Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
Type of site	Activism, Pro-Palestinian, Human Rights
Available in	English
Owner	Andrew I. Killgore
URL	http://www.wrmea.com
Commercial	No

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is a magazine published 9 times per year in Washington, D.C. that claims to "focuses on news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S. policy in that region." WRMEA began to be published in 1982 as a bi-weekly eight-page newsletter, and currently published as 76-page full-color magazine.

Political position

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs claims that it "does not take partisan domestic political positions," and endorses American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) president Dr. Ziad Asali and Americans for Peace Now (APN) spokesman Ori Nir's opinion on, "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."

WRMEA claims:

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

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.

Sara Powell, the director of the magazine's book club, describes Israel as "an apartheid and colonialist state."

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 Israeli writer and critic Amos Elon.

Organisation

History

The Washington Report began in 1982 as a bi-weekly eight-page newsletter. Today, it is a 76-page full-color magazine is self claimedly "recognized worldwide as a leader in its field". The Washington Report claims to publish "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".

Publisher

It is published by the American Educational Trust (AET), founded in 1982 as a non-profit foundation incorporated in Washington, D.C. under 501(c)4 by retired U.S. foreign service officers. The magazine's "nonprofit wing has donated 3,200 free subscriptions" and dozens of books to libraries.

Board members

AET claims, members of its Board of Directors and advisory committees "receive no fees for their services" and WRMEA 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.

PACT and AET Book Club

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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". AET began importing thousands of titles about the Middle East from Europe, four times a year via TransAtlantic shipment with sea containers. AET claims "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, WRMEA. Online store via www.middleeastbooks.com, product sells "go toward supporting local artisans, nonprofit, and cooperatives in the West Bank, Gaza, and arab communities within Israel", while 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 has been criticized for being anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-semitic and pro-Palestine, promoting conspiracy theories and publishing reports that accuse Israel and Zionists of being collectively responsible for many issues in the United States and the Middle East, mainly by Jewish or pro-Israeli parties.

Canada's National Post considers the organization to be unconditionally "anti-Israel."

Criticism by Jewish and pro-Israel parties

Pro-Israel organisation Anti-Defamation League criticized the organization for hosting an essay by Paul Craig Roberts in which he claims the "fanatical neoconservatives and Israelis are using Bush to commit the United States to a catastrophic course." WRMEA was also criticized for accusing the Mossad of being a party to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Pro-Israel media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America has described WMREA of being "virulently anti-Israel" and for relying on antisemitic rhetoric to support its activism.

Pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting describes the organization as "a journal known for its strong anti-Israel bias."

The Jewish Virtual Library has stated that the "WRMEA publishes many articles that are considered to be anti-Israel and anti-Zionist" and for promoting conspiracy theories such as a "Zionist cover up" of the USS Liberty incident.

The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles notes that critics view it as "guilty of frequent factual distortions" and "an unrelenting polemic against Israel",

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."

Michael Lewis, Director of Policy Analysis for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, accused WRMEA as "maintaining its reputation as the most conspiratorially-minded of the anti-Israel forces".

According to Dr. Rafael Medoff, founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and member of American Jewish Historical Society, the WRMEA 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 assassination 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: