JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1995, Pages 6, 3, 81-86

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor are selected, edited and abridged on the basis of relevance, accuracy, taste and available space. The editors do not have facilities to respond to individual letters, or to clear in advance published letters, as edited, with the writers.

The Plight of the Christians

In case you have not seen the article in the Oct. 22, 1994 Spectator on the plight of Christians under Israeli occupation in Palestine I am enclosing a copy. I hope it meets with your interest.

Margaret Ison, Gordonsville, VA

We hadn't seen it and we found it so interesting that we obtained permission to reprint in on page 107 of this issue's "Other Voices." Supporters like you enable us to play our role in providing readers with factual material on the Middle East that they won't find anywhere else in North America—from sea to shining sea.

Apostasy and the Holy Qur'an

We expect and regularly see spurious attributions to the Qur'an in the Western media and literature: we do not expect them in the Washington Report. Thein Wah's statement (Nov.-Dec. 1994) that "In the Qur'an the prescription for apostasy is death" is absolutely false. Homicide, brigandage, rape, and official corruption are capital offenses in the Qur'an: simple apostasy is not. Moreover, falsely attributing statements to God (Thein Wah) is blasphemy: repeating 1,400-year-old slanders (Rushdie) and advocating a re-interpretation of Islamic Law (Nasrin) are other matters.

Sheikh Dawud Ahmad Al-Amriki, Springdale, WA

David Korn's Letter Is Correct

The letter from David Korn to the Washington Jewish Week about Martin Indyk in "Other People's Mail" of your Nov.-Dec. issue deserves comment for several reasons:

1) Korn is absolutely right in criticizing Martin Indyk, an ex-Israel lobbyist, as a White House appointee, although I can't imagine why he thought Indyk was or even might be U.S. ambassador to Israel.

2) Korn is the author of two excellent, objective books on Arab-Israeli affairs and is a retired foreign service officer with genuine credentials in the area.

3) Also, however, he was Israel Country Director in the State Department Near East Bureau for several years, and a very highly skilled and tough bureaucratic infighter. I knew him only slightly but still feel the bruise from our only encounter—between Washington and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. In defending Israel he certainly encountered strong opposition to U.S. policy toward Israel—and confused this with anti-Semitism.

4) Korn's description of "the State Department, a bureaucracy known for anti-Semitism," probably delighted the readers of Washington Jewish Week. As a retired FSO of 30 years' service, including 14 years in the Near East Bureau, I can testify that this is absolutely false. Certainly before World War II there were key State Department officials who were certifiably anti-Jewish, and the virus is still alive even in the American mainstream. But Korn clearly confuses this thousand-year-old Christian virus with opposition to Israeli policies, and opposition to his bureaucratic advocacy of Israel.

Still, you have to welcome any public denunciation of the appointment of Martin Indyk to his White House post.

C. Patrick Quinlan, Edina, MN

The weekly Jewish press is full of references to Martin Indyk as a prospective replacement as U.S. ambassador to Israel for Edward Djerejian, who resigned after only a few months on the job to become director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, TX. Whether the rumors are floated by Indyk because he wants the job or by White House associates because they want him out isn't clear to us, and we've asked. The position he holds in the White House doesn't require Senate confirmation. The job in Tel Aviv does. It would be interesting to see how members of that Republican-dominated body would deal with the nomination by a Democratic president of someone formerly paid by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's principal U.S. lobby, who has been a U.S. citizen for only two years, to be U.S. ambassador to the country whose interests he served in Washington.

Lighting a Candle

On page 34 of the Nov.-Dec. 1994 issue of the Washington Report, it was reported that one of my senators and my representative in Congress are for a bill that I disagree with, and were commended for it in Near East Report, the AIPAC-affiliated weekly newsletter.

So, rather than just "sitting and cursing the darkness" I let "my" men in D.C. know I disagree by photocopying page 34, underlining their names, writing "Shame on you," signing my name (and address), and mailing the copies of page 34 to them.

(Name and state withheld at writer's request)

Washington Report writer Lucille Barnes compiles this material so that readers like you can make good use of it.

A Shoddy Pre-Election Wrap-up

I frequently consult your publication for a perspective on U.S. Middle East policy uncharacteristic of mainstream scholarship on the subject. With Election Day approaching, I eagerly awaited your reporting on the re-election prospects of those members of Congress most adamant in their support of Israel.

Unfortunately, your "Election Watch" writer, Lucille Barnes (Nov.-Dec. 1994, pp. 35-7), produced what proved to be a shoddy pre-election wrap-up.

Ms. Barnes' analysis of Senate races in Ohio and Massachusetts—just a few weeks shy of Election Day—quoted polling data from as far back as July! Not much research is required to discover that these races have changed quite a bit since summer. I also expected to see polling numbers and thorough strategic insight on Senate races in Virginia, California, New Jersey and Michigan—the other contests to which Ms. Barnes gave mention. To her credit, Ms. Barnes did remember to include a solicitation for contributions to the Republican candidate in Michigan.

