March 1991, Page 91

Publishers' Page

Why Didn't You Print My Letter?

We print about a dozen "letters to the editor" and another dozen letters in "Other People's Mail" in each issue. The former are usually limited to comments about the contents of our magazine, not someone else's. Obviously, corrections of mistakes, not just differences of opinion, get priority. Letters to the editor are selected from an average of 100 really good letters we receive each month.

Because We Printed Someone Else's

Selections for "Other People's Mail" are made from perhaps 300 possibilities each month. We look for good models for letters our readers might like to write, interesting exchanges between a congress member and a constituent, or an editor and a reader. Sometimes we print an informative letter about an issue for which we have no other space.

But Some Kinds We Don't Print

Letters we hardly ever print are straight expressions of opinion that don't tell our readers anything they don't already know. We never print poetry, because we don't have the space.

And That Goes for Articles, Too

We receive about 200 articles a month. We print about 45 articles and features in each issue, of which all but 6 to 8 are by staff writers or regular monthly columnists. This is why we don't accept and don't return unsolicited manuscripts, unless you call and tell us about them first. In most cases we can tell you why we're the wrong market. Our articles have to be short and written for people who already know a lot about the Middle East and have formed their own opinions. They just want facts, facts and more facts. They don't care what you, or we, think. That's why we have to slip what we think into this page—to catch them unawares.

So What Should I Send?

We're delighted to get submissions for our monthly "Seeing the Light" feature, and we welcome book reviews so long as you check first to see whether the book is spoken for. Virtually everyone who writes regularly for us started with a "Seeing the Light" or a book review. Those are the only kinds of unsolicited manuscripts we have time to read.

What Should I Believe?

Sometimes readers who are honestly perplexed point out that our different writers express clear differences of opinion. "Since I look to you for guidance on Middle East issues, " they complain, "how am I to know what to believe?" When the Washington Report was a 16-page newsletter, its articles were exactly what we believed ourselves, unless they were labeled otherwise. However, we're 96 pages now, and the clash of ideas no longer is confined to the "two views", "other voices " and " letters " sections.

Two Views of Congress

For example, in this issue one writer thinks Israel's request for an additional $13 billion in US aid will probably get it some supplemental funds, and another writes that the outrageous demand may blow away whatever support was building for Israel as a result of the Scuds. Because both have long experience watching Congress, we've printed both views. You won't find things in our pages that we think are totally off the wall. You will, however, find facts and differing opinions we think must be taken into consideration.

And Different Versions of History

You also will find, as in this month's article on some of the theories explaining why the US and Iraq went to war, things we don't necessarily believe, but that others do. When so labeled, information of this kind on what different people think happened helps predict what all the players will do next, and even how they eventually may be reconciled.

We're Not Just the Piano Player

We don't mean to imply that we don't know what's going on upstairs in our magazine. All we're saying is that where the music is our own, it's clearly labeled. The three members of the American Educational Trust executive board who write for the magazine are the Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, and Richard H. Curtiss. And all articles by Washington Report staff writers are so labeled at the end of their articles.

So Shoot Us, But for the Right Reasons

So, if you decide to shoot the piano player, or even cancel your subscription, do it on the basis of what we write ourselves, not on the basis of someone else's opinion we called to your attention. We may not agree with it, but it's something we think you ought to know.

A Word About Our Subscribers

The truth is, we hate it when someone cancels a subscription, but it doesn't cost us money. Our "survival strategy" from the beginning has been to make the magazine big, informative, and inexpensive and let the paid circulation soar. We don't recover our printing and mailing costs from subscription receipts.

We Have an Awful Lot of Them

The fact that our paid circulation now totals more than the combined paid circulation of all other North American publications on the Middle East means that one part of our strategy worked. Unfortunately, it's the part where we lose money.

And Now a Word About Advertisers

That's why we must make up some of our costs with paid advertising. Those who have the need to reach just about every American nationally (and, increasingly, internationally) who is concerned about the Middle East have discovered us. Those who advertise with us once generally repeat their ads. For such specialized advertisers, we produce results that no one else can.

They Can Make Readers Mad

Every now and then, however, we get a reader who is really angry with us. "I thought that when I saw an advertisement in your magazine it meant you recommended the advertiser," is the usual complaint.

For That, Don't Blame the Piano Player

Well, here we really are just the piano player. If we had the money to advertise in The Washington Post or The New York Times (we don't, of course) and they turned down our ad, we'd be hopping mad. Mad enough to try to take them to court. So, what about another organization that wants to advertise in the Washington Report, even though we don't agree with everything it stands for?

The Folks Upstairs Have Rights Too

Well, we think they've got a right. It's not an academic question. We tentatively accepted an advertisement from a publication we don't always agree with for this issue, but they missed the deadline with their copy. They'll be back, we expect, even after they read this. We'll take their ad, when and if there's space. (The next issue will contain a complete listing of how much every member of Congress took from pro-Israel PACs in the 1990 election cycle, so there almost certainly won't be space.) But sooner or later there will be, we'll publish their ad, and some of our old faithful readers will think about canceling their subscriptions.

We Won't Argue About It

If they do, we won't defend ourselves. We'll just say we're not doing it just for the money that advertiser will pay us.

