March 1993, Page 90

Publishers' Page

"You've Got to Continue!"

We've lost count of how many calls and letters we've received with that message since we wrote the Washington Report's epitaph in this space in the February issue. As we write this, they're still coming in.

"No One Else Does. . .

What you do," readers explained. Frankly, we didn't know that. It may sound strange, but we don't have much time to read the competition. Most editors and writers work from the same primary sources, which consume all the time we've got. But since we feared there would be no March issue...

We Browsed. . .

Among a Mideast-related biweekly, two bimonthlies, and three quarterlies, all but one edited in the United States. Some had some interesting stuff. Some just had stuff. And two we'd always assumed shared our general point of view didn't at all. So perhaps our readers are right.

Maybe We ARE Indispensable. . .

For people who want to be informed and active but also have to make a living. For people who can't spend all of their time comparing notes with other like-minded people. Or reading newsletters, weekly news and monthly opinion magazines, and the daily "newspapers of record."

If That's bragging. . .

It's because we've acquired very big heads, swollen egos, a catch in our throats and tears in our eyes just in the past few days as a result of many of those letters and calls. Our subscribers got to us with moving tributes to things we've written, the effects on themselves and their friends and families, and then. . .

They Laid on a Guilt trip!

So, we GET the picture: We're convinced we MUST go on doing what we do. We AGREE there are no better informed writers than ours, nor more discerning SUBSCRIBERS than ours. And we understand, with UTMOST clarity, if those subscribers are going to...

Dig DEEP Into Their Pockets. . .

Not only to renew their $19 subscriptions, but also to give others to friends and family members, and throw in some extra $12.50 opinion molder subscriptions for local editors, clergy, teachers, journalists and talk show hosts then we'd better. . .

NOT STOP PUBLISHING. . .

By clang, the magazine for which they've spent their hard-earned money!

We Hear You. Now Hear This.

Responses are pouring in. We need fewer than a thousand more opinion molder subscriptions to get our $78,000 matching grant for last year, and thus be able to pay our bills. If we count up pledges, we're already home free. In fact. . .

If We Discount Pledges. . .

At fifty cents on the dollar, we're still home free. But please, if you've called and told us, "I'm working on another six opinion molder subscriptions," then please do work on them immediatement!

Pronto! Halla! Schnell!

Please! We can't pay our bills with promises. Not even with those marvelously eloquent tributes some people have written us. You've made us feel like lions—well, old lions—bursting with a roar out of the den to protect the pack or pride or whatever it is that roaring lions protect.

For Our Part. . .

WE promise to hang in there, so long as God gives us the strength. But that promise is based upon everyone who's made a promise to us keeping it.

So, Now That We're All Aware. . .

That we and our readers are the world's truly brave and beautiful people, let's not forget that such people. . .

ALWAYS Keep Their Promises.

We'll keep ours by continuing to publish—so long as our readers keep THEIRS. However, there's no margin here for second thoughts, delay or. . .

Procrastination, Beautiful People.

And, for those already heard from, a heartfelt thanks. We were way, way down, but no longer. We're all going to do each

We're Also Proud. . .

Of our role in alerting the public to the new book by George and Douglas Ball, The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947to the Present, through a review published in the February Washington Report. By the time the AET Book Club's first shipment arrived, it was sold out.

Then the Publisher Ran Out Too.

It's being reprinted and we're getting a second shipment of 1,000 copies in the first week of March. We'll fill all pending orders immediately, so please don't call except with new orders. Believe us. . .

We're Peddling As Fast As We Can.

We Guess It's Just Coincidence. . .

But, quite aside from the gift and opinion molder subscriptions now pouring in, our first-time full-rate new individual subscriptions doubled the first month of 1993 over the last month of 1992.

We'd been in kind of a Tailspin. . .

Since last July, a year and four months after Desert Storm and just when George Bush gave the green light to Congress to authorize U.S. Loan guarantees for Israel. A lot of beneficiaries of opinion molder subscriptions didn't renew on their own, and some of our previous opinion molder subscription donors didn't send in so many new ones. Whether they gave up on the Middle East in general, the administration, or us, we didn't know. But we're still far above our 1991 circulation, and back within striking distance of our June 1992 all-time high. We want to welcome all first-time readers. We're sure they, like all those who subscribe year after year, either already are beautiful people, or soon will be after we've worked on them.

Speaking of Beautiful People. . .

You already know what we DIDN'T like about recent presidents because the first book we ever published, A Changing Image: American Public Opinion and the Arab-Israeli Dispute, discussed their individual Middle East policies. What we DID like about Jimmy Carter was that his wife was his best friend, he gave everything his best shot, and he REALLY is a good man. Anyone who had doubts about that shouldn't by now. What we liked. . .

About Ronald Reagan. . .

Was the way his eyes moistened when they raised the flag. Actor's trick? Sure, he knew how to do it. But he wasn't acting at those moments, nor when he talked about America as the "Shining City on the Hill." In those magic moments he believed what he was saying. We still do! What. . .

We Liked About George Bush. . .

Was that he put his life on the line for his country when he was so young he didn't have to. He had loyal friends from every stage of his life, and that says more about him than anything in authorized biographies. And those great, glowing photos of Bush family gatherings were more than political campaigning. For George and Barbara, that's immortality.

We Watched the Clintons. . .