Keeping your readers adequately informed on campaigns and other political goings-on will require a more professional attempt than demonstrated here. Certainly, one would expect as much from the Report, considering its consistently detailed inspection of AIPAC activity. Limiting your political coverage to pro-Israel PAC contribution lists, untimely and weak columns, and unsolicited Letters to the Editor doesn't do much for your readers.

J.M. Sadick, Washington, DC

To get that issue to readers in time to consult before elections, the last copy was at the printer Oct. 9 and the magazine was in the mail Oct. 14. So the polls used were what was available at the time. Addressing your main point, until opponents of the Israel lobby become as regimented as are one-issue, pro-aid-to-Israel voters, the last thing most candidates want just before an election is a ringing endorsement from our magazine.

Years ago one Arab-American group ran a "test" of newspaper ads and expensive roadside billboards pointing up Sen. Arlen Specter's record in voting aid for Israel while Pennsylvania needs went unfunded. The senator was delighted. In nationwide fund-raising appeals sent to members of Jewish organizations and readers of Jewish publications he complained that he was being "targeted by the Arab lobby" and then watched the money roll in. He still cites this incident in dealings with Jewish groups.

Therefore our "Election Watch" writer has to do her work with mirrors—reporting the ringing endorsements in the weekly Jewish press and letting Washington Report readers draw their own conclusions. Our writer also sought in this backhanded way, quoting the Jewish weeklies, to indicate which contests were close enough for a contribution to make a difference. The reason there was only one paragraph fitting your definition of a senatorial "solicitation for contributions" was that there was only one Arab American running for the Senate. Obviously he had nothing to fear from our endorsement, being what Senator Joseph McCarthy might have described as "a known Arab American." It seems to us that in the Virginia, California and New Jersey races our writer's article made it very clear that all three could be very close, and also which candidate was backed by the AIPAC network of PACs. What on earth else would our readers need that wasn't already available in any mainstream daily? Finally, we don't "solicit" letters. We only print the spontaneous real thing. Our regret is that our space limitations limit us to using just the tip of the mailbag iceberg.

Palestinian Freedom Could Be a Long Way Off

"The Jews Who Run Clinton's Court" ("Other Voices," Nov.-Dec. 1994) was very revealing. If this state of affairs continues, Palestinian freedom is a long way off indeed.

I have been aware, of course, that Israeli viewpoints are preponderant in commercial radio and TV and that the columnists featured in most newspapers all have nothing but kind words for Israel. I admit, however, that I do not have any statistics.

What I would like to know is: does this preponderance extend to PBS and NPR? The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour very rarely has a Palestinian or an Arab even if the subject under discussion is the Middle East. Does NPR's "Talk of The Nation," for example, allow anti-Israel viewpoints to get on the air? How pervasive is the commitment to Israel in the news media? What are the penalties for deviation?

I would appreciate a thorough and wellresearched article that only WRMEA will have the courage and ability to do.

Thein Wah, San Antonio, TX

While we wait for that thorough and well-researched article, we'll offer our "Media Watch" in most issues, and some instant observations here. PBS and NPR do seem subject to the same pressures regarding Israel and Palestine that we see exerted on commercial radio and television. Some of the pressures are orchestrated by weekly Jewish newspapers throughout the U.S. which, by printing critical articles about individual journalists or media, can generate a tide of negative mail focused on any target. One victim on NPR has been Jerusalem correspondent Linda Gradstein, who has been the subject of such critical articles, along with Peter Jennings of ABC, John Chancellor of NBC, and Mike Wallace of CBS. Regarding MacNeil/Lehrer, it is very seldom that Arabs or Muslims representing "mainstream" Arab-American or Muslim-American viewpoints are invited to appear, and then only in conjunction with Israelis or Jewish American extremists. The day we see representative Arabs and Arab Americans, representative Muslim Americans and representativeJewish or Israeli peace group leaders interviewed on this taboo subject on a regular basis on PBS and NPR programs is the day we'll resume our memberships in their local television and radio outlets. Meanwhile our readers should write or telephone their local stations when they see or hear programs they like or dislike on both public and network TV and radio. That's what the aid-to-Israel lobby does, with extraordinary success.

Belated Nobel Prize for Arafat

In light of the recent Nobel Peace Prize awards to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, you may be interested to re-read my letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which you published in your "Other People's Mail" section in September 1990.

At the time, even my mother thought that I had gone too far in proposing that Arafat be awarded the Nobel prize. Yet Arafat hasn't changed since 1990. Israel and the world have.

John V. Whitbeck, Paris, France

We hope you're right about Israel and the world.

New Yorker Article on Arafat

Your executive editor's piece on page 11 of the June issue, "How Bad Is the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accord?" seems right on target, as does all of his writing. As a long-time reader of the Washington Report, I have admired the breadth and honesty and fairness of your reporting.

