March 1991, Page 5

Letters To (and From) The Editors

Which Are Israel's Washington Think Tanks?

Could you print in the Report some kind of a list of Washington think tanks, institutes, foreign policy associations, etc., identifying those which are Israeli propaganda outlets? It is very hard to keep them all straight and impossible for the outsider.

For example, which is the one "owned" by Richard Perle and his sycophants?

Thank you for such a service.

Roy Finch, New Rochelle, NY

It's a good idea, Professor Finch, but not so easy. The whole point of buying into or establishing an ever-changing list of publications, consulting firms, non-profit organizations, think tanks, etc. is the principle of slash-and-burn agriculture. In this case you buy into a respected journal of opinion like the New Republic or Atlantic Monthly, turn it into an apologist for Israeli racism and bigotry, and eventually move on when everyone realizes that the proud old masthead now flies over a very different creature. We'll work on the think tank aspect, however, which seems during the Gulf crisis to have become particularly insidious in supplying impartial "experts” to the media to clutter American minds with heavy doses of "mythinformation." In a partial answer to your specific question, an article by Robert Clark in our February issue (p. 19) reported that Richard Perle is affiliated with International Advisers, Inc., among whose public relations clients is the government of Turkey. Turkey, like a lot of countries suffering from massive image problems in the US, seems to believe that the people who can turn apartheidist, Likudist Israel into "the Mideast's only working democracy " can pull off similar miracles in their own cases.

Our Readers and Prof. Sari Nusseibeh

Many thanks for giving of your valuable time when I called today regarding the sad/grim case of Sari Nusseibeh. After our call, I contacted Amnesty International again and they had just issued an "Urgent Alert" on this very case! IA is sending me a photocopy of this alert with names/addresses to where protests should be directed. I'm planning on doing my bit as soon as I receive this material. Perhaps you might wish to contact the AI office in DC?

Enclosed is a wee check for two donated subscriptions. Wish it could be more, but a fixed income does tend to clip one's wings.

Again-thank you and good luck with your vital work.

Elizabeth A. Bernstein, Paradise, CA

The information we obtained at your suggestion for our readers is in the "Human Rights " column on page 69 of this issue. An article about Professor Nusseibeh, written by his friend and our publisher, Ambassador Andrew Killgore, is on page 13.

Thanks from Arab Americans to Rep. Dymally

On Jan. 29, 1991, Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally introduced House Concurrent Resolution 56 for the purpose of expressing the sense of Congress that federal agencies should not engage in discrimination that threatens the civil liberties of Arab Americans from hate crimes and related discrimination.

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) is inviting you to be a part of an informal coalition of organizations concerned with civil and human rights to coordinate efforts in support of H. Con. Res. 56. In addition, it would be greatly appreciated if your organization would consider issuing a public statement endorsing the resolution. Enclosed you will find a list of cosponsors in Congress to date.

Khalil E. Jahshan, Executive Director,

National Association of Arab Americans

Washington, DC

We're happy to print your letter of support for Rep. Dymally's resolution, and express our own strong concurrence with it as well. The names of congressional co-sponsors appears in "Arab-American Activism, "on page 68 of this issue of the Washington Report.

Thanks Also to Rep. Rahall

Knowing of your interest in such matters, I am pleased to enclose a copy of my recent remarks (which appeared in the Jan. 17 edition of the Congressional Record) on the unwarranted FBI "interviews" with Arab Americans (as well as other anti-Arab-American incidents) as a result of the Persian Gulf conflict.

As you will note, there is a broad-based opposition to the FBI tactics as well as to related incidents, and I am pleased that the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction have both warned the FBI and others against letting their "interviews" get out of hand, and each has promised to hold hearings if it becomes necessary.

President Bush has also spoken out against such discrimination, remarking on the dangerous parallels that can be drawn between now and when Japanese Americans were interned during World War II.

Please let me know if I can be of any assistance to you in these matters.

With warm regards I am

Nick J. Rahall, II, Member of Congress, Washington, DC

Thanks, and we're covering your thoughtful remarks on page 38 of our "Congress" column.

A Plug for Dr. Swee Chai Ang's Book

Add me to the long list of those who anxiously await the arrival of the Washington Report each month. The quality and accuracy of your publication on the Middle East are unmatched, and I thank you for the excellence of your work.

I would like to recommend that anyone interested in the plight of the Palestinian people read Dr. Swee Chai Ang's powerful book, From Beirut to Jerusalem (not Thomas Friedman's book with the same name). I particularly recommend Dr. Ang's book to those who still deny that comparisons between the Nazis and the Israelis are justified.

Rebecca Vonn, Charleston, SC

Based upon your choice of magazines, we can see you're a discerning person of demonstrable good taste. We're temporarily out of Dr. Ang's book, but will have more in stock by mid-March. We expect to have the new paperback edition of the Thomas Friedman book at about the same time.

What Was Saddam Hussain's Peace Proposal?

