Publishers’ Page

January/February 1997, pg. 122

Publishers’ Page

A Subscriber in the Middle East…

E-mailed to say that “for the first time in years” his October issue had arrived with two pages removed. Well, that was probably censorship, and he’s received what was missing. However, we fear there’s a bigger problem with many copies of our November/December issue, and not just overseas. Two or three subscribers in the U.S. already have reported missing pages, and we got one copy in the office with two covers. It means something went wrong with the binding process at our brand-new printing company.

We Told You We Were Saving Money.

But not that way. If you got an issue with missing pages, call our toll-free number, press two for circulation, and tell Delinda your problem. She’ll send you a new copy and, if she uses the opportunity to get you to renew your subscription, well...

All’s Fair When You’re Broke.

But not totally broke, thanks to the magnificent response to our annual funding appeal mailed in November. We choke up just thinking about the letters accompanying some of the donations. Some of our readers reached pretty deep into purses and pockets that aren’t oversized to prevent what they called “a national catastrophe” if we went under, and in turn we’re deeply appreciative. For a time we wondered if our five remaining paid employees were going to become involuntary volunteers for the month of December. But now our Angels’ Choir is filled to the loft for 1996, as you can see by turning to pages 98 and 99.

If You Haven’t Joined But Meant to...

There’s still time to enroll for 1996 if you date your check before Dec. 31. We’ll print that complete and final 1996 roll call in the March 1997 issue. Then we’re thinking of getting NASA to inscribe the names on a satellite that will circle the solar system for eternity. But just in case they don’t understand the importance of the people who saved us from extinction...

We’ll Think of Something Else...

Equally appropriate for the magnificent AET 1996 Choir of Angels. Meanwhile, after the Christmas book rush ends and all the gift subscriptions are processed (meaning maybe by the end of January), we’ll be honoring the 1995 (that’s not a misprint, we mean 1995) Angels’ Choir too. Its members so far have received only a letter of thanks, but will get a further token of our esteem of purely sentimental, not monetary, value, as required by the tax code.

We Said in Our November Letter…

That we were pretty impressed with what we’d done in 1996. Since then we’ve received notification that on Dec. 6 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided 8 to 2 in favor of the seven readers and writers of this magazine who nine years ago filed a legal complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In Short, We Won!

Much, much credit goes to New York attorney Abdeen Jabara, who did the initial paperwork while he was president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and who has helped keep the case, which actually has been three successive complaints, alive through many lean years since. You can read all about it starting on p. 16, and if you would like to lend your support to keep it going for whatever additional time is required to make AIPAC disclose the sources of its annual $12 million budget, and how its 150 employees spend this obscenely bloated bundle, turn to p. 19.

And Lest That Seems Too Political...

Flip to p. 62 for circulation director Delinda Curtiss Hanley’s account of what she and a volunteer crew did at the annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies this year, and why they’ll be going again next year even though the books and subscriptions they sold didn’t pay all the costs of the booth. A lot of readers write to ask why we aren’t making a profit after 15 years. Well...

Non-Profits Don’t Make Profits.

They’re expected to plow anything they clear back into good works. For that matter, journals of opinion don’t make a profit either. They’re either published by a well-funded organization (Like Commentary, published by the American Jewish Committee) or subsidized by a well-heeled angel (like The New Republic, owned and operated by multi-millionaire Martin Peretz).

That’s Our First Point.

The second point, however, is that we’re unique. In fact, both Commentary and New Republic could be jettisoned by their sponsors, and there still would be another 50 weekly or monthly publications in the United States whose primary purpose is to inspire and inform Israel’s dedicated supporters, or misinform the American public about the Middle East. But if the...

Washington Report Were Jettisoned...

There would be no monthly (or weekly) publication left in the United States to advise the American media, politicians and public about Middle Eastern realities, and to provide the facts and figures needed by those who want to speak publicly or write articles and letters to the editor about those realities, and how U.S. policies are messing up the entire region, and American relations with it.

And Speaking of U.S. Policies...

The Clinton administration has signaled with its new appointments that if we thought the first term was bad, we’re going to find the second one unbearable (see p. 6). Clearly Binyamin Netanyahu is going to be allowed to scuttle the last remnants of the peace accords signed on the White House lawn, and never mind the obligation the U.S. undertook by sponsoring those accords.

Netanyahu Is Breaking Israel’s Word.

And Bill Clinton is breaking ours. Well-meaning Israelis keep hopefully predicting that the Netanyahu coalition will break up. Why? He’s giving his supporters every insane thing they want, which is total hegemony over a piece of Syria, a piece of Lebanon, all of Palestine and Jerusalem, and all of the Palestinians who live in both.

Obviously the Arab Countries…

Will freeze the peace process. Equally obviously, a bloody confrontation will take place in the West Bank, perhaps even before you read this. Then the Netanyahu government will try to blame the Palestinians for the total collapse of the peace process. And, finally, Israel’s Likud government almost certainly will begin looking for a chance, during the chaos it is orchestrating, to begin on a mass scale what the Likud Party calls the “transfer” of the Palestinians. The Serbs called it “ethnic cleansing,” Hitler called it “the final solution,” the world calls it genocide. They’re all synonyms for the deadly program Binyamin Netanyhu seems to be setting in motion, while the Clinton administration says not a word.