For Charlie

7/31/2019 For Charlie

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Volume 39, Issue 4 October-November 2006

The Link Published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, Inc. Link Archives: www.ameu.org

Israels recent invasion of Lebanon brought

back painful memories to me of its 1982 invasionfor more reasons than one. While Israels actions in2006 were similar to 1982widespread bombingof civilians and civilian infrastructure, the destruc-tion of entire neighborhoods, and the indiscriminatekilling of women and childrenmy reactions thenand now were very different.

These opposite reactions tell the story of who Iwas and who I have become. (Continued on page 2)

By Barbara Lubin


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AMEU ( ISSN 0024-4007 ) grants permission to reproduce material fromThe Link in part or in whole. AMEU must be credited and one copy forwarded toour office at 475 Riverside Drive, Room245, New York, New York 10115-0245.Tel. 212-870-2053; Fax 212-870-2050;E-mail: [email protected]; Website:www.ameu.org.

On September 30, 2006, the American Muslim Alliance, at its5th annual convention, awarded

Barbara Lubin their Service toHumanity Award, citing her as aunique individual with an inex-tinguishable love for fellow be-ings, children in particular, andfor her capacity to transcendreligious boundaries.

Barbara Lubin is founder and executive director of MiddleEast Childrens Alliance which,since 1988, has delivered mil-lions of dollars in humanitarianaid to childrens clinics, hospi-tals, schools and womens or-ganizations in the Occupied Pal-estinian Territories and Iraq.MECA is the nonprofit channelfor Barbaras inextinguishablelove . Her capac i ty totranscend religious boundariesis reflected in her outreach as aJewish American to Muslims inthe Middle East.

In this issue of The Link Bar-bara takes us on her journeyfrom California to a region half aworld away.

Another Jewish Americanwho spent much of his profes-sional life challenging the mediaon its Middle East reporting isNed Hanauer. Ned had a spe-cial relationship with AMEU, soit is with personal sadness that

we note his death this past Au-gust. See In Memoriam on page12.

Our book selections arefound on pages 13-14, our vid-eos on page 15.

John F. MahoneyExecutive Director

From Ozzies to Gaza

At almost the exact moment Israelwas invading Lebanon in 1982 I wasbeing elected to the Board of Educa-tion in the city of Berkeley eventhough I had never graduated fromhigh school.

Locally, I was well-known as apolitical activist who took progres-sivethose days we called themradicalstands on many interna-tional issues, from El Salvador andNicaragua to Cuba and South Africa,as well as local issues.

I had been a draft counselor dur-ing the Vietnam war and had coun-seled young men not to fight in thewar. In fact, I remember the daywhen a young boy whom I hadhelped get into Canada and who wasleaving that day came to see me. Hebrought me the notice he had justreceived to show up in a few days for

his physical exam with the army atthe induction center at 40 NorthBroad Street. I saw him off for hisnew life in Canada and on the day ofhis notice for his physical exam Idressed up in drag and showed up inhis place. There were 250 of us andwhen we were all told to strip we allremoved our clothes. I had stuffedhundreds of flyers in my pants en-couraging everyone not to go to Viet-nam, handing them out until I wasarrested and taken off to jail.

I took public office with a groupof other elected officials who prom-ised to develop a foreign policy inBerkeley to challenge RonaldReagans. So it seemed natural for agroup of Lebanese and Palestinian

(Continued from Page 1.)AMEU Boardof Directors

Jane Adas ( Vice President )

Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. Atwater, Bradley & Partners, Inc.

Elizabeth D. Barlow

Edward Dillon

John Goelet

Richard Hobson, Jr.Vice President, Olayan America Corp.

Anne R. Joyce

Robert V. KeeleyFormer U.S. Ambassador

Kendall Landis (Treasurer)

Robert L. Norberg (Presiden t)

Hon. Edward L. Peck Former U.S. Ambassador

Lachlan Reed President, Lachlan International

Donald L. Snook

James M. Wall

AMEU National CouncilHon. James E. AkinsIsabelle BaconWilliam R. Chandler David S. DodgePaul Findley Dr. Cornelius B. Houk Cynthia InfantinoO. Kelly IngramMoorhead Kennedy Ann Kerr David NesMary NortonMarie PetersenDr. John C. Trever Don W. Wagner Miriam Ward, RSM

Executive Director John F. Mahoney


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students from San Francisco State University to ap-proach me and ask me to speak publicly against theIsraeli invasion of Lebanon.

But Im Jewish, I said, as if that explained eve-rything. At the time, I had no idea that there were Jewish people who didnt support Israel, blindlysupport it I mean.

I grew up in a Zionist home in Philadelphia in thelate 1940s and 1950s; my father was a lawyer whoraised money to buy guns for the Irgun and mymother was a member and local president of ORT,Organization and Rehabilitation through Training,an organization which, among other projects, helpedraise funds to build Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Ours was the immediate post-Holocaust era andmy parents ingrained in me that when they comefor us here, we need Israel so we have someplacesafe to go. It was a running joke in my house whenanyone asked to have something passed to them atthe table like, Would you please pass the salt?, theresponse would be, Is it good for Israel? We werenot very religious, but I attended Hebrew schoolthree times a week and attended services at leastonce a week. Our lives revolved around our syna-gogue and Israel.

