them to handle with our small staff. You can help by observing the following:

Letters to the Editor

We love them, but make them pertinent to something you read in our magazine, not someone else's.

Other People's Mail

We get far more than we can print, but the more we get the better selection we can provide to guide our own readers in how to make their letters effective. Please don't be disappointed if you seldom see any of the letters you send reprinted. Be aware that we also try to contact anyone who writes a good letter (meaning one we agree with) and who isn't already a subscriber. (Most are, frankly, and, with all due humility, we think that's one reason their letters are good.)

Seeing the Light

People can write only one of these articles, based upon their own personal experience. We always are looking for good ones.

Editorials or Op-Ed Type Articles

We write our own. Send yours to your favorite newspaper. Our readers are specialists, or at least quite knowledgeable about the Middle East, or they wouldn't be our readers. The generalized piece you sent to the Christian Science Monitor but they failed to publish is not appropriate for our readers, even if you are knowledgeable and famous.

Special Reports

All of our monthly columnists call us at the beginning of each cycle to tell us what they want to write about. We play traffic cop, assigning the topic to the first one who speaks for it, and keeping them out of each each other's subject areas.

For Beginners

Don't just send us an unsolicited manuscript. It probably won't be read. Call us first and we'll talk about it.

For Bombers

We also don't open packages without a return address from someone we know. They go right into the dumpster. Same day service. If you want to send us a package, manuscript or even thick letter, and we don't know you, telephone to tell us who you are, what's in the package and put your telephone number on the package along with your return address so that we can verify it. Pftttzzz to you, Abul Abbas and Son of Kahane.

For Bothers

We have a telephone company service that provides us a daily printout of the telephone number of every caller, by exact time, day and night. If we think you're a harasser, you'll first get a call from the telephone company. If, after discussing the matter with you, they think you're a harasser too, they'll warn you and then bill you, not us, for your calls. Maybe, instead, you should contribute the money to AIPAC, and keep your name off the police blotter.

For Bookers

We're generally looking for reviews by writers we know. But if you think you're the kind we should know, call and suggest the title you'd like to do. We'll tell you if it's spoken for, and if it isn't and we're interested in the book, we'll give you the green light. We pay only on publication, however, and that goes for everything in the magazine.

A Silence in the Winter's Night

Our regular readers have come to expect a shriek of pain every December on the publishers' page as we contemplate the debts we are carrying into the new year. In the last issue we had to forgo the publishers' page for space reasons. That's the reason you didn't hear the shriek.

We had expected to finesse our debts by issuing a combined December-January issue, thus saving about $45,000. There was too much to report, however, so we didn't skip an issue. As a result, where we expected to carry over debts of about $60,000, which is par for the course, we're carrying $100,000 in debts instead.

Shriek!!!

Please help if you can. Checks dated Dec. 31 or before, and made out to the AET Library Endowment, are tax-exempt for the 1990 income tax year. Checks dated from Jan. 1 on can be credited to the 1991 income tax year. Either way, contributors of $100 (untied or tied to donated subscriptions and books) or more will find their names in the next compilation (in March) of the Angel's Choir, like that in this issue.

Make a Difference—This Month

Angels also get a book for their coffee table, but, most of all they get a GREAT FEELING from knowing that they were there when they were needed in what we hope will be America's finest, not most deadly, year in the Middle East. You can help make the difference, this month.