As Ohioans transplanted to New York state, my late husband and I read the New Yorker magazine, enjoying the E.B. White years especially. Recent editorial changes at the New Yorker seem to me to have brought a preponderance of features addressed to Jewish themes. Perhaps that's appropriate, but I guess I was more comfortable with Mr. Shawn's editorial judgments. In any case, I was pleased to see some pages devoted to Yasser Arafat, enclosed, in case you may not have seen them.

Mrs. Ernestine E. King, Corning, NY

Thanks for the copy of the article "The Chairman and His Wife" by Mary Anne Weaver from the May 16 New Yorker, which we found to be both delightfully written and informative. If the writer or editors had an "agenda," it was not readily apparent, except in the tendency to over-simplify the chain of command within the various organizations comprising the PLO. The result could lead readers to conclude PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat bore direct responsibility for specific acts of terrorism, aircraft hijackings and the Khartoum murders of three diplomats—two of whom were Americans—that most probably were committed by elements of the PLO not under his direct control. It has always been our understanding that the 1969 and 1970 challenges to King Hussein's authority on Jordanian soil, and the hijackings, came from an out-of-control PFLP, which then and now flouted Yasser Arafat's authority, and that the order to "Black September" operatives to kill the diplomats was relayed from PLO headquarters, perhaps by the late Abu Iyad while he was acting as head of the PLO, in Arafat's absence. As for a connection to Black September's abduction of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics that led to their deaths in a shootout at the Munich airport, Israel has claimed that it killed every Palestinian associated with planning and carrying out this action, and we can't help but note that at this writing Yasser Arafat is still alive. The New Yorker report is written in an almost conversational tone and seemingly is based upon sometimes conflicting remarks by a variety of Arafat associates and retainers as well as extensive conversations with Yasser Arafat and Suha Arafat, together and separately. Therefore, perhaps it is not surprising that some of it conflicts with other things we've read. What is disturbing, however, is the apparent attempt to link Yasser Arafat to heinous acts that have not been linked with him personally in previous serious articles written about him.

About Dual Citizenship

I would appreciate it if you could in your magazine explain how an American citizen like Israeli Cpl. Nahshon Wachsman can hold dual citizenship—in this case Israeli and American.

I always believed that Americans could not hold dual citizenship or have two passports. Thank you for your kind cooperation. I look forward to your next issue.

William Constandse, Tucson, AZ

Before World War II, serving in foreign armies or voting in foreign elections were considered grounds for revoking U.S. citizenship. This no longer is the case for native-born Americans, and the fact that many dual-national Israeli pilots purposely carry their second, U.S., passports into combat has given rise to countless reports that "U.S. pilots" or "U.S. aircraft" have participated in Israel's wars. In any case, Americans can and do hold other nationalities without losing their U.S. citizenship. Nor are all dual nationals American-Israelis.

Fondness for Iraqi People

I read about your executive editor's "unrequited love affair" with the Iraqi people in the February 1993 issue of the Washington Report and thought you might find my book, The Sumerian Roots of the American Preamble, of interest. Note the preamble-prologue comparison on page 5. It seems to me that our "Judaeo-Christian" heritage is truly "Sumero-Judaeo-Christian."

James T. McGuire, Larkspur, CA

Or maybe "Sumero-Judaeo-Christian-Islamic." The truth is our executive editor also has had a life-long affair with the Sumerians that started when, as a child, he read Hendrick Wilhelm Van Loon's The Story of Mankind. Nor has this passion had any of the unfortunate consequences of his other dalliances. In three years of prowling around the 5,000-year-old abandoned Iraqi mounds that mark the great cities of Sumer—Ur, Eridu, Isin, Larsa, Lagash, Shurupak, etc. he never had an unpleasant encounter with a single Sumerian. As a result, he didn't stop at page 5of your book, but read it all with pleasure as well as awe at your extensive research, also clearly a labor of love. The book could just as easily be called "The Sumerian Roots of Western Philosophy and Eastern Religions" or something equally grandiose. In any case, we hope to present a review of your book in a subsequent issue of the Washington Report.

Bosnian Policy Is in Disarray

After glancing at the cover of your Sept.-Oct. issue, it is no wonder the entire American policy on Bosnia is in disarray. The caption reads, "Bosnian Muslims: Will Clinton Feel Their Pain?", yet the photograph obviously is of a Serb mourning in front of a Serbian cemetery. The Cyrillic alphabet on the front gravestone, the Serbian names, and the cap the man is wearing, called a kacket and usually worn by Bosnian Serb men, are all giveaways that there is nothing Muslim about this picture.

This is just another blatant example in a long list of infractions or disinformation indigenous to the wars in former Yugoslavia. Why does the Washington Report participate in such attempts?

Please make an effort to check the accuracy of the stories you report and the captions you use. The American people deserve better than the sob story media such as the Washington Report are trying to promote.