I remember the day the United Nations voted tocreate the State of Israel. My family and ourneighbors celebrated into the night.

It was not until recently that I found out that al-most all of my fathers family who remained in Aus-tria were killed in the Holocaust. This information,while horrible, in no way has changed my beliefsabout the injustice done to the Palestinians from thebeginning of the founding of the State of Israel untilthe present.

In 1982, to my shame, I remained silent about theIsraeli invasion of Lebanon and the massacre at Sa-bra and Shatila refugee camps. I simply could notbelieve that my people could have done the terri-ble things they were being accused of.

To their credit, the Arab students at San FranciscoState refused to give up on me. Slowly they and myfriend, then-Berkeley Mayor Gus Newport, began

my real education about Israel and Palestine. My fi-nal exam would come in 1988, with the beginning ofthe first Palestinian intifada.

I was retiring from the Board of Education andthinking about what to do next when I saw picturesof the intifada on CNN. Again, I thought somethingmust be wrong, that my people couldnt be behav-ing this way and CNN must not be telling us thewhole story. I decided to see for myself.

In February, 1988, human rights attorney JeanneButterfield and I organized a delegation to go to Pal-estine and Israel as guests of the Palestinians. Therewere 11 of us. Two were Jewish, Osha Neumann andmyself. Others included Fr. William ODonnell,known for his tremendous sanctuary and social jus-

tice work, Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek, andother elected officials and activists, such as Mel Kingfrom Boston.

Though commonplace now, in 1988 we were oneof the first groups of Americans to travel to the Oc-cupied Territories. We met with Palestinians andwith members of the Israeli peace movement whospoke fervently about the need for Americans tospeak out against the occupation and demand theend of U.S. funding of Israel.

The Israelis and Palestinians whom I met in 1988helped me understand Zionism and what had reallytaken place in 1948the ethnic cleansing of the Pal-estinian population, the loss of lives and homes, themillions who would be forced to live the rest of theirlives in wretched conditions in refugee camps in theWest Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

I was fortunate to have met Zakariah and YacoubOdeh, Amani, Nasser and Qasam Ali, Alia Shawa,Raji Sourani, Ziad Abbass, Tikva Parnass, Mikado

Warschawski, Leah Tsemel, Stan and Ruth Cohen,and Israel Shahak, a man who I will always considera true hero. These are some of the best teachers Ihave ever had and they have remained close friendsand allies to this day.

On that trip we were shot at, tear-gassed, anddragged out of towns by the Israeli military. Mem-bers of the delegation experienced first-hand whatlife was like under occupationwith the exception


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that we were all traveling on American passportsand could leave whenever we wanted to. I wasshocked and appalled by the conditions the Pales-tinians were forced to live in, their treatment at thehands of the Israeli military, and the policies of the

Israeli government. We saw Palestinian refugeecamps with raw sewage running down the streets,demolished homes, people crammed together insome of the most densely populated areas anywherein the world, short of food, water, medical care andsanitation.

We also saw the nonviolent resistance and howthe Palestinians had organized themselves intohealth committees, education committees andwomens committees. They were determined to winfreedom and independence.

We were overwhelmed by the humanity of a peo-ple forced to live in inhumane circumstances, and wewere deeply touched when people who had everyreason to hate us for our governments complicity intheir oppression instead welcomed us as friends.

We were visiting a home in Gaza City when theIsraeli soldiers began a house-by-house search for us.They were approaching the house where we werewhen a group of young boys ran toward the soldiers,

throwing stones so the soldiers would chase themand we could escape. Boys we had never even methad risked being beaten, arrested, even shot, so thatwe would be safe.

Everything I saw on that trip was the opposite ofwhat I thought I knew. How could it be that I feltsecure when I was with Palestinians and afraid ofIsraeli soldiers?

We experienced just a taste of the collective pun-ishment that Palestinians live with dailycurfews,

checkpoints, mass and random arrests, school clos-ings, as well as the ongoing confiscation of land fornew settlements. We witnessed the constant humilia-tions of a people forced to carry identity papers tomove just about anywhere and whose cars wereidentified as Palestinian by the color of the licenseplates. We saw Israeli settlers who carried guns likethey lived in the Old West instead of the West Bank.

The trip changed everything for me. I knew that

after seeing the horrible things I saw I would neverbe the same. What I didnt know is that 19 years laterthose horrible things would seem like the good olddays.

We held a press conference at the San FranciscoPress Club upon our return. One of the reportersthere was my friend, Howard Levine, who was cov-ering the story for the San Francisco Examiner.Howard and I went out for lunch and discussed thebrutal effects of the Israeli occupation, especially onthe children. It was at this lunch that the Middle EastChildrens Alliance (MECA) was born. We openedour office on May 1, 1988.

But before I write about MECA, I want to explainwhy this issue and the heroic struggle by Palestinian

mothers and fathers for justice for their childrenstruck such a deep chord in me.

