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July/August 1994, p. 114 Publisher's Page
When We Called Paris...To accept for publication international lawyer John Whitbeck's carefully documented proposal for dual sovereignty over Jerusalem (p. 34), he informed us he also had placed it with a publication on his side of the Atlantic. "That way," he said...
"Everyone Who is Serious...About the Middle East over here and over there will read it." We know that people who work full time on Middle East affairs, and who get daily printouts of intelligence reports and major media articles on the region, just as we used to when we were working for Uncle Sam, don't need to read our magazine.
But Just About Anyone Else...Who is serious about the Middle East does. We know talk show hosts do, because they ask us questions on the air based on our articles. We read our words, sometimes with attribution, in the print media. And, when we go calling even on those who have all those government information services at their fingertips, we generally see the Washington Report on a shelf behind their desks, or on a coffee table at home.
Why Do Serious Readers Need Us?Mainstream U.S. editors (like most members of Congress) are extremely uncomfortable with anything some of their more fanatical readers, or advertisers (like constituents or campaign contributors) might not like to read, see, or hear about Israel or the Palestinians. So they tone it down, rewrite it, or just ignore it.
Did You Read Much About...The blatant execution by an Israeli death squad in Jerusalem of two Palestinians on May 31 (see p. 61)? Probably all you read was of rioting and a curfew in Ramallah, the hometown of one of the victims. Your newspaper may even have falsely attributed the riots to other events, as did the citation from The Washington Post in this month's "Quatsch Watch" (p. 71).
Were You Aware That...Vice President Al Gore visited Washington's Islamic Center on June 10? His remarks on Bosnia and Israel Palestine were widely reported in the Middle East, according to his office, but there wasn't a word about them in the mainstream press.
Unless You Read Our Account...On p. 62, it might not occur to you to wonder why secular Jewish leaders, along with Jewish and Christian religious leaders, were invited to attend along with Arab and Muslim Americans and diplomats from Islamic countries. Does the vice president make sure that ArabAmerican activists or Muslim Americans are present when he visits a synagogue, or makes a speech at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as reported on p. 40? Nor do mainstream readers have a clue about the late...
George Ball's Mideast Views...Or even that he and his son Douglas have written a book expressing them. But Washington Report readers know (p. 20).
That's Because We're Serious...About the Middle East. And so are our readers!
You've Heard of Bad Hair Days?Well, we're having a bad debt year. We pay our bills, but this year it's a lot harder. We're told all Middle East peace groups are having the same problem.
But Because Our Circulation Is Huge...So are our bills. To stay in business, we've got to "normalize." This means cutting down the labor involved in putting out each issue, which we've done with new equipment that's truly miraculous—but initially expensive. It means cutting down on the sheer variety of "two-for-the-price-of-one books." To sell at a 50 percent discount you have to buy at a 60 percent discount. That's only available if you buy a thousand copies at a time. We no longer have that kind of money to tie up. It also means carrying more advertising. We've discouraged one-city or one-state advertisers, since our circulation is truly nationwide and international. Therefore, when the Egyptborn Washington, DC travel agent who gets us the best discounts we've ever seen to anywhere in the U.S. or the world wanted to advertise, we told him to forget it unless he had a toll free number. He Got One. So you'll find his advertisement on p. 86. Try him. You'll help yourself, and be helping an advertiser who helps us. And if you have a service that anyone in the country can use, think about advertising with us.
We'll Also Be Giving Up...The $12.50 "opinion molder" gift subscriptions at the end of this year. However, $19 still will buy a subscription; $25 a subscription and a book from a designated list (see p. 54); and $29 a subscription and a $12.50 book certificate to be used for anything in our catalogue. We have a new offer for subscribers who want to enter gift subscriptions for friends, relatives and opinion molders: For each additional $19 gift subscription from someone who's already a subscriber, we'll send a book of your choice from that list of designated titles—either to the recipient or to you as the donor.
Normalization Means Expanding...Subscriptions and making sure that we're in every public and university library that has space on its shelves. That's how new readers are introduced to us, and once we're properly introduced we find they nearly always subscribe...
If They're Serious...About the Middle East!
We Asked a Member of a Group...That helps us why its contribution was smaller this year. "Members all say: now that the Palestinians have their state, we have better ways to spend our money," he told us. We can't address the latter point, but we can assure them the Palestinians...
Don't Yet Have Their State.Also, a few months ago, a Bosnian diplomat told us that we and columnist Anthony Lewis seemed to be about the only media people who, month after month, wouldn't let Americans forget that, in Bosnia...
It's Genocide, Stupid!This month we suggest readers tell their three representatives in Congress they don't want a Senate-House conference committee to water down those amendments calling upon President Clinton to lift the arms embargo to permit the Bosnian government to exercise its inherent right to self-defense, as defined in the charter of the United Nations (use the telephone numbers in the box on p. 39). You might also write brief letters to the editors of the publications you read, pointing out that it's time for Americans to stop carping about whether the Palestinians can govern themselves, and help them by removing the major obstacle—armed and dangerous Jewish settlers. Their settlements illegally occupy 40 percent of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and are made possible by U.S. loan guarantees. Tell it and...
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