Alexandra Thomas, Baltimore, MD

We think you missed the front cover caption on the table of contents which described the site as a "makeshift Sarajevo cemetery for Muslim and Christian victims of the Serb siege of Sarajevo." The grave marker immediately behind the one you cite has the Bosnian coat of arms, indicating that a member of the Bosnian government forces with a Christian name in the Roman alphabet (therefore likely a Croat) is buried there. Markers in the photo include both Serb and Croat crosses as well as the form favored by Muslims. Intrepid former Washington, DC writer-photographer Mark Milstein, a frequent contributor of both photos and articles to this magazine, who gave us the information in the caption about the site and the man mourning the loss of both his wife and his daughter to a Serb mortar shell, certainly has no personal axe to grind since he is neither Christian nor Muslim, but Jewish. As for "sob stories," here's an excerpt from an Oct. 16 report on "an entire population of traumatized children" by Paul Kolenig of the Toronto Globe and Mail:

"Of the estimated 80,000 children under 15 (in Sarajevo) when the war began in April 1992, an estimated 20,000 have fled. Of the remainder, more than 1,500 have been killed and 14,818 (or nearly one in four) have been injured." If knowing that these children now are suffering their third winter under siege doesn't make you want to sob, you probably need psychiatric counseling now even more than they will later.

Ban Lebanon Travel?

I am writing this as an American woman married to a Lebanese. We have just returned from a month-long stay in Lebanon where I, an American citizen, am legally unable to visit.

I never felt for one moment unsafe or in danger while there. As a matter of fact, it was quite the opposite. The general mood was peaceful, the people were extremely friendly, reassuring and very optimistic about their future.

The purpose of this letter is to denounce the United States embargo against travel to Lebanon which I find senseless and without merit. It is more dangerous for Americans to travel in many other countries around the world. Why is it there is not a ban on travel to countries where American executives have been taken hostage by bandits or guerrillas, and where millions of dollars have been spent by United States corporations for ransom? I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where crime and violence has increased ten-fold. I am more concerned about travel to many areas of my hometown than to Lebanon.

Name withheld, Burlingame, CA

Care Amidst Chaos

Enclosed is a review copy of Care Amidst Chaos. It is the story of the Medical Center of the American University of Beirut in the early years (1975-78) of the Lebanese civil strife. The book chronicles the events that affected the Medical Center in its service and educational operations during the vicious fighting.

The book is distributed by the American University of Beirut, 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022; the price is $10, plus $2 handling and postage. All proceeds accrue to support the work of the AUB Medical Center.

The Washington Report is a fine magazine with its carefully documented and well written articles. Congratulations to you and your staff.

Samuel P. Asper, M.D., Gibson Island, MD

After years of literary drought, good books on the Middle East are appearing more rapidly than we can deal with them. (A happy development for which we claim a share of the credit.) Therefore, while we wait for space to review your beautifully prepared and documented work, readers who can't wait can obtain it at the address above.

Don't Attack the Messenger

Greg Noakes' report on a panel at the Heritage Foundation (Sept.-Oct. 1994) in which I participated twice quotes Abdurahman Alamoudi (executive director of the American Muslim Council in Washington, DC) attacking me. I would like to answer his statements.

First, Mr. Alamoudi derides my report that the Iranians have called for a reinterpretation of the ritual stoning of three pillars at Mina, outside Mecca. This is part of their turning the pilgrimage (hajj) from a purely religious exercise into a political one. Mr. Alamoudi found my talking about this "deeply offensive." Well, blame the Iranian radicals for it, don't get mad at me for reporting it. Here's a sample from the Iranian media, a commentary as broadcast in stilted English by the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran on May 3, 1994:

"Alongside religious and worship proportions, hajj rituals also seek to explore and examine the problems and difficulties of the Islamic community in various political and social areas, and to talk out plans to counter the enemies of Islam...the important point is the gathering of the world Muslims in the ceremonies of deliverance from infidels [i.e., the stoning ritual], which enjoys special status and importance in hajjrituals...During these ceremonies, the Muslims come together and publicly voice their detestation towards the polytheists and the oppressors throughout the world."

Second, Noakes quotes Mr. Alamoudi saying "Pipes is known to be against Islam, period." Not true, period. I am not against Islam, nor am I for Islam. As a historian and a policy analyst it's not my business to be for or against religions. Rather, I study Islam to interpretit and explain it.

Here's a challenge for Mr. Alamoudi: produce a single piece of my writing where I express anti-Islamic sentiments. (I can provide him with a bibliography to help him track down all my publications.) If he finds one, I'll duly apologize. If not, he apologizes. Game?

That said, I am indeed against something: fundamentalist Islam. This radical ideology has dangerous implications for both the Muslim world and the United States. I reject fundamentalist Islam for political, not religious reasons. And, as Mr. Alamoudi of course knows, you don't have to be non-Muslim to be anti-fundamentalist. Thus, Said Sa'di, the secretary-general of an Algerian secularist party, recently declared that "We should not give in [to the fundamentalists] because if we made the slightest concession, all our freedoms would be threatened." Or, as Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh puts it, fundamentalists are "spreading darkness in many parts of the world."