I am 65 years old and I have four wonderful chil-dren and seven loving grandchildren. In 1969, mythird child, Charlie, was born with Down Syndromeand I was devastated. The doctors, social workersand the rabbi who came to see us advised us to placeCharlie in an institution. I couldnt do that. I was ac-tually shocked at the response from everybodyaround us when Charlie was borneverybody, that

is, except my own mother and family, who alwaysbelieved that we would keep Charlie.

We traveled around in those early days looking atall these private institutions on the East Coast. Ateach one I saw a group of kids who were veryhappy, who really looked like they would be perfectin societyand these were kids with Down Syn-drome. I thought, why are they here? Why arentthey at home with their families? I felt this was noplace to put a child of mine, or anybodys.

If I returned to those places again, I would feeleven stronger about this decision, and I would ex-pand it beyond children with Down Syndrome, toall children, no matter whats wrong with them. Allchildren deserve to be given as much as they can begiven at home with their mothers and fathers andsiblings, and to be loved.

We flew from Boston, where we were living, toPhiladelphia to see Dr. Lewis Barness, who had been


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my then-husband Dr. Bert Lubins favorite teacher atthe University of Pennsylvania Medical School.When Dr. Barness finished listening to Bert tell thestory about our new son, he said, Bert is this what Itaught you? Its not as if you ordered a vanilla ice

cream cone and they brought you chocolate and youcan send it back. Charlie is your son and you mustlove him and fight for his rights.

We immediately returned to Boston, broughtCharlie home, and for the last 37 years I have beenhelping to write the laws in this country around therights of children regardless of their abilities, suingschool districts and forcing them to close all publicspecial education schools in order to integrate allchildren at the regular school site and, when possi-ble, into the regular classroom. We fought so that ourchildren could have as normal and productive a lifeas every other child.

From the time we moved to Berkeley in 1973when Charlie was four years old, we lived aroundthe corner from a soda fountain named Ozzies.Every day for twelve years, Charlie could walkaround the corner to Ozzies late in the afternoon.Hed sit down on the same stool every day and hedorder the same thing: tuna, chips, and a Coke. It wasthe only place he could go by himself and it was twohours of respite I had every day. Any mother whohas a child with a disability will know that theresnothing in life that you cherish more than respitetime.

One day in July, l981, Charlie came home andsaid, Mom, Ozzies has been sold. I jumped upand ran around the corner to Ozzie, and said, Whatdo you mean its been sold? He told me that agroup of unscrupulous speculators had bought thesoda fountain and three stores next to it for a very

exaggerated price, and were going to raise the rent400 percent. I asked Ozzie, Are you gonna fight thiswith me, Ozzie? You cant leave this store. He said,Im in it with you, Barbara.

I ran home, called the speculator, and said, Mynames Barbara Lubin. I have a son whos disabled,hes just a little boy, and he eats at Ozzies every day.I need this soda fountain to stay there. And I added,

I will buy back the pharmacy. I understand youpaid $780,000 for the property. Tell me what youneed to make a quick profit, and Ill raise it. Ofcourse, I had no idea how I would do it, but Ivedone things before that I never thought I could, so I

believed Id just go out and get the money.There was this silence. Then he laughed and said,

You must think Im crazy, that I would give up adeal like this for some crazy woman and her re-tarded son. I then said, Mr. Wright, you have justmade the biggest mistake of your life. You will neverdevelop that property, ever.

The next day I set up a table in front of Ozzies,and two weeks after I had spoken to the speculatorwe called for a neighborhood meeting at my home.

At 7:30 that night no one was there, and I said toOzzie, Well, I guess nobody cares. At 7:45, therewere over 400 people on the front lawn of my house,and we had the first meeting of the Elmwood Preser-vation Alliance. For the next year we worked on sav-ing Ozzies. I was at that table seven days a week fora year, from early morning until seven at night. Mykids and I and Ozzie leafleted our neighborhood of5,000 homes about three times a month all year.

It became a big national thing. Midway through

the year, Ozzie and I realized that even though wehad gotten the City Council to pass a moratorium onunjust evictions and unfair rent increases, there wasno way to save the merchants without commercialrent control. With the help of two consultants, wewrote the only commercial rent control law thatAmerica has had except in New York City duringWorld War II. The landlords of Berkeley raised hun-dreds of thousands of dollars to fight us. But we beatthem.

The Middle East Childrens AllianceI feel exactly the same way about the children I

have met in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel as Ido about Charlie. Every one of them is special anddeserves a chance to have the best life possible.Every one has the right to enough food, propermedical care, a good education, and a life free of fearand filled with peace, justice and joy, just as the chil-


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dren here in the U.S. have the same right. Unfortu-nately, our government has stolen the money thatshould go to provide health care, good schools, safeparks and playgrounds, and affordable housing herein the U.S. and sent it to Israel. Billions of our tax

dollars are diverted to immoral wars that punish thechildren of Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon.

Until 1982 I was blind to the injustice around Pal-estine. Even in the early days of MECA I was notimmune to feeling hurt by the criticism of the Ameri-can Jewish community, especially from so-calledprogressives, who would express both admirationand concern about what I was doing. It was frus-trating to be courted by such people and then con-demned for not having a balanced view, for nottending to both sides of the issue, for not seeingthe complexity.

