US Charities Help Palestinians

By Mitchell Kaidy

Within two months after the Israeli army bulldozed or damaged 16 homes in Beita, the West Bank village where two Palestinians and an Israeli girl were shot by an Israeli during an altercation last spring between villagers and a group of hikers from a West Bank Jewish settlement, the Jerusalem Fund decided to try to rebuild some of the homes.

Initiating an urgent mail appeal, the Washington-based fund raised money to be funneled to a third party for the local acquisition of building materials. It was just one of many projects undertaken by a variety of charitable organizations based in the US but working to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian Arabs under Israeli military occupation.

In the case of the Jerusalem Fund's Beita project, Israeli interdictions have so far stalled progress on reconstruction, although the homeless Beitans have received aid for food, shelter, and other urgent needs. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that fund officials are speaking guardedly about the project, but the concept does illustrate a surer sense of timing, as well as an aggressive new posture, that has marked such recent Palestinian American humanitarian activities.

In another heroic effort, two other Palestinian-American charities teamed up to assist 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Aker, gravely wounded in the stomach by Israeli bullets that shattered most of his intestines. Doctors at Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem despaired of his survival, and his family made preparations for his funeral.

Acting swiftly, the Naim Foundation for Health and Social Care teamed up with the Roots organization, as well as other humanitarian groups, and raised funds to bring Aker and his father to the United States. They contacted Dr. Anthony Sallyour, a Boston surgeon, who agreed to donate his services to perform an intestinal transplant, a difficult and still-experimental procedure.

Hospital and medical costs were daunting, however, and for the rest of his life, young Aker will have to be fed intravenously. Roots and the Naim Foundation have committed themselves to continue to provide funds for the youth. His treatment has cost an estimated $100,000 and is still continuing.

Executives of several US-Middle East charities agree that the extent and duration of the intifadah have forced them to expand their fund raising. On a single day during the intifadah, from 30 to several hundred people might be injured and require immediate hospital treatment. Continual power, water, and food cutoffs, as well as closures of schools, orphanages, and local charities, are daily obstacles to be overcome.

When the Israelis shut off food supplies from outside the Gaza Strip last summer, the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) helped organize an agricultural cooperative which is now raising and distributing vegetable seedlings to its members. In the West Bank, ANERA is also sponsoring construction of a modern dairy facility. The cooperative project, which will soon be completed, is expected to supply pasteurized milk to hundreds of families.

In East Jerusalem, several American charities, including the United Holy Land Fund, United Palestinian Appeal, and ANERA are financing construction of a large addition to Makassed Hospital, together with a new nursing school. In association with another charitable organization, the Palestinian-American Health Association, UPA has a well-established training program for Palestinian medical personnel both in the US and in occupied Palestine.

As might be expected, the current hard-line Israeli government has devised many strategies to disrupt the flow of all types of assistance. By imposing duties and impossible regulations, Israeli authorities have blocked the shipment of medicine, dental and medical equipment, as well as placing roadblocks in the way of opening the expanded Makassed Hospital facilities.

Try as it might, however, Israel has been unsuccessful in blocking vital money transfers from the US to Middle Eastern banks and internationally recognized religious, educational, and other institutions. Such funds enable hospitals and clinics to buy vital medicine and equipment in the region.

As Palestinian needs have grown, donations from throughout the world have gratifyingly kept pace. Mahmoud Naji, vice chairman of the board of the United Holy Land Fund, termed the increased donations "outstanding." Compared to 1987, the fund's budget almost doubled in 1988.

Compared to the major American charities, such Middle Eastern counterparts are still small. What they lack—and dearly yearn for—are substantial endowments and regular, large donations. Instead, for the most part, they have had to rely on expanded media coverage and more direct-mail appeals.

One charity which has had success with intensive local efforts is the United Holy Land Fund. With chapters in marry US cities, the fund maintains a close-to-home orientation which not only raises funds but locates sponsors for hundreds of Palestinian school children. In addition, the fund has benefited from sponsoring a Palestinian folk troupe's appearance in the US.

A relatively new form of fund raising which looks promising is the Combined Federal Campaign which enables US government employees to authorize payroll contributions to a few Mideast charities. UPA and ANERA are the first to qualify under this program. Before the Palestinian uprising, Middle East related charities generally depended more heavily on Arab-American publications and communities for funds. For years, assistance went almost exclusively to established Palestinian schools, hospitals, and organizations.

Now, contributions to some of these organizations from non-Arab Americans may actually exceed those from Arab Americans. And some of the charities, such as the Jerusalem Fund, are making innovative contributions to people's committees in the West Bank and Gaza. Eighty percent of the Jerusalem Fund's allocations are now earmarked for occupied Palestine, with 20 percent going for Palestinians living in Israel. ANERA and others also still allocate funds to Palestinians living in Lebanon.

With the conviction that conditions in Palestine should be exposed to the world, two American organizations, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, have been sponsoring volunteers to go to Palestine. Their programs, Eyewitness Israel and Volunteers for Palestine respectively, have sent scores of Americans and others to live—and sometimes work—under military occupation.

The costs, to which the volunteers contribute, have been manageable, say the sponsoring organizations. Participants in Eyewitness Israel have been particularly successful, through the use of the media and personal appearances, in sharing with their fellow Americans their insights on the intifadah and Israel's attempts to repress it. Volunteers for Palestine, on the other hand, seeks to provide a kind of Peace Corps professionalism to the beleaguered Palestinians.

Mitchell Kaidy is a Rochester, NY, journalist who has worked for three daily newspapers and one television station in New York state.