Daniel Pipes, Philadelphia, PA

This is an appropriate place to correct an error in our Nov.-Dec. 1994 issue in which we listed Mr. Pipes' residence as Washington, DC instead of Philadelphia.

Inaccuracies in the Cave Article

The article by George Cave, "Why the Secret 1986 U.S.-Iran 'Arms for Hostages' Negotiations Failed," contains several inaccuracies. The "strategic opening" to Iran was orchestrated by Israel, hence the need to include Amiran Nir and Albert Hakim, and give them American passports. The inclusion of Gen. Richard Secord shows that arms were the primary consideration from the beginning, as the general was in that business in Laos and Afghanistan (he also dealt with Razak Afridi, part of the Pakistan organized crime syndicate). Khomeini told the truth when he said hostages were not involved in the meeting that took place.

Nov. 20, 1986, The New York Times published a story about a BBC documentary detailing the death of Cyrus Hashemi, who set up the original meetings for Ollie North. Cyrus reportedly was killed because he was an informant for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sept. 29, 1986, The New York Times reported the execution of Mehdi Hashemi, who was not the son-in-law of Ayatollah Montazeri but rather the brother of the wife of one of Ayatollah Montazeri's sons. Mehdi Bahremani ran away and reached Canada for asylum (Dec. 22, 1986, New York Times) but sent back his $6 million bribe money to Iran in hopes of canceling his death sentence. Why doesn't Cave mention the $6 million bribes given to Mehdi Hashemi, Mehdi Bahremani, and Hojatolislam Rafsanjani?

Cave writes in your article that there was a meeting at Mainz at the end of October in which "We were told that the Ayatollah Montazeri's son-in-law, Mehdi Hashemi, was responsible." In fact, Mehdi Hashemi was already dead and Ayatollah Montazeri had been put under house arrest by Hojatolislam Rafsanjani after Montazeri had learned about the bribery and arms dealing. Montazeri would have approved of getting the arms, but he did not approve of the un-Islamic way in which they were paid for and the real reason why the Iranians involved had to be bribed.

Although Ayatollah Montazeri was under house arrest, he sent two of his most trusted men to Beirut to give the story to Hasan Sabra to publish in his magazine, Ash Shiraa. I sent you a review copy of my novel, The Hypocrites, which is more factual than some of the fiction presented in your magazine. Cave's deference for Ollie North is a tip-off that this is a spin-doctor's work.

Andrew M. Patterson, Houston, TX

We don't know why anyone would want to put a "spin" on perhaps the single most disastrous foreign policy blunder in U.S. history, but think the author did the best he could to recreate the atmosphere in the aircraft in which he rode into Tehran with the other Irangate principals, the Reagan-autographed Bible and the cake in the shape of a key. In any case we appreciate your corrections and additions and, now that your novel has been published, invite you to put together your own account of what happened when then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres put the U.S. up to a futile search for "moderates" in Iran's current government—a search that discredited the U.S. throughout the world and got hostages kidnapped as rapidly as they were released, but provided useful cover for Israel's immensely profitable sales of U.S.-made arms to the Khomeini government during its war with Iraq.

The State Department Isn't Sinister

I am puzzled that you continue to give sympathetic publicity to the Iranian Mojahedin and to imply sinister motives in the State Department's hostility to this movement. From all I have read on recent Iranian history, the State Department is entirely correct in its condemnatory assessments of the organization. It should be commended for standing fast against an unbalanced force on this issue.

I remain convinced also that there were Mojahedin and other leftists in the group that kidnapped members of the American Embassy, myself included, on 4 November 1979, that they were some of the nastiest of our guards, and that conditions improved for us somewhat after the Khomeini followers eliminated diversity by purging the leftists from the operation.

As you pursue this topic in the future, I would welcome your evaluating the rationale and motives of those congressmen and other elite Americans who have embraced the Mojahedin. Do they have some inner need to find political Iranians out there somewhere who still claim to love us? Are they unable to adjust to the fact that the U.S. no longer has a role in guiding the course of affairs in Iran? Can they actually believe that the Iranian people might someday accept government by a movement that joined the enemy in the long and bloody war with Iraq? Are they so naive they believe the Mojahadin's self-serving claims?

Robert Blucker, North Little Rock, AR

We agree that the last thing Iranians need is more big brotherly interference in their affairs from the U.S., which certainly bears a large share of blame for the present chaos in Iran because of our unwillingness to face the facts of the deterioration into tyranny of the shah's regime, which we believe the U.S. propped up singlehandedly long after it had lost popular support among Iranians. That said, the U.S. is about the only country from which members of the Iranian opposition can organize without coming into the crosshairs of the present Iranian regime's ubiquitous assassination teams. Therefore we find it mystifying that the State Department won't maintain at least informal liaison with the Mojahedin, for mutual security purposes if nothing else. As for your question as to whether we impute sinister motives to the State Department refusal to at least stay in contact, the answer is yes.