But an enduring source of encouragement hasbeen the continuing work of Israeli Jewish anti-Zionist activists, among them my close friend andmentor Tikva Parnass, who was born in Palestine,fought in the so-called War of Independence, andshortly after realized the disaster it had caused.Tikva, who lives in Jerusalem, taught me the deepestand most complex understanding of Zionist nation-alist colonialism. She has been a constant source ofinspiration.

In May 1988, at the start of the first intifada, Iagain visited Occupied Palestine. From the vigor anddetermination and, most importantly, the bloomingsense of national pride I saw in the people, I felt thateven if the Israelis successfully quelled the uprising,things would never be the same again. Everywhere Iwent, and from everyone I met, the message was thesame: We Palestinians have rediscovered who weare. We are proud of what weve found. This time

there can be no going back.I wrote an account of this visit for the Oakland

Tribune of June 17, 1988, and noted that medical clin-ics had opened in many Palestinian areas and that,though poorly equipped, they represented anothersignificant break from the grip of dependence on theIsraelis.

Likewise, Palestinians all over the West Bank and

Gaza Strip were turning their lawns, flower gardensand dirt yards into vegetable gardens, and agricul-tural cooperatives were being formed to make thegardens cost-effective. Leaders of the uprising wereactually handing out pamphlets with gardening in-

structionswhat to plant and when, how to makethe best use of space, how to control pests, etc. Andmany Palestinians were refusing to pay taxes to Is-rael or to buy Israeli goodswhich meant even morehardship for them. But as one 13-year-old Palestiniangirl told me, We must be ready to suffer to win ourfreedom. Its OK and we will do it for as long as ittakes.

The history of the Middle East Childrens Allianceparallels the history of the turmoil in the Middle Eastin the past 18 years. Since its inception, MECA hasbeen responsive to the ongoing crises in the regionand has, in addition to sponsoring a number of spe-cific projects, acted quickly to send emergency aid.We have sent more than $9 million in much neededfood and medicine to children in Palestine and Leba-non, as well as to the children of Iraq when draco-nian sanctions were being imposed on that country.

MECA is dedicated to working for a just peace aswell as educating Americans about what is actuallyhappening on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank,Lebanon and Iraq. MECA has never supported theOslo Accords, the Geneva Accords or any of theother pathetic peace agreements that so many peo-ple in the U.S. have so blindly promoted. There isonly one path to peace and that is through justice.We will see peace only when every Palestinian andIsraeli enjoys equal rights and when those languish-ing in horrible refugee camps and towns ofneighboring Arab countries are not only allowed, butwelcomed back, to a democratic state. Until then the

Middle East Childrens Alliance will do whatever wecan to ease the suffering of the children oppressed byoccupation and war.

In the autumn of 1990, as the build-up to the firstGulf War was mounting, I went to Iraq with a dele-gation. We met with government officials, profes-sors, university students, and doctors and nurses. Onour last night in Baghdad I arranged for the group tohave dinner with Yasser Arafat, who was in Bagh-


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dad at the P.L.O. compound. I asked him the samequestion I had asked everyone I had met in Palestineduring the three weeks before coming to Iraq as wellas the people we had spoken to in Iraq: Would theU.S. bomb Iraq? He had the same response everyone

else had: The U.S. will never bomb Iraq. The U.S.has been a friend to Iraq.

I responded that the U.S. has had many friends onwhom it had turned its back; some countries it hadeven attacked, in others the governments had beenbrought to their knees. I told Arafat that the U.S. wasgoing to start bombing in one week and that heshould leave as soon as possible. We did so the nextday.

Some 500,000 Palestinians working in Kuwait and

other Persian Gulf countries were fired from their jobs and deported for alleged pro-Iraq sympathies.The economic effects were devastating to familiesliving on their remittances in Palestine and the dias-pora. Workers returning to the Occupied Territorieshugely increased the burden on the already failingeconomy there. The Middle East Childrens Allianceresponded, sending thousands of cases of infant for-mula and winter clothing through the United Na-tions Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) for distri-bution in refugee camps throughout Occupied Pales-tine.

In the winter of l991, when the first Gulf War wasfully under way, a United Nations report stated thatIraq had been relegated to a pre-industrial age, butwith all the disabilities of post-industrial depend-ency on intensive use of energy and technology.

Palestinian children in the West Bank and theGaza Strip were confronting similar problems. Israelhad imposed a shoot-on-sight curfew that hadlasted 40 days and nights during the war. The curfewleft thousands of acres of food rotting in the fieldswhile children starved inside their homes. By thetime the curfew was, for the most part, lifted, manyPalestinians had lost their jobs. Even though foodwas available in the markets, most families could notafford to buy any. The entire Palestinian infrastruc-ture that had been built during the intifada had beendestroyed, just as it had been destroyed in Iraq.

Then there was the issue of water. United Na-tions documents asserted that the available watersupply in Baghdad, as a result of the first Gulf War,had dropped to less than ten quarts per person perday and, even after some improvement, managed to

reach only ten percent of previous consumption lev-els. Where generators had been destroyed or dam-aged, people were forced to draw water directlyfrom polluted rivers and trenches, giving rise to seri-ous epidemics.