The New York Times CBS Poll of Jan. 15 reports that 55 percent of the American people believe that "Bush has done everything he should to avoid war." If the media had kept the people better informed they would know better!

"Frontline's" Jan. 15 program "To the Brink of War" is typical of how the media have misled the people. It portrays President Bush as a high-minded if somewhat befuddled leader, who, seeing himself as another Churchill standing up to another Hitler, naively expected Saddam Hussain to surrender to his ultimatum and was surprised by his refusal to do so.

Bush could not have been surprised by Saddam Hussain's refusal to capitulate. Knowledgeable advisers from King Hussein of Jordan to Arabists in and out of government have been telling us for months that Saddam Hussain would not accept an ultimatum, but must be given some face saving way to withdraw his troops. Saddam Hussain's response is precisely the one Bush has been working to achieve.

The media have kept well concealed from the American public the fact that, starting in August, Saddam Hussain made several offers to withdraw from Kuwait under various conditions-all of which were rejected out-of-hand by President Bush. (I was able to glean some information about four of these offers. There were probably others.)

A more accurate assessment of the president's desire to avoid war appeared in a New York Times Oct.1 story on Brent Scowcroft. This shows a president determined since early August to use Saddam Hussain's invasion of Kuwait as a pretext to destroy Iraq's military machine and neutralize Iraq as a regional power, while keeping this goal hidden from the American public. This story explains the president's actions since August. A president determined to wage war will obviously refuse to negotiate and will sabotage all efforts at negotiation by others—using the pretext that negotiations would be rewarding the aggressor.

Perhaps the Washington Report could provide us with a summary of Saddam Hussain's various proposals since August, as well as peace proposals made by other governments?

Thank you for all the good insight and information you consistently provide.

Louise Green, St. Louis, MO

We appreciate your views and will present ,further information on your suggestions as it appears. At present, it's easy to document a number of third-party proposals that sought to link total Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait with an international conference to address outstanding Middle East problems, specifically including the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.

We're not aware, however, of any US proposals offering "linkage," or any Iraqi proposals offering immediate and total withdrawal. At your suggestion, we are printing on page 22 of this issue pertinent parts of President Saddam Hussain's Aug. 12 public statement, which is what the Iraqi government and its supporters now cite as his "peace proposal," made immediately after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait on Aug. 2. Many of our readers seem to have extremely strong opinions on the subject, and few have neglected to acquaint us with them. Therefore we'll let our readers decide for themselves how to characterize President Saddam Hussain's Aug. 12 statement.

Picturing Peace

For several years I've been concerned with the fate of the Arabs in Israel and the West Bank. A few years ago my wife and I toured the "Holy Land. " We spent quite a bit of time visiting schools and talking to Christians in the area. The difficulties and injustices of living there were very evident.

I am worried that the way things are going the poor Arabs living in the region may be subject to a "final solution, " which will end with them all being eliminated from the area.

I syndicate my cartoons to about 20 Catholic newspapers. Enclosed are a couple that I have done recently on the Middle East.

Perhaps you may be able to use some of them.

John J. Knudson, San Diego, CA

Thanks for your letter, and we'll share your cartoons with our readers.

We Think You're Terrific

This is a fan letter! We can't tell you how impressed we are with The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs at the most significant moment in American history. Without the marvelous dialogue going on monthly in this publication, especially the perceptive articles by your publisher and your executive editor, the American public would not have a clue about the real issue in that area today on which the future of our country hangs—the Palestinian issue.

You are explaining for the first time to us American ignoramuses exactly what the issues are, and it is time for all of us to stop this support of a phony "Jewish lobby" overwhelming this country, and let the Palestinians have their fair share. If anybody can explain it, you can. Our hats are off to you and the cheers very loud from California.

I feel especially proud to have come from the same part of the USA as your executive editor and to have served in the foreign service with experts like him. You are absolutely terrific. Keep it up.

Blythe Foote Finke, Inverness, CA

The writer is a former foreign service officer whose parents both were prominent journalists in Southern California. Her husband is a retired career Army officer. Sharing her penchant for understatement, we can only say that her judgment, now as when she was our foreign service colleague, is impeccable.

Why Do You Extol the Middle East Times?

Why do you call your column "From the Arab Press" when almost all the items are drawn from the Middle East Times?

Second, why are you increasingly becoming supporters of the Middle East Times (witness the full-page ad appearing in the January issue, and your monthly box extolling it in the resource listing), relative of the Washington Times, and understood in the region to be part of the Unification Church's publications network?

Apart from these questions, it needs to be said that the bulk of the news in any given issue of the Middle East Times comes from Reuters News Service, apart from the book reviews and other occasional pieces drawn from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

The "most comprehensive weekly newspaper published in the Middle East"? I hardly think so, and I am puzzled why you do.

