Dear Friends,
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs subscribers around the world recently received our biannual donation appeal. Their generous responses are beginning to arrive, and we are humbly grateful. Without subscriptions and donations from our readers, who care deeply about changing America’s foreign policy, we would never be approaching our 30th anniversary next year.
Our readers include members of Congress, journalists, U.S. and foreign diplomats, academics, teachers, professionals and others who feel the magazine is by far the best, and perhaps the only, source of balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states. We cover U.S. politics—especially crucial during election years—and policy-making as they relate to the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, North Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as issues of human rights, women, and democracy.
For those of you who appreciate receiving the Washington Report’s timely Action Alerts or who follow us on Facebook but do not subscribe, we’d like to ask you to support us in such important ways as:
- Making a donation to help us publish the magazine or distribute free copies to decision makers, libraries, prisoners and houses of worship;
- Participating in today’s “Give to the Max” fund-raising event, going on until midnight, which is helping thousands of DC nonprofits like ours;
- Subscribing to the magazine’s Internet Flip-page edition;
- Subscribing to the print edition of the magazine, which arrives in your mailbox nine times a year;
- Purchasing a magazine at your local bookstore or asking it to carry the Washington Report if doesn’t yet;
- Giving gift subscriptions to your friends, coworkers or family members;
- Sending us addresses of potential subscribers or donors so we can send them a free sample copy of the magazine—or forwarding a copy of this letter to your own e-mail list to help us reach new readers;
- Doing your holiday shopping, including buying the latest books, DVDs or Palestinian products, from our online store at Middleeastbooks.com;
- Or, if you’re in Washington, DC, visiting our store at 1902 18th St, NW in Adams Morgan.
The Arab Spring was contagious: so many people around the world want change—or, at the very least, to have their grievances heard. Neighbors, coworkers, teachers, doctors, librarians, grocery store check-out clerks—just about everybody we strike up a conversation with these days—are just as frustrated as the protesters from Cairo to Cleveland and Damascus to Dallas. Americans are tired of economic dysfunction on Wall Street, as well as of partisanship and bickering on Capitol Hill. They’re sick of wasting billions of tax dollars on weapons—including annual military aid to Israel—instead of investing this country’s resources in education, health care, infrastructure and jobs.
Since our first issue nearly 30 years ago, the Washington Report has worked tirelessly to expose and document the relentless pressure the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exerts on both Democratic and Republican political leaders to pass public policy that benefits Israel rather than their own constituents here at home. We publish the names of candidates and the amounts of pro-Israel PAC contributions they receive, and the knee-jerk support for Israel that money buys. We remind our readers that U.S. aid to Israel, to the tune of more than $3 billion a year in American tax dollars—money badly needed at home—is spent building illegal settlements and the separation wall on Palestinian land, and making daily life as difficult as possible for Palestinians.
American voters finally are beginning to see who’s working on behalf of a foreign country instead of for them. Although this is a dangerous and chaotic time—with the drumbeat for a war on Iran growing louder and the Constitution’s guarantees of civil liberties being increasingly diluted—it is also a moment of opportunity. The Washington Report’s voice is needed now more than ever, as Americans seek answers and information they cannot get from the mainstream media.
Your support can help the Washington Report continue to make a real difference. Please subscribe or donate today.
