John F. Mahoney

Although Dr. Mahoney, 48, has been running AMEU quite merrily, in fact for only the past five years of its existence, this has been a long, traumatic period, packed with events like the fighting in Lebanon, the revolution in Iran, the Iran Iraq war, Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and its drive to absorb the West Bank and Gaza.

"These have been years when it's been more important than ever for Americans to understand what's happening in the Middle East," Dr. Mahoney says. "We try to help and cooperate with all the groups that are working to accomplish this."

Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU) is only 17 years old, but is already venerable by the standards of most similar organizations devoted to enlightening Americans about the Middle East. Executive Director John Mahoney, however, says he has been happy to see others enter the field. "The more the merrier," he says. "It's an awfully big United States out there.

Combating Misperceptions

The founders of AMEU, in early 1967, were a group of American professional men who had spent time in the region and were convinced that their compatriots at home had some false perceptions. "The founders wanted in particular to combat the negative U.S. stereotyping of Arabs," says Dr. Mahoney, "and to articulate the case of Palestinian rights. These are things we're still doing."

AMEU is doing them in a number of different ways. One of them is through publishing a newsletter, The Link, which comes out five times a year and devotes each issue to a single subject. Recent ones have covered such topics as "Military Peacekeeping in the Middle East," "Christian Zionism," and "U.S. Aid to Israel." The articles are written by free lance contributors.

According to Dr. Mahoney, "we decided early on that we weren't going to compete with groups that were putting out biweekly analyses of current happenings although we recognize how important that kind of material is, and are glad that others are doing it. We thought we would concentrate on taking one topic at a time and looking at it in depth. These are studies that can be used by our constituents as texts in classes, study groups and so forth."

Other ways in which AMEU delivers its message include providing speakers on Mideast topics, helping teachers and writers do research, and sponsoring film showings but its major activity, besides The Link, involves what Dr. Mahoney calls "acting as a book club on the Middle East." AMEU arranges to procure hard to get current books and classics from publishers and sells them at discounts of up to 50 percent or more, listing the available titles in an annual catalogue. AMEU obtains the books by such methods as buying up what's left of a publisher's stock, or even getting one to reprint some additional copies to be purchased by AMEU.

"We did a variation on this with Grace Halsell's Journey to Jerusalem," says Dr. Mahoney. "The publisher had put it out in hard cover, and we went to them and said: 'we'd like you to put it out in soft cover a run of 14,000 or so and we'll buy them all.' And that's just what we did."

Many of the Halsell books were distributed to church groups that organized tours to the Holy Land. Dr. Mahoney estimates that as many as 20 percent of those who receive AMEU's information belong to church or church related institutions. This is not a coincidence, since clergymen have always figured prominently on the organization's 17 member board of directors and 25 member National Council, an advisory body. AMEU even has its offices in the Interfaith building on New York City's Riverside Drive, home of the National Council of Churches.

Teacher and Traveler

Dr. Mahoney himself is the holder of a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University in Romeon top of his B.A. from Boston College. He first developed a strong interest in the political events of the Middle East during the period from 1969 to 1975 when he served as chairman of the department of sociology and philosophy at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland and used to lead groups on study trips to Middle Eastern countries. After a two year sojourn in New York as a research consultant and writer for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, he spent more than a year with Aramco in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where he taught management courses and "got to know a lot of Saudis and Palestinians."

While in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Mahoney and his wife were browsing through the market of an oasis town one day when they saw some bulging potato sacks which they were told contained nuggets of frankincense and myrrh. "I'd never actually seen the gifts of the Magi before," he says. "When we came home" in 1978, to join AMEU "we brought some to our friends, who thought it was quite a novelty. So we set up a mail order company, and every Christmas, working at home, we now put together a package containing several nuggets, a hand crafted brass burner, a piece of self lighting charcoal, and a history of the symbolic importance of frankincense and myrrh. This is Middle East information, too! Business is booming, and every year it gets better."