NATION NOTES
A proposed 14.2 percent postage increase for periodicals was swept aside by the Postal Rate Commission in a recommendation issued on November 13. The five-member presidentially appointed commission approved increases that average just under 10 percent. In our view that’s just about 10 percent too much, given that the Postal Service is–the Internet notwithstanding–the circulatory system of our democracy. The Nation was among the witnesses cited in the commission’s 1,000-page opinion who warned about the potentially destructive impact of the proposed rate hikes on journals of opinion.We were pleased that the commission recognized these magazines as a category worthy of separate consideration, but next time we hope to persuade them that it’s as wrong to tax ideas through postal-rate increases as it was to tax tea in colonial times.
Katha Pollitt is not writing a column this week; she will be back in two weeks.
HEARING THE OTHER SIDE
At a time when Israeli opinion has hardened against peace efforts, 120 Palestinian academics and activists published an “urgent statement to the Israeli public” as a paid ad in Israeli newspapers on November 10. The statement called for “a final historic reconciliation that would enable our two peoples to live in peace, human dignity and neighborly relations.” The signers argued that the Oslo accords have been used to camouflage expansion of settlements and the continuing expropriation of Palestinian land. It said that freedom of movement for Palestinians has been severely curtailed while settler violence against Palestinian communities continues. Resolving current inequities within the framework of the Oslo agreements with exclusive American “brokerage” was now impossible. Four principles were declared to be essential to a just peace agreement: Ending the occupation of the territories captured in 1967; Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem and recognition of the city as the capital of two states; Israel’s acknowledgment of its responsibility in the creation of Palestinian refugees in 1948; and mutual respect for spiritual and historical sites.