Meanwhile, in the Occupied Territories, a newsystem of computerized ID cards had made it verydifficult for Palestinians, especially men, to traveloutside their villages or camps to other places in theTerritories, rendering it nearly impossible for themto travel to work.

When the bombing ended I returned to Iraq withphotojournalist George Azar. This time, instead offlying for an hour and a half from Jordan, we drovefrom Jordan to Baghdad and it took about 24 hours.There was no electricity or clean water. Life was al-most impossible for the Iraqi people. We drovearound Baghdad and were shocked by the extent ofcollateral damage. Entire neighborhoods had beenobliterated. We would stop and help people as theydug through the rubble searching for loved ones,toys, or just something to remind them of what lifewas like before.

George and I went to the Amariya air-raid shelterwhere upwards of 400 Iraqi civilians sought safetywhen the sirens went offonly to be murdered byU.S. war planes. You can still see the shadows of theyoung people on the ceiling in the shelter much likewe had been told happened after the U.S. bombingof Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The mother of one ofthe victims has set up a museum with pictures of all

the young people who lost their lives that day, in-cluding her son. She refuses to leave the shelter andsays she will stay there for the rest of her life.

Over 220,000 people lost their lives in the GulfWar, but the worst was yet to come. Thirteen yearsof brutal sanctions on the people of Iraq killed over amillion people, 500,000 of them children under theage of 5.


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During the years of sanctions Voices in the Wil-derness, churches, and organizations from aroundthe world delivered food and much-needed medi-cines to the people of Iraq.

MECA was one of those organizations. Before thewar, Iraq had one of the only bone-marrow trans-plant units in the Middle East whose services weremade available for free to any Palestinian in need.This, along with clean water, medicine and adequateelectricity, now no longer existed in Iraq. Childhooddiseases that once had been eradicated were nowback with no way to treat them.

The final insult was the residue of depleted ura-nium left by armor-piercing shells the U.S. usedagainst Iraqi tanks. The depleted uranium caused an

unbelievable rise in birth defects, and cancer rateswent through the roof. Ingredients for chemotherapytreatments were deemed dual use under the sanc-tions and could not be imported. So on one hand wegave children cancer and on the other hand we with-held the drugs that could help and sometimes curethem. MECA decided it was important to providechemotherapy to the children and took the necessarydrugs to Iraq.

While there were some demonstrations against

the sanctions here in the United States, most of thepeace movement was indifferent to the suffering ofthe Iraqi people, especially if we tried link the war inIraq and Israel. The peace movement continues torefuse to look at the role of Israel in Iraq and is quickto label those of us who understand what is going onas anti-Semitic or self-hating Jews.

Over the years, many noted intellectuals and ce-lebrities have offered their support to the MiddleEast Childrens Alliance. In the spring of 1991, PeteSeeger performed in Berkeley to benefit MECA alongwith Marcel Khalife, Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert.Among others who have spoken or performed atMECA benefits are Noam Chomsky, Jessica Mitford,Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Michael Franti, AliceWalker, Edward Said, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, RobertFisk, Allen Ginsberg, Danny Glover, Martin Sheen, June Jordan, Anna Deavere Smith, Culture Clash,and Hisham Sharabi.

Once when Noam Chomsky came to speak at theBerkeley Community Theater for a benefit for MECAand KPFA public radio, the event was vehementlychallenged by a group of 17 Bay Area right-wing Zi-onist academics led by Professor Robert Alter. The

professors wrote a letter attempting to intimidate thebookstore owners, telling them that they should notsupport an event featuring self-hating Jews such asBarbara Lubin and Noam Chomsky, who supportterrorism.

The professors even accused Noam of denying theHolocaust. They wanted the bookstores to stop sell-ing tickets to the event and to pull Chomskys booksoff the shelves. The letter was filled with venomouslies and inaccuracies. Bullies prefer to act in the dark,believing the targets of their intimidation will keepquiet out of fear. We decided to drag them into thelight of day, publicly challenging them on the facts oftheir letter and their attempts to threaten these book-stores. They refused to respond. We received a greatdeal of public support and we never heard from theprofessors again. Bookstore owner Andy Ross ofCodys spoke out, saying he was tired of people tell-ing him what books he would be allowed to sell.(This was not long after Codys was fire-bombed af-ter putting Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses in its

window.) As for our event, Im happy to tell you thatit was totally sold out.

In 2000, we produced an event called The Chil-dren of Resistance honoring Ethel and JuliusRosenberg. The event was a benefit for both MECAand The Rosenberg Fund for Children run by the sonof Ethel and Julius, Robby Meerapol. MECA is in theprocess of producing another major event with How-ard Zinn, a performance of his A Peoples Historywith Marisa Tome, Steve Earle, Melonie Damore and

many other wonderful performers.Playgrounds for Peace

The Middle East Childrens Alliance supportsnumerous projects in the West Bank and Gaza. Oneis Playgrounds for Peace.

