Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1997, Page 122

Editors' Essays, Explications, Explanations and Expletives

Crowding in The Choir Loft

The awesome response to our May 15 funding appeal just keeps rolling in. Just to list the names and hometowns of donors of $100 or more now requires two full pages (pp. 119-120). And that's only the tip of the iceberg. There were many more responses in the below $100 category. We're saved, after our worst crisis in years. As we've reported before, that resulted when a major corporate donor, after repeatedly assuring us he would be making his regular donation before the end of 1996, just didn't. Since it was the full cost of two issues, which we'd already printed, there was no way to retrench. So thank you, thank you, thank you to all who pitched in to keep us afloat. We know some readers gave more than they could afford. We'll make you glad you did.

What's Next?

As we've previously announced, we'll send a second fund-raising letter in November. One reader sent us her check in May but said to tear it up if we expected to mail her another appeal. Well, we didn't tear up the check. We cashed it and made her an accompanist in our 1997 choir. If it kills us we'll shortstop that second letter addressed to her in November, even though it means getting into our entire subscription list to remove one name for one mailing—not an easy thing to do when we're dealing with thousands and thousands of names. Two other readers asked us to send a second appeal, since they wanted to give more when they could afford it. So let's all be adults (generous ones, that is) about this. If you gave all you could the first time, just throw the second appeal away. If you can help again, we'll deeply appreciate it. The money we collect in the second (and last) appeal this year is to start us off for 1998. All donations you send by Jan. 1, however, will be used to put you into, or promote you within, the 1997 Angels' Choir. That means if you gave $50 earlier and can do it again, we'll enroll you as a hummer. All the names, old and new, will be listed again in our December issue, and at least once more in 1998.

Remember, too, if you plan to deduct your donation from your 1997 income tax, make your payment to the AET Library Endowment (Federal ID #52-1460362). Otherwise just write in either "AET" or "Washington Report." It makes no difference. And you don't have to wait to receive our appeal in the mail. You can send us your contribution anytime, using the envelope in the middle of this issue. Or you can telephone circulation director Delinda Hanley at 1 (800) 368-5788, press 2, and make your donation on your credit card. Thanks in advance for helping make next year a better one for us all.

Back to the Case Against AIPAC

As we said on the previous (Publishers') page, we expected all along to win our case against AIPAC and then our cases against the FEC. What neither we nor the lawyers counted on was having to take on an unfriendly president of the United States, his attorney general, and her solicitor general after that. Our lawyers (yes, that's plural) have taken a pittance over the past nine years, because that's all we had to give them.

So far this year, complainant James Akins has ponied up an additional $5,000 from his own pocket and we rounded off the $2,000-plus we raised from our readers earlier this year to make it $3,000. That was before the U.S. solicitor general appealed the verdict, forcing us to dig more deeply into our pockets. Now we've just got to come up with some serious money for the lawyers.

But at the same time we don't want readers to help with the legal case at the expense of the funds they otherwise would contribute to this magazine. Our margin of survival is too narrow. We think this magazine is the sure way to beat the Lobby in the long run, because journalists as well as congressmembers read it, and it helps everyone who's already seen the light become more effective. We just must keep it going. But winning the case against AIPAC might be a shortcut. We don't want to have to drop it now, when we can practically taste victory.

So if you're a fat cat, or even kind of a sleek cat, we need you now—to make an additional contribution to the "Campaign for a Sound American Foreign Policy." Everything that comes in addressed to that fund will go to the lawyers. It's not tax-deductible. But so that you'll get some public credit we'll add it to whatever you've already given in our Angels' Choir compilation—unless you ask us to keep it anonymous. We don't have to tell anyone who's read this far on this page how important this case is.

Someday the AIPACers are going to lose. Every honest person in the body politic (no, they can't all fit into a Volkswagen beetle—a minivan, maybe) hates them, but everyone is afraid of them, too. It's important that people see they don't always win. If they take a pasting in the Supreme Court they're going to have to disclose their finances, and that they apparently regard as the ultimate catastrophe, since they're paying an arm and a leg to lawyers to keep it from happening. So let's make it happen!

If the Lobby loses, it might save humanity a war—or two or three—and thousands of lives—Americans, Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis, Syrians and who knows who else. The Likudniks, the "Anxious for Armageddon" Christian fundamentalists, and of course some Arab and Islamist extremists, all of whom see it as a zero-sum game and think "compromise" is a dirty word, want lots of bloodshed, and the sooner the better.

We surviving complainants are just six little guys, all a little poorer and a lot older than when we retired from foreign service or military service in the Middle East. But we think this case just might break AIPAC's stranglehold on U.S. Middle East policy by proving that bad things don't always happen to good people who take on the Lobby. Fat cats, sleek cats and lean, mean and hungry cats—we need you all now.

Pro-Israel McCarthyism

We'd planned with this issue to initiate our new "Pro-Israel McCarthyism" series (someday to be a book) with some of our own experiences. But then Victor Ostrovsky told us arsonists had burned down his house in Toronto. Well, ours has been broken into, but the security alarm shook up neighbors for blocks around. So Victor leads off on p. 37 of this issue with the dramatic story of what happened to a Mossad case worker who not only got disgusted and quit, but who then wrote a book about it. He said publicly then that if he lived a year, he felt there would be others who would dare to follow his example. He's a little down right now, but we think the more people who go public with their stories, the safer we'll all be. Read his and then tell us yours—and we'll protect your anonymity if that's your choice.

Make Our Pages and Your Day

Why didn't we mention your event in this issue's crowded "activisms" sections? Probably because we weren't there. But you were. Next time send us your own account or appoint a publicity chairman. If you just give us the facts, we'll provide the literary polish.

Is This Your First Issue?

It's been a very, very good summer for new subscriptions. Our executive editor spoke at a number of conferences, and was paid off each time with enough subscriptions to meet his transportation and hotel expenses. All of us were on a lot of radio and TV programs, and gave our toll-free number to people who'd never heard of us, but now subscribe. Thousands of people got a sample magazine at the ICNA conference in Pittsburgh, the Antiochian Orthodox convention in Toronto (thanks to Boston Antiochian volunteer Judy Howard who represented us there, and Archbishop Philip Saliba who gave us a beautiful endorsement from the dais), and some other smaller events.

We're sending 3,000 copies of this issue for distribution at the ISNA convention in Chicago. So this is a reminder that if you subscribe from a convention, or use the blue and white subscription form you picked up at a convention, you get a free copy of any one of the books listed on it. And please note that some of the books have a list price higher than the $25 subscription fee.