As some of the principals in the Irangate disaster, including Colonels MacFarlane and North, now readily admit, Israeli Labor Party officials, principally Shimon Peres, and their U.S. hangers-on, were both the instigators and middlemen in that "opening to moderates" in the Iranian government, which turned out to be a crude arms-for-hostages ransom deal. If another opening to Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, that same Iranian moderate, is contemplated, you can be sure the same Israeli middlemen are volunteering their services. The very last thing they want is for the U.S. to speak directly to any Iranian "moderates" or opposition groups, because then who needs Israel? Thanks for an interesting letter and your personal observations, which certainly outweigh those of most armchair strategists, ourselves included. We know we have a lot of Iranian readers. We would like to hear more directly from them on this subject. We would have to establish the authenticity of their letters by telephone. After doing that, however, we would agree to withhold their names from published letters to protect their relatives in Iran, just as we have withheld the real names of Iranian authors of articles previously published in this magazine when so requested.

An End to Kurdish Suffering

We are Kurds, interested in putting an end to the Kurdish sufferings in the Middle East. We offer an educational outreach program which includes, but is not limited to, visiting groups, addressing public forums, participating in debates, giving lectures and taking part in informal discussions to raise awareness on the issues that confront the Kurds.

The Middle East, home to some 30 million Kurds, is of strategic importance to the policy makers in Washington and it has spiritual value for Americans who trace their origins to the Occident. It is the source of oil for our energy needs; it was the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of writing and religions.

The Kurds, once a tolerated people in the Middle East, now are the subject of mounting oppression. Some have sanctioned the use of poisonous chemical fumes against them. Others have begun a program of systematically uprooting them from their ancestral homeland. This abuse of Kurds and the silence of the world has prompted some scholars to argue that extinction is a possibility for the Kurds.

We chose to address you because we believe you care about the issues that confront humanity. Pericles spoke of you when he said, "We alone regard a person who takes no interest in public affairs not as harmless, but as a useless character." We trust you will accommodate our desire to engage your groups for an exchange in cultural, historical and political education on the Kurds.

Kani Xulam, American Kurdish Information Network, 3701 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 140, Washington, DC 20008, tel. (202) 363-1922, fax (202) 244-6437

Obviously Pericles was our kind of guy, although he seems to have let his subscription lapse. We're publishing your address, phone and fax numbers to enable interested readers to contact you directly, and wish you good luck in your public-spirited enterprise.

The ALA Saga: In Challenging Israel's Defenders, Be Prepared for Abuse

In their responses (letters to the editor, Nov.-Dec. 1994) to Adam Chandler's account of the Israeli censorship controversy in the American Library Association (Sept.-Oct. 1994), Sanford Berman and Mark Rosenzweig have engaged in obfuscation and personal attacks on me in order to camouflage their own ultimate capitulation to pro-Israel sentiment in the ALA. My patently illegal behind-closed-doors expulsion from the ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table Action Council this past June was the culmination of a vendetta in which Berman and Rosenzweig capitalized on the desire of the SRRT leadership body to put an end to official SRRT discussion of Palestinian rights and to punish me for embroiling them in such a controversy. The crowning irony of this campaign is that after being subjected to innumerable personal attacks from not only Israel's hard-line supporters but more recently from these capitulators, my expulsion from the SRRT Action Council is dishonestly portrayed as nothing more than a matter of my alleged abusive and "unprofessional" behavior.

Contrary to allegations that I "strayed" from discussion limited to Israeli censorship problems, from the very beginning of this controversy in early 1990 I and my erstwhile allies in SRRT framed the issue of Israeli censorship within the context of the abominable Israeli military occupation and its host of human rights abuses. Calling for a principled two-state solution, we used the censorship issue to condemn the occupation and used the occupation to condemn the censorship. In response, the hard-line defenders of Israel in and around the ALA refused to deal honestly and rationally with either the available documentation or the moral issues thus posed. Along with strident accusations of anti-Semitism, Israel's defenders pressured the ALA hierarchy to sidestep and/or stonewall on this issue for as long as possible. I am grateful for what support I did receive from Berman, Rosenzweig and others on various occasions in aligning SRRT behind my efforts and making public statements. However, the overwhelming burden of the day-to-day effort to advance this issue through the labyrinth of the official ALA fell to me, and as such I not only had to organize the entire campaign but naturally became a lightning rod and a target.

The ultimate slap in our face from the official ALA came in June 1991, when the ALA Council passed a vaguely worded resolution on censorship in the Middle East in general after publicly and deliberately deleting any references, direct or indirect, to Israel and the occupied territories. At that time Rosenzweig, I and others were justifiably outraged, but now Rosenzweig embraces that sorry 1991 resolution as an adequate ALA response to Israel's human rights violations!