The other night as Bill laid out his economic plan so earnestly, and Hillary watched with pride and, we hope, more comprehension than the rest of us, so far. We don't know, yet, what they'll be remembered for. But, fervently, we wish them well. Speaking crassly, we're all paying the salaries of the Clinton administration, and we hope we get our money's worth. More seriously, the City's...

Lost Some of its Shine.

It needs polishing. Yet, it's still the last best hope of mankind. Not just because once again we've proven that we do have a functioning democracy, where presidents, from George of Alexandria and Valley Forge to Bill of Hope and Little Rock, come and go, without bloodshed. That's important. But what's UNIQUE is that we really live in a. . .

Working, Multicultural Society.

It's now the only big one functioning. When another well-intended but fatally flawed one, the former Soviet Union, disintegrated it revealed all the ethnic and religious hatreds frozen below—thawing and ready to blaze into senseless slaughter.

What We've Created. . .

And nurtured as human waves from every continent broke over the shores of ours is a country where Palestinians can demonstrate without being shot at or arrested; where Iranians of different political outlooks can demonstrate in front of the White House without passersby saying anything crueler than "get a job"; where Jews of one opinion can join Palestinians in a demonstration for human rights on one side of the street while Jews of another persuasion can demonstrate across the street and no one comes to blows; where Indians, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Armenians, Turks, Azerbaijanis and Kurds all can passionately pursue their separate agendas in or out of mosques, two kinds of temples and churches, and still live peacefully side by side and greet each other civilly on the sidewalk, in the of fice, and over the back fence. It's unique and. . .

It's the Only Future. . .

For our species, if our species is to have a future. Right now, it's in the hands of Bill and Hillary Clinton. In our Shining City, theirs is the only game in town. And when it's over, let's hope we'll all still. . .

Believe in a Town Called Hope.

That Said, There are Big Problems.

We listened the other night to Bush White House Middle East Adviser Richard Haass telling an interviewer that, regardless of what special treatment the U.S. gives Israel, sooner or later the Arabs would come back to the peace table because they have nowhere else to go.

It's Just What You'd Expect. . .

From a Middle East adviser whose only experience or interest was centered on Israel. And we fear it's just what Bill Clinton now will be hearing from his own Middle East adviser, Martin Indyk, whose experience is the same. But it's wrong. . .

If After the U.N Calls. . .

Upon Israel to take back all 400 Palestinian expellees immediately, the U.S. says 100 now and the rest later is good enough.

It's Wrong When an Ambassador. . .

Who happens to be rotating president of the Security Council pretends to speak for the whole U.N. when he says there will be no sanctions resolution.

It's Wrong for U.S. Ambassador. . .

To the U.N. Madeleine Albright to say that even though he spoke extra-legally and contrary to the wishes of the majority of the U.N. the ambassador had done "a fantastic job" (see page 13).

And It's Wrong for U.S....

Diplomats to try to entice or intimidate the Syrians into selling out the Palestinians in order to get back the Golan Heights. In the first place. . .

It Endangers the Peace Talks.

And, by being too clever by half, America's new diplomatic team is only endangering the Arabs who believed in us, and convinced their fellow Arabs to meet the Israelis face-to-face over the peace table because "moderation" would succeed where "rejection" had failed. Their reward is a display of American naivete, obviously inspired by cynical Israelis whose goal is to bring down every Arab government that has been friendly to the U.S. and turn Israel's mythical boast that it is America's "one reliable Middle Eastern ally" into reality.

It's Dumb and Naive. .

And the people, American, Israeli, or both, who have talked Warren Christopher into doing it are very dangerous, because they know it won't work.

They're Giving Extremist Arabs. . .

Something to rally around. It's called "steadfastness," which sounds a lot grander in Arabic. But it means the death of the peace talks and of any moderating U.S. influence in the Middle East. . .

Unless Warren Christopher. . .

Listens to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez Al-Assad of Syria, and the Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Tunis who have risked so much for peace. They will have to explain to Clinton and Christopher that George Bush and James Baker got Israel to the peace table by NOT shielding it from U.N. condemnations when it did wrong, and by threatening to link further aid to Israel to Israeli performance at the peace table. Barely over a month after Bush lost the election. . .

Israel Kicked Over the Table. . .

By illegally expelling 400 Palestinians. Unless the U. S. threatens to put strings on aid to Israel and to stop stifling U.N. sanctions with the threat of the first veto since the end of the Cold War. . .

The "Peace Process" is on Hold.

But Before You Call or Write. . .

Anyone, please also read on page 68 what the State Department reports from Bosnia, and our page 7 article on the war there. If we're not going to intervene to stop the genocide against Slavic Muslims, then at least the U.S. should ask the U.N. to lift the arms embargo and let the Bosnians defend themselves. The Serbs have all the weapons they want, the Croats are getting some weapons, and. . .

The Bosnian Muslims. . .

Are getting the shaft. All they ask is that we do for them what we did for the Afghans. With arms to match those wielded by the Serbs, the Bosnians say, they'll save their country themselves. If, after the horrors of World War II and the European Holocaust you've ever said. . .

"Never Again!"

Then now's the time to act. You'll help stop genocide and keep the war from spreading, like wildfire, through Kosovo and Macedonia and perhaps to Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Turkey. If you write or call the numbers below to talk about cutting aid to Israel until they take back all of the 400, and lifting the Bosnian arms embargo, you can...

Make a Difference, This Month.