In 1995, MECA teamed up with the PalestinianWelfare Association and drew up plans for a series


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of childrens playgrounds in the Occupied Territo-ries. The project was driven by the belief that theability to play, the right to play is crucial to thehealthy development of children. Fundraising eventswere held, planners from Berkeley were brought in,

and community design workshops were held in eachof the towns selected.

Today there are playgrounds in Nablus, Al Birehand Gaza City. Each playground was designed bylocal architects, inspired by Palestinian culture andtradition, and supported by international experts ondesign and child development. They were designedwith the whole family in mind and are accessible forchildren and parents with all abilities and disabili-ties.

In Nablus, on the West Bank, MECA and the Pal-estinian Welfare Association joined with representa-tives from Al Najar Universitys Architecture andEducation Departments, the mayors office, localteachers, parents and youths to create the park andplayground. The plan they came up with reflects thecultural heritage of Old Nablus with courtyards andplazas, as well as a more contemporary area that re-flects the future.

But plans for a brighter future are not always real-

ized. In December 2003, a MECA delegation visitedthe park and the groundskeeper sadly informed usthat, due to the intensification of Israeli military ac-tion over the last four years, the park and play-ground had become danger zones. Nablus is sur-rounded by Israeli military installations and illegalsettlements and the area just above the playgroundbecame a shooting platform for Israeli soldiers andsettlers with the playground as a target. For now,however, the attacks have stopped and children havereturned.

In Al Bireh, MECA and the Welfare Associationteamed up with city engineers, teachers, parents, dis-abled activists, architecture students from BirzeitUniversity, social workers and young people to plantheir park. The theme reflects the cultural and topog-raphical terrain of Palestine, from the Galilee to theDead Sea, the Jordan River to the Mediterranean,and was carefully constructed with the environment

and disability access in mind. Today the park is fullof life, providing the children of Al Bireh and Ramal-lah with a safe and fun place to play.

In Gaza, MECA teamed up with the Gaza Citymayors office, the municipal engineering office,educators, teachers, parents and youth to build apark that reflects the historical heritage of Gaza as astopping point for the caravans that traversed theMiddle East. The park sits on 12,000 square feet andincludes a shady area for infants, an amphitheater, awater-play area, and sports areas. Despite the inten-sified siege on the Gaza Strip since September 2000,children of Gaza City still flock to this park to playand expand their imaginations.

With Playgrounds for Peace Palestinian chil-

dren have a chance to grow and play, take back theirchildhoods, and have a chance at life filled withlaughter, fun, healthy development and peaceprovided, of course, they have sufficient food, waterand security.

MECA also has had a long-term relationship withDheisheh Refugee Camp outside Bethlehem, where12,000 Palestinian refugees are crowded into asquare kilometer of land. This has been at the heartof our work. Members of MECA have spent weeks

there, and our supporters have traveled there tomake films, do media projects with the children, andwork in specific health projects.

In the autumn of 1999, the Ibdaa Dance Troupe, agroup of 20 teenage dancers from Dheisheh who hadlearned traditional Palestinian debka dancing, touredthe United States for the first time. There have beenthree more generations of Ibdaa dancers sincethen, the younger ones taught by their older friendsand siblings. Their dances, performed in traditionaldress to traditional music, portray the story of theirpeople, and illustrate once again the kind of pridethe Palestinian people began to emphasize duringthe first intifada. In their first tour in the U.S., the Ib-daa dancers performed in New York, Washington,D.C., the Bay Area, Detroit, and Chicago.

In 2002, just one week after I had left Dheisheh,Israeli tanks and helicopters invaded the camp andtook over the guest house, where I had stayed. They


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used the roof as a snipers nest to shoot at childrenbelow them. Four small children were criticallywounded. Then they destroyed the Cultural Center,the library, the computer center, the outer walls,even the few toys the children hadall donated by

the Middle East Childrens Alliance. One Palestinian,Ahlan Fara, was killed by indiscriminate shooting.The New York Times described the scene:

Two bullets struck him in the chest as heplayed with his small children in their roomon Friday, his blood spattering his sons tri-cycle and his daughters clothes.

I was so angry. We cannot bring Ahlan back to hisfamily, but we rebuilt the center. And we will re-build it as many times as the Israelis knock it down.

The Middle East Childrens Alliance was one ofthe few organizations that kept watch over the situa-tion in Iraq when it all but disappeared from thenews during the years of sanctions, between the twoGulf Wars. I continued my visits there, reporting onthe intense outbreaks of disease, the typhoid andcholera from the lack of clean water, the starvation,the effects on developing children of depleted ura-nium.

In 2001, we had the Omran Bus Tour, a tour ofmore than 5,000 miles through the United Statesmade by activists from the U.S. and Canada. Ourpurpose was to defy U.S. policy and collect schoolsupplies for the children of Iraq, and to supportpeace with justice for Palestine and Israel. At thetime, U.S. sanctions on Iraq prohibited the importa-tion of school supplies. Imagine, school supplies!

