Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

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The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is a magazine published 9 times per year in Washington, D.C. that "focuses on news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S. policy in that region."

Political position

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs states that it "does not take partisan domestic political positions," that "as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it endorses U.N. Security Council Resolution 242´s land-for-peace formula, supported by seven successive U.S. presidents," and that it "supports Middle East solutions which it judges to be consistent with the charter of the United Nations and traditional American support for human rights, self-determination, and fair play." WRMEA is criticized by many pro-Israel groups however it is also known in the past for having a large number of Jewish supporters and writers. Indeed, if anything the political position of the Washington Report allies strongly with the Israeli left such as famous Israeli writer and critic Amos Elon.

The Washington Report began in 1982 as a bi-weekly eight-page newsletter. Today, it is a 76-page full-color magazine recognized worldwide as a leader in its field. The Washington Report publishes a wide variety of views from and about the Middle East by Muslim, Jewish and Christian writers, many of whom live or have lived in the region. The Washington Report endorses a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in which Palestinians have a prosperous full and viable state side by side an Israeli one

Publisher

It is published by the American Educational Trust (AET), founded in 1982, which is a 501(c)4 "non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, D.C." and established "by retired U.S. foreign service officers." Their website states, "AET's Foreign Policy Committee has included former U.S. ambassadors, government officials, and members of Congress, including the late Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Republican Senator Charles Percy, both former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee." According to AET, members of its "Board of Directors and advisory committees receive no fees for their services." The magazine's "nonprofit wing has donated 3,200 free subscriptions" and dozens of books to libraries.

The Palestinian Arts Crafts Trust and American Educational Trust Book Club

For more than 25 years, the American Educational Trust (AET) has been promoting U.S.-Middle East understanding with an emphasis on informed debate on the Arab-Israeli peace process. Early in AET's development, its founders established the AET Book Club to meet the recognized need for quality books about the region and U.S. policies there.

To provide these books, the American Educational Trust began importing thousands of titles about the Middle East from Europe. Four times a year shipments crossed the Atlantic in sea containers to be sold by the newly-formed AET Book Club. Years later, American publishers began to recognize the market for quality, objective books about the Middle East, and began printing thousands of titles in the United States.

In August of 2003, AET partnered with Celebrate Presence, a project in Hereford, MD selling Palestinian arts and crafts, to create International Marketing for Middle Eastern Artisans (IMMEA). In 2005, AET assumed responsibility for a large portion of the project, and these products were officially incorporated into the organization as the Palestinian Arts & Crafts Trust (PACT).

Both the AET Book Club and PACT are advertised in and supported by AET's primary project, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a magazine published nine times per year in Washington, DC.

Throughout the years, the American Educational Trust has relied on Washington Report subscribers and patrons to help us constantly improve our services. Ultimately, none of our efforts matter unless our customers are satisfied.

Recently, the program has launched www.middleeastbooks.com to provide their products online. Most of the products go toward supporting local artisans, nonprofit, and cooperatives in the west bank, gaza, and arab communities within Israel. The books are sold at a 20 - 30% discount in order to encourage more readership about Middle Eastern literature and political issues.

Criticism

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, as a left-leaning political advocacy group has been characterized by the Israeli right and the US Israeli lobby as anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli. Indeed all of the criticism against the group has been heralded by Israeli right groups and members of the organization have even faced death threats for their more moderate views of two state solutions for the conflict. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (an Boston based Israeli lobbying group) describes WRMEA as "virulently anti-Israel," as "bitterly anti-Zionist" and "the most conspiratorially-minded of the anti-Israel forces" by the "hardline Zionist" Middle East Quarterly, as "a journal known for its strong anti-Israel bias" by the pro-Israel watchdog group Honest Reporting. Canada's National Post has also described the magazine as "anti-Israel," the Jewish Virtual Library has stated that the "WRMEA publishes many articles that are considered to be anti-Israel and anti-Zionist", the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles notes that critics view it as "guilty of frequent factual distortions" and "an unrelenting polemic against Israel", and Jonathan S. Tobin, executive editor of The Jewish Exponent has described the publication as "the guidebook to the Arabist lobby in the United States" that "specializes in defaming Israel."

According to Rafael Medoff, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs publishes "denunciations" of Israeli policies, articles "belittling" the Holocaust, lists of names of Jewish publisher of newspapers to demonstrate "Zionist" control of the U.S. media, and accusations that Israeli soldiers commit "Nazi-style" genocide. According to Medoff, it has also published "wild conspiracy theories" accusing Israel of being responsible for everything form the Monica Lewinsky affair to the asassination of John F. Kennedy.

Contributors

Writers for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs include retired U.S. foreign service officers and people with a wide range of political, national and religious backgrounds. The following is an incomplete list of people who have, at one or more times, contributed to WRMEA:

Notes

^ "About Washington Report on Middle East Affairs," accessed February 20, 2007.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Jan_Feb_2009/0901061b.html
^ Ballon, Marc. "Libraries: The New Mideast Battlefront", Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Jan 20, 2006.
www.middleeastbooks.com/about.html
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, Media Analyses. Retrieved Dec 1, 2006.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Middle_East_Quarterly
Lewis, Michael. "Israel's American Detractors - Back Again", Middle East Quarterly, December 1997, Volume IV Number 4.
"National Post's CBC Watch I", National Post, May 08, 2004.
Legislative Record of Senator John Kerry, Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved Dec 1, 2006.
Tobin, Jonathan. "The Friends of our Foes", Jewish World Review, Sept. 15, 2000. Retrieved Dec 1, 2006.
Jewish Americans and political participation: a reference handbook, Rafael Medoff, ABC-CLIO, 2002, p. 244-6
Waging Peace, Council for the National Interest

External links

Washington Report on Middle East Affair Publication website.

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