Publishers’ Page

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999, page 138

Publishers’ Page

We Don’t Really Do Editorials.

We present original articles, report informative speeches and events, reprint letters to editors, Congress and officials that make sense, and compile and present facts and statistics that help our readers make up their minds and do what they think they should effectively.

And When Things Are Popping…

We suggest things readers could do simultaneously, on the assumption that when several thousand people do the same thing at the same time, it should have a synergistic effect in getting the attention and guiding the thoughts of people who can make a difference.

It Must Work!

Polls show that on the issues about which we’re most concerned, American public opinion has moved substantially in recent years, and all of it in the right direction! Of course, we may have to share a little credit with Mr. Netanyahu. In his three years in office he publicly and spectacularly confirmed all our worst and seemingly wildest predictions. So maybe it’s a good time to share a few more dark prophecies. There may be “smart” bombs, and “dumb” ones. But…

There Are No Good Bombs.

They’re all bad. And it’s to the enormous credit of the American people—fewer and fewer of whom, thank God, have been on the receiving end of high explosives—that they understand this clearly and that they seem as adverse to delivering bombs as receiving them.

But, As the Poets Say, Hark!

There are Good Causes, and Bad Ones. For example, it sounds eerily familiar to hear that between 700,000 and 800,000 ethnic Albanians have been driven out of 400-plus Kosovo villages where the Serbs are burning their houses so that they will have nothing to which they can return.

We Know How That Story Could End!

Fifty years from now there would be three times that number of refugees with Albanian names scattered all over the planet and brooding about the people who had the power to stop their dispossession, but didn’t because they hated war. We hate war, too, and we’ve seen what bombs and shells do to human beings.

But the Kosovars Are Human Beings.

And right now they need to be escorted home. And they’ll need armed protection while their homes are rebuilt, so that no one can burn them down all over again. We see no alternative to helping provide that escort and that protection.

American Jewish and Muslim Leaders…

Agree! We’d like to think that after the Kosovars are restored to their homeland, all Americans will see the parallels with the Palestinians. And that doing right by the Kosovars will inspire Americans of all races and creeds to do right by the Palestinians, too. We know for sure that if Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic gets away with ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon or their ideological successors will soon be doing the same thing in Palestine. So, right now, let’s restore the Kosovars to Kosovo by doing whatever it takes.

And Now for the Bad Cause!

Let’s put aside for a moment who did what to whom first in Kuwait and Iraq. To us, the sanctions seemed like a much better idea in 1991 than continued killing of fleeing Iraqi soldiers. But now those same sanctions are killing hundreds of children every month, by anyone’s count. Would you personally put a child’s head on a stone and smash it with a club if that’s what it took to get rid of Saddam Hussain?

We Don’t Think So!

So why are we participants in the killing of hundreds, maybe thousands, of children every month—especially since it’s not getting rid of Saddam Hussain, and may even be strengthening his brutal grip on his battered, suffering people. So never mind saving face or getting rid of those mysterious Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that our inspectors never found when they were there, and certainly won’t find now that they’re out.

Let’s Lift the Sanctions Now…

And worry about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction later, and in the context of also getting rid of those we know exist in Israel, India and Pakistan and probably in Egypt, Syria, and Iran. And that’s only nuclear weapons! A kid with a chemistry set can make poison gas. It’s probably just as easy to make, and certainly easier to hide, biological weapons. The whole problem can be solved—but not while Iraqi children are dying because of…

American Double Standards!

We Do Do Fund-raising.

And this is the month, and how we need it. Let’s review what we do. Our magazine is the only one in America that gives the other side on Palestine and all related matters. It’s also the only one that keeps score on what all Middle East-related groups—good guys and bad guys—are doing, and how much every candidate for Congress has taken from Middle East-related PACs since 1976. And its publishers are part of the only group that has dared to take mighty AIPAC to court, all the way up to the Supreme Court...

And Keep It There.

So what have we done for you lately? Our Web site on the Internet <http://www.washington-report.org/> is the most visited Middle East-related site in the world! Journalists, academics, students and YOU can dig out anything we’ve written in 17 annual volumes numbering some 20,000 pages—about the same as an expensive encyclopedia. Meanwhile, we send selected articles from each new issue to some 7,000 North American editors via the Internet.

And How About Books?

On all the Middle East-related subjects most U.S. publishers and booksellers fear or hate to touch, ours is the biggest Middle East book catalog anywhere. When a book goes out of print, we’re the ones who provide the order that persuades publishers to reprint it. Or, if they won’t, we republish it ourselves.

When Someone From the Other Side…

Appears ready to tell all, we’re the only ones who dare publish what he says. When a conscience-stricken young man—whose mother told him what he was doing at AIPAC “sounded like McCarthyism”—walked into the offices of one of the country’s leading liberal magazines, it was afraid to publish his insider’s report of how AIPAC helps smear anyone it defines as an “enemy of Israel.”

So He Came to Us.

We published what he had to say. And of course now we’re smeared too. We also huddle telephonically every few weeks with ex-Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky, who still loves Israel but not what its out- of-control government does to other people—and to itself in the process. The result is a steady stream of sensible explanations of otherwise inexplicable or unnoticed events that only one who’s been there can interpret. But now…

We’re Out of Space…

To describe our deeds. And we’re also almost completely out of money to do them. So if it’s important to you that we stay the course, please use the envelope in the center of this issue for your donation to help us do so. We hope, if you can, you’ll join our 1999 Choir of Angels with a donation of $100 or more and…