Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Page 138

Publishers’ Page

People Who Think They Know It All...

…are particularly annoying to those of us who do.” These sarcastic words, on plaques found in gift shops one visits on rainy days at summer resorts, keep turning in our minds. Very early in the Bosnia massacres we wrote, “Sooner or later, in their own way and at their own pace, the Yanks will be coming.” Then for two years we listened to media talking heads and Henry Kissinger prot³g³ and former U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia Lawrence Eagleburger explain on television why the Yanks couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t.

Until the Yanks Did!

Then for a time we were treated by friends like the kid who accurately described the emperor’s new clothes just because we pointed out that from the time Bill Clinton took the oath of office the “process” had gone out of Washington-based Middle East peace efforts. Later the world learned that, having discovered the same thing for themselves, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat had moved the real talks to Oslo, where moles in the host government wouldn’t leak the proceedings to Israel’s Likud opponents of peace.

We Also Could Recall the Deep Silence...

…that greeted our casual mention of Madeleine Albright’s ethnic antecedents, until The Washington Post , after asking us for our sources (the Israeli media), “broke” the story. But, instead, let’s talk about right now. We predicted when Binyamin Netanyahu was elected on a promise to substitute a meaningless “peace-for-peace” for the critically important “land-for-peace” formula, that the “peace process” would end unless there was forceful U.S. intervention. We subsequently predicted that there would be no such U.S. intervention.

So Now the Peace Process Is Dead.

But no one is going to hail us as prophets, or even revile us as “know-it-alls,” because the talking heads aren’t yet willing to admit that the process no longer has a pulse. So while we wait for the mainstream media to stumble across the fact that murder has been committed, let’s make a couple of predictions based upon the sad demise.

The Peace Process Can’t Be Revived...

…so long as either Bill Clinton or Binyamin Netanyahu is in office. For domestic political reasons, no Israeli prime minister can provide the land (all of the West Bank and Gaza) that must be returned for peace, except under U.S. pressure. And under Clinton (but not Madeleine Albright, to her credit if she had had her way) there will be no pressure. Nor, just in case Clinton doesn’t finish his term, will there be any such pressure under Al Gore.

As for Binyamin Netanyahu...

…who certainly kept his election promise to end “land-for-peace,” things are increasingly clear. Even if he can’t pin the blame on “Palestinian terrorism,” he is determined to torpedo the Oslo accords, disregarding the fact that they were negotiated by Rabin and Shimon Peres as the only way for Israel to gain acceptance throughout the Middle East while giving back very little to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s Actions Don’t Make Sense...

…unless he is following the original plan of his Likud mentors (and of some other Israeli leaders as well) to “transfer” the Palestinians, at gunpoint, into some adjoining country. But he can’t do that so long as the governments of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt won’t let him. So, he’ll wait for one of those governments to fall.

Or, if Necessary, He’ll Personally Bring Down One of Them—Probably Jordan.

We’ve been pointing out for years that this has been Ariel Sharon’s plan for a very long time. And we previously reported that he tried to put it into effect with his 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which was supposed to send hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing through Syria into Jordan, where they would bring down King Hussein’s government. Just because it didn’t work then, even after the Sabra-Shatila massacre that was supposed to trigger the Palestinian refugee exodus from West Beirut, doesn’t mean that Netanyahu and Sharon...

Won’t Try it Again—Very Soon.

For details, read Andrew Killgore’s article on the Israeli demographic realities that make “transfer” a necessity (p. 14) if Israel prevents the Palestinians from having a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. And read Victor Ostrowsky’s elegant explication (p. 47) of Netanyahu’s plan to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Amman and thus set off a coup by putting the blame on King Hussein. When that failed, Netanyahu released Hamas leader in Gaza Sheikh Yassin, hoping that Hamas would succeed where Mossad failed. Then, if you still aren’t convinced, you’re obviously among those who think they know it all...

But Don’t!

Nevertheless, we’d like to think you’ll remember that you read it here first. But, by the time Netanyahu has his way in Jordan and you read about it in The Washington Post and The New York Times, you may have forgotten that we told you in this issue exactly what was going to happen. That’s why people who think they know it all are especially annoying to those of us...

But We Said That Already, Didn’t We?

This Month Please Check Your Library…

…to see if it has the Washington Report. If it doesn’t, please offer it a gift subscription. Right now the number of libraries that would accept a gift subscription exceeds the number of donors, by far. So we’re carrying many unpaid subscriptions, which helps explain what follows.

In Mid-June We Mailed Our Semi- Annual Funding Appeal.

After it was written, things got even grimmer. None of the 1997 rent has been paid and our two founding directors have just reached into their pockets to pay personally the entire printing bill for this July/August issue.

They Can’t Do That Again This Year.

So, unless this first 1998 appeal is very, very successful, there might not be a magazine by the end of the year. If you’ve already given this year, you’ve done your share. But we know none of our readers want to see us go under. We believe we give some shape and cohesion, and certainly an informational and factual underpinning, to efforts by the concerned public to break the stranglehold of the Israel lobby and the co-opted mainstream media on the foreign policy-making efforts of Congress and the Executive Branch.

Judging Purely on Names…

…our domestic subscription list is a bit more than 40 percent Muslim and Arab American, a bit less than 10 percent Jewish, and the remaining 50 percent consists of mostly Christian and secular people with non-Middle Eastern names like Akins, Flynn, Larsen, Espinosa, Fotos, Joukovsky, Tien Wah and Quaedvlieg. The Washington Report is an institution and its readers are an all-American coalition that none of us wants to lose. When the tide turns, as we think it will fairly soon, for reasons we’ll explain as we go along, we hope to have a starring role in making it happen.

So If You Haven’t Given Yet...

…and planned to postpone it until the end of the tax year, please don’t wait. And please be as generous as possible. Phone or use the envelope in the center of this magazine to give what you can right now and...

Make a Difference—This Month!