In 2005, a month before the so-calleddisengagement from Gaza, I visited Palestine witha MECA delegation. Again and again, delegation

members passed the Separation/Apartheid Wall un-der construction all over the West Bank to dividePalestinians from one another, creating a series oflittle Bantustans to further cripple the Palestinianeconomy and morale. As I went through the check-point to Bethlehem on my way to Dheisheh camp, Isaw a ghost town. Not that long ago, the area hadbeen a vibrant town center filled with homes, shops,schools and bustling streets, where local residents

mixed with tourists from around the world. Nowthere is just rubble and the monstrous Wall.

I have no faith in yet another peace process.Every day, children are killed and maimed, land isstolen, homes are destroyed. A fourth generation isgrowing up in refugee camps. Palestine and the Pal-estinians are in real danger of extermination. It iseasy to feel hopeless and wonder if were really mak-ing a difference. Somehow my perspective becomesmore optimistic when Im there and I see first-handthe strength and vitality of so many people.

This past spring, I traveled to Gaza to meet withDr. Mona ElFarra and to plan a massive delivery offood and medical supplies to the children of Gaza,continually under siege despite the disengagement

of a year ago. I recall sitting on a sunny beach withDr. Mona, planning the distribution of the supplies,sharing dreams of further work together. Shortly af-ter I returned home, the borders of Gaza were closed,the bombing by the Israelis was ever more relentless,and there was no possibility of bringing in the sup-plies for which the funds had already been set aside.The delivery would have to wait. Meanwhile the suf-fering continues unabated. [Editors Note: For a recenstatement on Gaza by United Nations humanitarian agen-cies working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, go towww.ohchr.org/english/press/ docs/unhaw.pdf]

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls whats happen-ing in Gaza today a genocide. And Israeli journalistGideon Levy, writing in Haaretz (Sept. 3, 2006),noted that in large swaths of Gaza there is no elec-tricity and hardly any water. Piles of garbage andobnoxious clouds of stink strangle the coastal strip,turning it into Calcutta.

Then there are the deaths. Always the deaths.Levy reports that in July and August 2006, Israelkilled 224 Palestinians, 62 of them children, 25 ofthem women. In a crumbling hospital he saw chil-dren who had lost limbs, and others who were exist-ing on respirators, paralyzed and crippled for life.

On July 31, 2006, over 200 children from the Cul-tural Center in the Dheisheh refugee camp protestedU.S. support for Israels aggression in Palestine,Lebanon, and Iraq. Carrying a childs mock coffin


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representing the death of childrens rights and thesilence of world governments, they chanted, FromGaza to Beirut, the resistance will not die.

What has it been like to work so continually for justice and for the welfare of childrento work socontinually to sustain lifeand to witness, over andover again, the dismantling of what has been built?A psychologist from the Palestinian Counseling Cen-ter addressed the Middle East Childrens Alliance inOctober, 2004. She spoke movingly about the psy-chological effects of occupation on children: We ei-ther resist or we perish.

And what about hope? I leave you with a finalword about hope.

One night poet and MECA advisory board mem-ber Allen Ginsberg came to San Francisco for a booksigning and later he dined with a small group offriends in North Beach. On this night, the last timeHoward and I would see him before he died, wewere going around the table talking about all sorts ofissues including what was happening in Rwanda,Iraq and Palestine. None of the news was very good.

We were getting more and more depressed. Iturned to Allen and asked So, Allen, wheres thehope?

Allen jumped up, taking the table and the foodwith him. He was furious. F hope, he yelled.Its not about hope. You dont do what you dobecause you hope things will get better. Its aboutgetting up every morning and asking yourself whatsthe right thing to do and doing it.

Allen Ginsberg taught me a great lesson thatnight. He was right. It is wonderful if one is hopefulin life, but I will not wait around trying to feel hope-ful about what is happening to the children in Pales-tine, Lebanon and Iraq, or in poor communities herein America. I will continue to be angry and I will getup every morning and ask myself What is the rightthing to do? and do it.

And I will never be silent again.

[Editors Note: See page 12 for details on the workof the Middle East Childrens Alliance and its web-site address.]

In Memoriam

Edmund R. Ned Hanauer

In 1972, Ned Hanauer started Search for Justice andE q u a l i t y i n P a l e s t i n e(SEARCH). Its goal was to in-form Congress, journalists, andother opinion makers on factsabout the Palestine-Israel con-flict that seldom made it into thepolitical establishment or themainstream media.

Thirty-four years later, rightup to his death this past August,Ned was still at it, sending let-ters to newspapers, visiting their editors in person, and lobbyingmembers of Congress.

Back in the 1960s, Ned hadcome to know John Sutton, aMethodist minister, who hadbeen to the Middle East. WhenNed heard that a start-up or-ganization in New York waslooking for an executive direc-tor, he mentioned it to John,who applied and served as

AMEUs executive director for nine years. As fate would haveit, I, too, knew John Sutton, sowhen he left AMEU in 1978, herecommended me for the job.Neds influence touched manyof us.

Neds was a life-long questfor justice and peace. And, asthe name of his organization al-ways reminded us, that is theonly order in which the two willbe achieved.

John F. Mahoney


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MECA Projects and MECA-SupportedPalestinian Community Initiaitves

The Elly Jaensch Memorial Scholarship.

Established in memory of Elly Jaensch, a staunchadvocate of human and civil rights, this scholar-ship is given to Palestinian refugees living in theWest Bank or Gaza Strip.

