Dear Former and Current Washington Report Subscribers,

If Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gets his way, the world may soon be standing on the brink of World War III. If each Washington Report reader—Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and others—can dedicate a little more time, effort, imagination and, yes, money, to work for peace, however, we can avert disaster. We’re not just talking about Israel’s efforts to provoke Americans to “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” in order to remove the perceived threat Tehran poses to Israel. No U.S. government with a lick of sense, and the interest of its own citizens at heart, would start another war to defend Israel—not with total U.S. spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeding $1 trillion by Feb./March 2010, and coalition fatalities currently approaching 6,300. Israelis, who exaggerated the threats of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, have lost neither blood nor treasure—nor American funding—in these wars.

We are more worried about the showdown Netanyahu and his right-wing U.S. supporters are provoking over Jerusalem, a multiethnic city holy to the world’s three monotheistic faiths. If Israeli Jews won’t share Jerusalem with Christians and Muslims, all hell will break loose. “Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” the prime minister said at a May 21, 2009 state ceremony marking Israel’s conquest of the city during the 1967 Six-Day War, and its subsequent—and illegal—annexation of East Jerusalem. According to Netanyahu, “Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours...Our people’s unparalleled affinity to Jerusalem has spanned thousands of years, and is at the basis of our national renaissance.” Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin added for good measure: “The world must recognize our sovereignty, as well as the primacy of the Jewish people in the holy sites, as our inalienable right.” This does not bode well for the world.

Israel got away with the murder last winter of 1,455 Gazans, mostly civilians with no place to flee, not to mention the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. In response, the U.S. Congress and Obama administration helped bury the bodies by condemning the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Goldstone Report. Next, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton astounded the world at an Oct. 31 press conference by praising Netanyahu’s “unprecedented” efforts to curb some Jewish settlement construction. All this has emboldened Netanyahu to defy American, European and Palestinian demands to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel’s government leaked news that Obama’s Middle East mediator, former Sen. George Mitchell, had asked Israel not to approve 900 new apartments for Jews only in East Jerusalem’s Gilo settlement, where 40,000 Israelis already live. Almost immediately, workers broke ground for new construction.

President Barack Obama criticized the announcement and told Fox News on Nov. 18 that “additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security” but instead “embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous.” The State Department spokesperson and White House press secretary also objected to Israeli actions in East Jerusalem, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes which makes it harder to re-launch negotiations. Jewish settlers have moved into a new 240-family compound called Nof Zion (View of Zion) in the middle of Jabel Mukhaber, another Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem. While Jewish residents enjoy regular garbage collection, well-built roads, proper street lighting and a lovely new playground, their Arab neighbors suffer in cramped, neglected homes and their children are forbidden to use Nof Zion’s playground. And then there’s the wall, arbitrary arrests, and the continuing siege on Gaza.

One of our readers reminded us of a poem by W.H. Auden written at the start of World War II called “September 1, 1939,” which should warn Israelis who believe that ethnically cleansing Jerusalem and oppressing Palestinians is OK: I and the public know, What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done, Do evil in return....We must love one another or die.

In these volatile times it is critical to work together in innovative ways to promote peace and security. That means putting aside ego, listening to others, and using our heads and hearts to build coalitions that can change foreign policy, elect better leaders, and advise the leaders we already have. Now more than ever, it’s crucial that the 27-year-old Washington Report continues to exist—in bookstores, libraries and on the desks of every member of Congress, as well as a click away from readers worldwide on the Internet. In October alone, our Web site, <www.wrmea.org>, had more than a million hits and 182,000 visits, and those numbers are steadily increasing. Our e-mail action alerts reach thousands more. We send the Washington Report free of charge to be distributed at hundreds of events around the country. The American Educational Trust’s bookstore, <www.middleeastbooks.com>, is a resource for essential books, films, music, and fair trade Palestinian handicrafts. And we’re working on another groundbreaking project. As we watch the Washington Report’s income from advertising, donations, subscriptions, and book sales plummet in this economy, and see other good publications and organizations vanish, we are deeply concerned that we won’t be around to help prevent World War III.

The U.S.A. Committee for World Day of Prayer, an international ecumenical movement, selected one of our important projects, “Remember These Children,” <www.rememberthesechildren.org>, to raise the public’s awareness of the impact of conflict on youth in Palestine and Israel. The first Friday in March of next year, women around the world will pray for peace and change.
We profoundly hope that with your help...Together we can…

Make a Difference—Today!