We'll Just Do the Right Thing

The American Civil Liberties Union went to bat for the right of American Nazis to march, with a police permit, through heavily Jewish Skokie, Illinois. We doubt, however, that many American Nazis are "card carrying members of the ACLU. " The predominantly Black police force of predominantly Black Washington, DC provides airtight, professional protection to the Ku Klux Klan when it marches, with a permit, to the Capitol building. We doubt that many members of the Ku Klux Klan pay taxes in Washington, DC. The ACLU and the DC police do the right thing as a matter of principle.

You Can't Live on Principle, But You Can Die for It

Principles are why we started this magazine, why we and an underpaid and overworked staff endure some of the meanest spirited and most scurrilous, racist, bigoted and sexist personal harassment this side of the West Bank and Gaza, and why we don't respond to any of it in kind, ever.

And, Last, a Word About Sponsors So what's supposed to happen now that we've got both grateful and grumpy subscribers, and both wanted and unwanted advertisers? Our donor base is supposed to expand, because people will see we really do have the means to get everyone who shares our general views on achieving peace with justice in the Middle East sort of marching in step in the same general direction.

Where Are They?

That expansion of donors is happening, but a lot more slowly than the expansion of subscribers. You'd better hurry up, guys. We barely scraped together big enough stashes to pay our new, high-powered printer for the February and March issues.

We'd Like to Skip April Fool's Day

The printer, who's had some previous experience with non-profit publications like ours, insists on being paid for the previous issue before the presses roll for the next one. April's roaring down on us, we've stretched the scheduled time between issues to six weeks, and, frankly, we're a bit desperate.

A Great Time for Singing Our Song If you're planning to join our Angels' Choir of donors for 199 1, this would be a very good time. Like before mid-March, so the April issue can be printed.

Hung Up on the First Amendment

Meanwhile, we'll hang on as best we can with our wishy-washy articles that eventually gore everyone's ox; our advertisements, some of which we sort of endorse; and our sincere attempts to interpret the first amendment as we think Ben, George, Tom and the Adams boys and girls would have, even if it means we're hung out to dry. It you sort of agree, perhaps now would be kind of a super time to write a check to help cut us down.

Make a Difference

Finished writing the check? Okay, enough wishy washy. This will only cost you five stamps and you can be as nasty as you wanna be.

Write Five Letters

Write letters to the president, the secretary of state, and your three representatives in Congress telling them you don't want the US to have to send American troops back to the Middle East, ever again. The only way to keep this from happening is for the US government to turn its attention to solving underlying problems in the Middle East.

An Honest Broker, Not a Problem

The US should go back to being an honest broker, not part of the problems. Tell them the Middle East problems you have in mind have nothing to do with domestic partisan politics. Secretary James Baker mentioned them in his Feb.7 testimony to Congress, and Representative Lee Hamilton covered them in his Jan. 24 speech at the National Press Club (see pp. 21 and 22 of this issue).

But no long-term security arrangements or have and have-not sharing arrangements will work in the Middle East unless the US concentrates all of its political energies on solving the Palestine problem. This means full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 242, endorsed by six successive US presidents, with no further hedging about giving back all of the land Israel seize in 1967 in return for no further hedging about acknowledging Israel's right to exist within secure and recognized boundaries.

The Palestine Card Is the Peace Card

So long as the Palestine problem remains unsolved, nothing else the US does in the Middle East will work, or last. Instead, our troops will go back, again and again.

You're Darned Right That's Linkage

All, and we mean all, American problems with Arab states and with the Islamic world derive, directly or indirectly, from this unresolved Israel-Palestine problem. They're all linked, whether or not George Bush likes to call it that. The rest of the world knows it. In December, the UN General Assembly voted 144 to 2 (the US and Israel) for an international conference to deal with that problem.

Make a Politician into a Statesman

So tell these guys: The only way to get the Israelis moving to the peace table is for the US to sit on Israel's aid. According to a February Time/CNN poll, the American people now agree, 63 to 28, that the US should try to pressure Israel to settle the Palestine problem.

Don't Let Them Stall

If we try, this time we'll succeed because this time Israel's Likud government really needs our money. But Yitzhak Shamir's extremists want it to do the very thing we don't want them to-put more people into those Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine that are, in the words of US president after president, "illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Make Them Stop Breaking International Law

Any congress member who pressures the administration to give Israel one more penny , either in cash or as an "off budget" loan guarantee, before the Israelis have promised in writing to stop subsidizing illegal Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is on the take from the PACs, or other AIPAC-influenced sources. You can take that to the bank. You'll probably meet that congress member there.

Tell Them You're Sick of Corruption in Washington

Further, any president who signs off on another cent to Israel before the US has that airtight written guarantee of no more Israeli government funding for any kind of Jewish settlement activity in the areas named above ought to be impeached. He's taking your money to pay for activities that are illegal under international law, that have been so acknowledged by the US government, and that have been a major factor in getting the US into a war in the Middle East in which a lot of people are dying unnecessarily. Don't make more Americans, Arabs, Europeans and Israelis die in vain.

Tell those five recipients that you're sick of the political corruption in Washington that is getting kids killed in the Middle East. You can go sign a petition on that. You'll meet us there.

This Month

That's some of what your five letters might say. Lick the stamps. Drop the envelope in the mail box. And...

Make A Difference, This Month.