In the face of this ALA stonewalling and duplicity, my strategy was to publish exposÁs on how ALA leaders were dealing with this issue and to challenge Israel's defenders to open debate. In retrospectBerman feels that it was "callous" of me to challenge the Anti-Defamation League and other defenders of Israel to debate because "it's perfectly obvious that they wouldn't accept an invitation to debate within a context that puts them at a disadvantage from the start." Given Israel's deplorable human rights record, it's difficult to imagine how any American defenders of those policies would not feel disadvantaged in any sort of serious public discussion of these abuses!

Berman's new-found solicitude for the ADL is all the more amazing in that it comes in the aftermath of 1993 revelations of ADL's role for many years as a surrogate national security apparatus spying on progressive activists on behalf of domestic and foreign police agencies. It's my conviction that whether or not we ultimately lost the vote in the ALA, one of the signal achievements of our campaign was helping to expose the censorious and heavy-handed role in American life of organizations such as the ADL.

Because I exposed and condemned the machinations of the ALA officialdom and the defenders of Israel on this issue, I was criticized by a great many prim-and-proper librarians and assorted moral hypocrites for being "inflammatory" and "unprofessional." While this gave some ALA-ers an excuse not to stand up on this issue, others were outraged by the ALA's refusal to treat the issue fairly.

Meanwhile I was able to arrange for Israeli journalist and former Amnesty International prisoner-of-conscience Michal Schwartz to address the ALA conference in San Francisco in June 1992. Our Israeli censorship-and-human rights resolution passed overwhelmingly.

After our victory, however, Berman accused me of anti-Semitism because I had shown some hesitation at adopting a formulation in the resolution referring to the Jewish people in a singular sense, which to me implied that Jews worldwide are one nation—just as the Zionists claim. In a very brief exchange with Berman in San Francisco, I had stated that given their different ethnic and national origins the only unambiguous characteristic defining all Jews worldwide was religion, although there were many other attributes defining Jewishness in various contexts, such that it was a matter of great controversy among Jews themselves. In response to Berman's blast at me, I called for a reasoned discussion of this complicated issue, referring for starters to the "people-class" theory advanced by such writers as Abram Leon and Maxime Rodinson.

Berman refused to dialogue. In his angry post-San Francisco note to me (and others) he had denied being a Zionist, but on the floor of the ALA convention in New Orleans a year later he announced himself to be a Zionist and apologized for the "pain" which this controversy had caused in the ALA. He now charges that it is anti-Semitic to have noted the massive mobilization of Jewish librarians who came to New Orleans at the explicit behest of the ADL, Hadassah and other such organizations, but this was overwhelmingly obvious to anyone who was in New Orleans, and accurately reported in Robert Friedman's Village Voice report on the convention.

Along with orchestrating revocation of the Israeli censorship resolution, the pro-Israel hard-liners and the ALA leadership loudly demanded the abolition of the SRRT Task Force on Israeli Censorship and Palestinian Libraries (ICPLTF). A special ALA commission was launched by various SRRT leaders and Berman to remove me as chair of the ICPLTF and to abolish it altogether. A centerpiece of this campaign was an "Open Letter" from Berman circulated at the ALA's January 1994 Midwinter conference subjecting me to new heights of personal abuse and calling for SRRT repudiation of me.

Up to the Midwinter conference Mark Rosenzweig, a leader of the Progressive Librarians Guild and close personal friend of mine, had withstood the mounting pressures for my removal. He helped to engineer my re-election as ICPLTF chair and otherwise supported continuation of the Task Force. (Parenthetically, it should also be noted that I was subsequently elected by the full SRRT membership to a three-year term on the Action Council and also received the second highest number of votes of any SRRT member who ran for election to the ALA governing Council.) Mark considered Berman's "Open Letter" to be outrageous.

In the weeks following midwinter, however, Mark capitulated to the pressures on him and the PLG to distance themselves from me. I discovered that Mark not only now supported abolishing the ICPLTF, but was privately warning people away from me as a "dangerous person." Among other justifications for breaking with me, he cited an ICPLTF program at the New Orleans convention in which Jeffrey Blankfort recounted Nazi-Zionist collusion and the role of the Judenrat administrations in the European ghettos as examples of painful topics which had long been censored by Zionist lobby organizations. It was with this analogy in mind that—in anguish and anger over a hitherto close friend's ultimate betrayal—I denounced Mark as a "Judenrat collaborator."

Berman and Rosenzweig were clearly unable to maintain a consistent opposition to Zionism. Now it can be said that by becoming willing instruments of the ALA hierarchy and the ADL (a police-state organization if ever there is one in this country) in purging the ICPLTF and me, Berman, Rosenzweig & Co. have all truly become "Judenrat collaborators!"