Sincerely,

Since the first issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was published on April 5, 1982, we not only continue to provide readers with hard-to-find timely news, but also:

• Disclose lobbying activities by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC);
• Continue to pursue a court case that reached the Supreme Court to require AIPAC to disclose its finances;
• Tabulate pro-Israel PAC contributions to Members of Congress;
• Examine congressional Middle East-related voting records;
• Track cumulative U.S. aid to Israel;
• Identify and profile neocons in and out of the U.S. government;
• Report countless community events around the country—at universities, think tanks, churches, mosques and synagogues, from debates on Capitol Hill to protests in the streets of Iowa;
• Published and continue to update Remember These Children, which documents the violent deaths of Palestinian and Israeli children under the age of 18 since Sept. 29, 2000, and which has been used by peace organizations around the world. The name, date and cause of death for each child killed is available on the Web site <www.rememberthesechildren.org>.
• Report Israel’s “creeping annexation” of the West Bank;
• Published “Translations from the Hebrew Press” by the late Israel Shahak;
• Gather the best national and international news stories to reprint in our “Other Voices” supplement;
• Distribute tens of thousands of Middle East-related books through the AET Book Club, and provide free Library Book Packages donated by our readers;
• Offer free subscriptions to libraries, diplomats, Members of Congress, Canadian Members of Parliament, journalists, U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and incarcerated prisoners;
• Published Stealth PACs: Lobbying Congress for Control of U.S. Middle East Policy, by Richard H. Curtiss (four editions); Seeing the Light: Personal Encounters With the Middle East and Islam, edited by Richard H. Curtiss and Janet McMahon; 50 Years of Israel, by Donald Neff; and the children’s book The Flag Balloon by Frances Copeland Stickles. We also have republished and redistributed books in danger of going out of print, including Paul Findley’s Deliberate Deceptions and James Ennes’ Assault on the Liberty, and have helped distribute thousands of copies of Paul Findley’s They Dare to Speak Out and Silent No More;
• Collected the signatures of nearly 100 retired diplomats to a 2004 letter to President George W. Bush calling for the United States to serve as a truly honest broker and renew negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, and led a delegation to Palestine that summer;
• Launched Palestinian Arts and Crafts Trust (PACT), which offers for sale pottery, embroidery and other traditional handicrafts by Palestinian artisans, while educating the American public about Palestinians’ rich cultural heritage;
• Provided a professional camera to Jerusalem photographer Khaled Zighari after his was stolen when he was beaten by the IDF on the first day of the al-Aqsa intifada;
• Published a series of posters, including “50 Years of Palestinian Dispossession,” Khaled Zighari’s photo of Mohamed Ali Abu-Swai crying amid the rubble of his family’s home, and “Israel Targets Children,” Laurent Rebour’s photo of 13-year-old Fares Udah facing an Israel tank, 10 days before he was shot dead by Israel Defense Force troops;
• Maintain the highly searchable Web site <www.wrmea.com>, which provides, free of charge, archived Washington Report articles from our first quarter-century. The site gets more than 10,500 visits a day, averaging 18 minutes a visit.

What Concrete Steps Toward Peace Can Washington Report Readers Take?

1. Increase your involvement with local, national, and international organizations working for peace. Help the Washington Report continue to cover their activities and to send magazines and Remember These Children books to events across the nation. Keep up with Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activities and other activities, conferences and actions in your community.

2. Write letters or speak to candidates, legislators, editors, radio talk show hosts, and journalists. See our postcards or action alerts for ideas.

3. Join our e-mail action alert list (see our home page ). We ll help keep you informed about events and recommend actions you can take.

4. Sponsor advertising campaigns. Do you have contacts in corporations or your business community? Help us find donors to support a Washington Report advertising campaign in local and national newspapers.

5. Promote and attend concerts, art exhibits, films and plays. Art can help address truths too painful for words.

6. Give meaningful and educational gifts. Buy books and films from the AET Book Club, . Help us distribute educational films and books to libraries, universities and schools

7. Promote the Palestinian economy: Purchase fair trade olive oil, ceramics, embroidery, keffiyehs, and other items from Palestine Arts and Crafts Trust, at the AET Book Store in Washington, DC or on the Web at

8. Bring along a copy of the Washington Report when you lobby. When you make your campaign contributions explain your reasoning and expectations as you write your check.

9. Use this donation form to help us keep publishing the Washington Report and to give gift subscriptions to help educate others and, if you can, join our Angels Choir.