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DECEMBER 1999, page 138 Publishers’ Page American Educational Trust
As prime minister of Israel, the mainstream media began the usual hype that since he was Israel’s most decorated soldier, his people would give him the mandate to make the territorial sacrifices necessary for peace. In fact, however, he has been authorizing the construction of new housing units for the West Bank Jewish settlements, and accelerating land confiscations and home demolitions to create new roads to connect those settlements—some of them deep in the West Bank—permanently to Israel, while separating Palestinian towns and villages from Jerusalem and from each other.
To begin Nov. 7 and an unlikely September date chosen for their completion, it’s impossible to remain silent, especially as Israel’s American media supporters unveil the new line that the only remaining obstacle to peace is Palestinian unwillingness to accept the existence of Israel. You can read exactly why we’ve reached this conclusion on p. 6. But before you do, let us remind you that we haven’t been wrong about any major development in the Middle East for the nearly 18 years we’ve been publishing this magazine, and we’ve gone pretty far out on a limb pretty often. Two years into Binyamin Netanyahu’s term, the Clinton administration’s top three Middle East specialists, all of whom had lived in Israel but none of whom had lived or worked in any Arab country, were still using the “Nixon to China” analogy to counter the sensible argument that since Israel’s prime minister was rapidly and systematically whittling down the U.S.-funded “Middle East peace process,” it was time for the U.S. to start rapidly and systematically whittling down U.S. financial aid to Israel. United Nations symposium in Chile that so long as Binyamin Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel, no real peace agreement was going to result from the “peace process” initiated at Madrid in November 1991 and the famous White House handshake that formalized the Oslo accords in September 1993. To our astonishment, Yossi Sarid, who was sitting next to us on the dais and who, then as now, was head of Israel’s dovish Meretz Party, fiercely demurred. Despite Netanyahu’s obstructionism, Sarid said, his voice rising:
We felt obligated, because of the vehemence of his contradiction, to reconsider. Sarid, who is education minister in Barak’s current cabinet, is, after all, a well-informed Israeli. It made sense that he might understand aspects of Israeli bargaining tactics that had escaped us entirely. So we watched as Netanyahu stayed on another year, but there was no deal.
So long as the U.S. goes on financing Israel’s standoff with its Arab neighbors, while Barak or a successor wait for renewed suicide bombings in Israel, assassinations in Jordan, or any other excuse to scrap Madrid, and Oslo, and start all over again, with more land and fewer Arabs. That’s why Arabs over there and Muslim and Arab Americans over here must prepare, not for the mirage of peace, but for the reality that Barak’s plans are not for peace with the Palestinians but, at best, surrender by the Palestinians or, at worst, “transfer” of the remaining Palestinians...
As We Settle in for the Long Haul... We’re pleased and proud to announce that we have received two more editorial awards since the last issue. At the 1999 Arab-American Writers Convention in Chicago managing editor Janet McMahon accepted on behalf of the Washington Report staff the Dr. M.T. Mehdi award for “the courage to communicate justice and truth” (see p. 76). At the annual convention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Arlington, Va., news editor Delinda Hanley accepted CAIR’s “excellence in journalism” award on behalf of Washington Report executive editor Richard Curtiss (see p. 103).
Starting with the next issue, based upon a consensus of reader suggestions on their subscription renewals. We’ll put out a slightly slimmer magazine slightly more often, sending readers 10 issues in the year 2000. There will be virtually no unsolicited articles, but many more timely, short news items. Read them all every month, and you may become as conceited as we are about calling the shots so accurately in an area that people who don’t understand it call “unpredictable.”
As of Jan. 1, U.S. subscriptions will be $29 a year, and Canadian subscriptions U.S. $35 a year. Multiple-year subscriptions increase accordingly and those new prices are detailed on the postage-paid subscription envelope bound into each issue of this magazine. We’ll accept subscriptions, even multiple-year subscriptions, at the old rate through Dec. 31. So if the increase is going to be a hardship for you, send in your three-year renewal before Dec. 31, whether it’s due or not, and you’ll save $$$.
Because we’re in the midst of another “liquidity crisis” as we try to get from here to the next millennium. Our second and last funding appeal for 1999 should have arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes just before this issue. If you haven’t sent it back with a check or money order, please, please do it right now. You also can donate with a credit card, using the postage-paid envelope in this magazine, or by telephone at 1 (800) 368-5788, press 4, or (202) 939-6050.
To think about what we’re doing. This magazine has the highest paid circulation of any publication in its field in North America. In addition to individuals, 4,200 public and school libraries have subscriptions—some donated by their patrons and some paid for by the libraries. So do all but two members of Congress. The magazine also goes to about 3,000 media personnel, mostly at our expense.
Containing some 10,000 pages from our back issues and a good search engine to access them, is the second-most-visited Middle East Web site in the world. Journalists, professors, and students are using it around the clock and around the globe. The information and statistics it contains pop up everywhere. And the articles in our various “activism” sections are virtually the only means by which Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, Christian and human rights groups, and peace and justice activists concerned with the Middle East can stay informed and coordinate their activities.
Will look smaller. But in fact in every issue the number of book and video titles it contains grows. We’re the only reason many of those books were printed in the first place, and we’re the only institution keeping them in print and available for purchase and for presentation to libraries in North America.
Making ends meet. So if you gave earlier, how about providing gift subscriptions during the holiday season to family, friends, media personnel, teachers, state and federal legislators and your local library. We consider all gift subscriptions as contributions, so if your cash donations plus your gift subscriptions total $100 or more, there’s still time for your name to appear in the Washington Report’s 1999 Choir of Angels. And if you plan to deduct your donations and gift subscriptions from your 1999 income tax, make your check to the AET Library Endowment (Fed.I.D. No. 52-1460362). Please do it today and... |
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