Douglas duCharme, Lyinassol, Cyprus

The advertisements for the Middle East Times are on a commercial basis, as the American Educational Trust has been, on a "stop-gap basis," its US distributor for the past several years. If its editorial policies visa-vis the Middle East resembled those of the Washington Times, which seem to be largely a reflection of the personal idiosyncracies of Washington Times Editor-in-Chief Arnaud de Borchgrave, a die-hard Arab-basher and apologist for the Likud's Israel, we probably would ask the Middle East Times to look elsewhere for a permanent US distributor. They are not, however, and in fact its publisher, Thomas Cromwell, a British subject married to an American, writes the Middle East Times editorials. We certainly are aware of more comprehensive English language dailies published in the Middle East, the Saudi Gazette, published in Jeddah, being only one of them. We don't know of a more comprehensive English-language weekly published in the Middle East, however. Do you ? Perhaps they need a US distributor too.

Why Are You Afraid to Print Bad News About Arabs?

I heard your editor on a talk show, and I ordered your magazine to enlighten myself on information that wasn't always in the local press. Contrary to my beliefs and your claims, your magazine is afraid to print material detrimental to the Arabs, no matter how true.

I am a contractor (established in 1908) from Youngstown, Ohio. We branched out to the Middle East in 1976 with a hotel contract in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Several projects followed, with the last one a 400-shop mall for a member of the Saudi royal family. As a result I have been the victim of personal degradation and some outrageous business tactics.

I have enclosed some newspaper articles and a Congressional Resolution as submitted by Congressman James Traficant, who, by the way, has supported the Arab cause, which you might reprint in your Media section or under Letters if, indeed, you really do mean what you said on the talk show.

My purpose, obviously, is to collect my money, but also to warn other businessmen that being a high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family doesn't mean that you assume this to be synonymous with ethics and honor.

Bernard J. Bucheit, Jr., President

Bucheit International, Youngstown, OH

A monthly magazine can't report every event that occurs in the Middle East, especially now with half a million Americans at war there. We receive hundreds of articles, letters, etc., vying for space in every issue.

Among the elements that might turn routine problems into news are gross miscarriages of justice, failure of the system to prevent such injustice, and, of particular interest to this magazine 'Is readers, injustices of which Americans may be unaware and which, if they were aware, they might have the power to correct. Your complaint has been brought to the attention of the Department of State and Department of Commerce, investigated by Rep. Traficant, whom we respect as a particularly outspoken and conscientious member of Congress, who in turn inspired a "Sense of the Congress " resolution detailing your claims. In doing so he's representing your interests considerably more faithfully than some members of Congress whose US citizen constituents have had children killed by Israeli soldiers, using US supplied weapons in the West Bank. So what do you need from us? The rule we follow is the rule of news worthiness tempered by the laws of libel, which is why we have deleted the name of the member of the Saudi royal family you accuse. The question your letter inspires is why, instead of taking your claims to the media, don't you take them to court?

Heroic Measures Have Minimized AUB's Problems

I want to identify and correct certain factual errors in the interesting Special Report on AUB ("Beyond Survival: The American University of Beirut") by Elaine Larwood, in your November 1990 issue. They occur in a discussion of the University on page 81, in these two paragraphs:

The American University Hospital, coping with shortages and crisis conditions, lost its accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals in the United States. Its most conspicuous problem is a shortage of nurses, which has closed down whole sections of the hospital.

The intensive care unit hasn't functioned for a year and one entire floor has been closed since 1985. Pediatrics and obstetrics units as well as operating rooms are also affected.

The facts are these. The accreditation from the Joint Commission was not "lost " in the sense that it was stripped because standards were not met, which is the implication in the text. The Joint Commission simply made a policy decision not to extend accreditation to hospitals in foreign countries, due to the difficulty of monitoring standards.

It is true that there has been a nursing shortage at the University Hospital during the past five years, but this is a situation which prevails almost everywhere, including the US. During the most intense periods of fighting in Beirut, qualified nurses had to be transferred from regular floor duty to the care of casualties (in a 13-month period during 1989-90 almost 21,000 war victims were cared for at AUH), and this necessitated the temporary closure of some beds. But intensive care, as well as operating rooms and units serving obstetrical and pediatric patients, have been active throughout, at times to excess.

AUB and its hospital obviously have not been without problems since the start of the civil war in 1975, which is now hopefully ended. But we make every effort to correct factual errors that may creep into print and tend to exaggerate the scope of the problems with which staff and faculty have had to cope ... and which in most cases have been successfully met by efforts which can only be characterized as "heroic."

By way of background, I am enclosing a current Fact Sheet on AUB and a new 125th Anniversary booklet.

Robert G. Berry, Executive Director of Development and Public Relations, American University of Beirut, New York Office, 850 Third Ave., 18th Floor, New York, NY 10022-6297

We're happy to correct the record on one of the monuments to the "good old days " of US-Arab relationships, which has continued to serve the people of Lebanon through the years of "bad days" that followed.

We've printed your full address for readers who may wish to receive copies of the useful and inspiring fact sheet on AUB. For younger readers who may wonder, "Who cares?" stay tuned for Dr. Calvin Schwabe's article on AUB, "The Tragic Encounter," which will appear in our April or May edition.