In conclusion, I would urge supporters of Palestinian rights to use any and all forums—including conservative professional associations—to continue to educate Americans about Israeli injustices, and to challenge Israel's defenders to public debate. But be prepared, brothers and sisters, to face a lot of abuse and possible betrayal by those who can't endure the ferocity that such controversies often provoke!

David Langlois Williams, Chicago, IL

This Issue's Last Word on the ALA

As a Palestinian librarian who was a member of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association I feel compelled to clarify a few points made by Adam Chandler in the Sept.-Oct. issue.

To begin with, the resolution condemning Israeli censorship in the occupied territories would never have gotten off the ground had it not been for the significant support of someone like Sandy Berman who is highly respected and nationally recognized in library circles. In fact, it was Mr. Berman who introduced me to David Williams and got me involved with the campaign in the first place. On numerous occasions he used his considerable prestige within the library establishment to open up forums for me to address the issue of Palestinian intellectual freedom, and he has repeatedly urged me to talk and write about the broader question of Palestinian human rights under Israeli occupation. Thus, if the reader is left with the impression that Mr. Berman deliberately sabotaged the resolution, I feel that it is my duty to set the record straight.

Unfortunately, David Williams has been responsible for a great deal of the damage because of his inability to work with a diversified group of people on this highly charged issue. He failed to understand the strategic importance of coalition building in a conservative organization such as the ALA. There was no question that the ADL and its conservative Jewish supporters mounted a vicious attack on the resolution and on David Williams personally. But the point of the matter is that Mr. Williams made their job a lot easier by alienating two of his strongest Jewish supporters, namely Sandy Berman and Mark Rosenzweig, who in the end became convinced that he was anti-Semitic.

I do not wish to sound ungrateful toward David Williams. I want to acknowledge his hard work and commitment to the cause of Palestinian intellectual freedom.I do not believe that he is anti-Semitic, but I deplore his tactics and lack of political savvy. In the final analysis, this is a very sad and embarrassing chapter in the history of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of ALA. As a past member of this venerable organization, I bow my head in shame.

Noha Ismail, Hennepin County Library, Edina, MN

We've now printed letters on Adam Chandler's report from ALA members Berman, Ismail, Rosenzweig and Williams, all of whom have provided their own perspectives on the 1994 American Library Association convention. To refresh readers' memories, following is the final paragraph, upon which this magazine takes its stand, of Mr. Chandler's original report on the convention: "At stake is the right of American librarians and of librarians anywhere to present all sides of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute without fear of McCarthyite retribution from those who would suppress all but their own views. In 1993, under strong and confusing outside pressure, America's librarians renounced that right. The reality of 1994, it appears, is that they have given up the fight to regain it."

Greetings From Russia

The international contents journal Periodica Islamicapublished a summary of one issue of the Washington Report, which attracted my attention. I was very pleased to learn about your monthly journal, devoted to events in the countries in the Middle East and published in the capital of the United States.

The totalitarian communist regime in this country, the former Soviet Union, with its iron curtain and postal censorship, has not promoted international scientific and cultural exchange.

I'd like to ask you if it's possible to send me a sample copy of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Please enclose also a pamphlet on other publications by the American Educational Trust, and about subscriptions to them outside the United States.

Please accept cordial greetings and best wishes from Russia.

Vladimir Gudzenko, Moskovskaya Oblast, Russia

It's a pleasure to send a sample copy of the Washington Report, which now has subscribers at $55 per year in 60 countries outside North America. Subscriptions in the U.S. are $19 and in Canada and Mexico $30 (U.S.). Other AET services available overseas are the weekly Middle East Clipboard, available by air at $1,300 per year; and FAXCLIPS, available six days a week (overseas only) at $100 a week or $5,000 a year.

NGO Support for Palestine

I was pleased to meet your executive editor in Toronto at the Eleventh United Nations North American NGO Symposium on the Question of Palestine. Having presided over two of these symposia in earlier years, it was quite refreshing to focus on "Palestine: Toward a Just and Lasting Peace—Mobilizing NGO Support for Cooperation and Development" in light of today's realities.

This brings me to the reason for writing. I look forward eagerly to your reporting of this symposium to the wider constituency of the Washington Report. As one who has been involved for the past 15 years in working for peace with justice in Israel-Palestine, I often speak and teach on this subject. My advice to interested persons is, "If you can only subscribe to one publication, I recommend the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs!" Keep up the good reporting.

Ethel W. Born, Salem, VA

We find your taste in magazines impeccable, just as we find participation in these meetings inspiring. They bring U.S. and Canadian human rights advocates into personal contact with leading Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. Perhaps equally invigorating is the chance for North American Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, legislators, trade unionists, leaders of ethnic groups and educators to meet and mingle with each other and with diplomats accredited to the U.N. from countries all over the world. These contacts provide reassuring visible proof that despite a near total boycott of the subject by the mainstream media in the U.S. and Canada, there are opinion molders who care passionately about the dispossession and defamation of the Palestinians, and that such activists are growing both in numbers and in strength of commitment to peace with justice in the Middle East.