Ibdaa Cultural Center. This is a grassrootsinitiative of Dheisheh Refugee Camp to provide asafe and open environment where the childrencan develop their abilities, creativity and leader-ship skills through cultural, social and educational

activities, while also educating the internationalcommunity about the Palestinian refugee issue.

Ibdaa Women and Childrens Center. TheCenter provides a kindergarten and nursery, aswell as a clinic, computer room, childrens library,and after-school program.

Ibdaa Womens Embroidery Cooperative.The Cooperative provides supplemental incometo over 40 women through the production and saleof traditional Palestinian embroidery. These prod-ucts will soon be available online.

Ibdaa Dance Troupe. Begun in 1994, thetroupe consists of 20 youth from Dheisheh, ages14-17. The first troupe came together as part of acultural exchange with France and for the past 10years the troupe has been touring throughoutEurope, the Middle East and the U.S.

The Palestinian Counseling Center. ThisWest Bank counseling and consultancy organiza-tion advocates for positive mental health and wellbeing for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.It is one of the few professional and mental healthorganizations in the Territories today.

Addameer Prisoners Support and Human

Rights Association. Founded in 1992, this WestBank center offers support for Palestinian prison-ers, advocates for the rights of political prisoners,and works to end torture through monitoring, legalprocedures and solidarity campaigns.

Union of Health Work Committees. Works toprovide high-quality health care to populationgroups in Gaza that need it most: women, chil-dren, the elderly, those living in distant regions,

and poor families.

Al Assria Medical Center and Childrens Li-brary. Located south of Gazas Jabalia refugeecamp, it serves a community of 100,000 peopleand treats 6,000-7,000 patients a month. It alsoprovides cultural activities to over 800 children,including a library, summer camps, arts, and train-ing courses.

The Rachel Corrie Clinic and ChildrensCenter. Opened in 2004 in Rafah, in the southernregion of the Gaza Strip, it treats over 5,000 peo-ple each month, as well as offering educationalopportunities to the children of Rafah City.

Playgrounds For Peace. This is a collabora-tive effort with the Palestinian Welfare Associationto help give Palestinian children back some of their childhood. To date playgrounds have beenestablished in Nablus, Al Bireh, and Gaza City.Each was designed by local architects, inspired byPalestinian culture and tradition, and supported byinternational experts on design and child develop-ment.

Middle East Childrens Alliancewww.mecaforpeace.org


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AMEUs Video Selections

All AMEU Prices Include Postage & Handling

AJPME, Beyond the Mirage: The Face of the Occupation (2002, VHS, 47 minutes). Israeli andPalestinian human rights advocates challenge misconceptions about the Occupation and Palestin-ian resistance to it. AMEU: $25.00 .

DMZ, People and the Land (1997, VHS, 57 minutes). This documentary appeared on over 40PBS stations before pressure was brought to ban it. (See our Dec. 1997 Link , v. 30, #5, availableon our website at www.ameu.org.) AMEU: $25.00 .

Howard Film, The Loss of Liberty (2002, VHS, 53 minutes). Updated account of Israels 1967 at-tack on the USS Liberty . AMEU: $20.00 .

Jones, R., 500 Dunams on the Moon (2002, VHS, 48 minutes). Palestinians, expelled in 1948from Ayn Hawd, see their village turned into an Israeli artist colony. AMEU: $25.00 .

Jordan S., Dispatches: The Killing Zone (2003, VHS or DVD, 50 minutes). British correspondentSandra Jordan reports on the violence by Israeli occupation forces against international aid workersand reporters in the Gaza Strip. Includes the bulldozer killing of Rachel Corrie. Widely shown onBritish TV, this powerful documentary has been shown on only a few public access channels in theU.S. To promote its distribution, AMEU is offering it for $10.00 . Please circle format choice above.

Masri, M., Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (2002, VHS, 58 minutes). This documentary has ap-peared on several PBS stations across the country. It focuses on two Palestinian girls growing upin refugee camps in Beirut and Bethlehem. AMEU: $25.00 .

Masri, M., Hanan Ashrawi: A Woman of Her Time (1995, VHS, 51 minutes). Palestines articu-late representative shows that Israels occupation is far from benign. AMEU: $25.00.

Moushabeck, M., Anatolia: The Lost Songs of Palestine (2001, CD, 52 minutes). AMEU: $12.50 .

Munayyer, F. & H., Palestinian Costumes and Embroidery: A Precious Legacy (1990, VHS, 38minutes). A rare collection of Palestinian dresses presented with historical background and com-mentary. AMEU: $25.00 .

NEF, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (2004, VHS, 80 minutes). Excellent analysis of how the U.S. media slants its coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. AMEU: $25.00 .

Pilger, J., Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002, VHS or DVD, 53 minutes). Candid assessment by

an award-winning journalist of why there has been no progress towards peace in the Middle East.AMEU: $25.00 . Please circle format choice above.

Real People Prod., Sucha Normal Thing (2004, VHS, 80 minutes). Six Americans document anormal day under military occupation in the West Bank.

Please Use Order Form on Page 16


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