meca fall newsletter 2013

7/27/2019 MECA Fall Newsletter 2013

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by Barbara LubinCo-Founder and Director

etter from Barbara riend,

young mother, draft counselor, and anti-war activist whenwas dropping napalm and Agent Orange on the people

nam, Laos and Cambodia more than forty years ago. To-a result of this massive toxic exposure, large numbers of n are still being born with severe physical and intellectualities, and people of all ages su er from a host of cancers.

cal weapons are horrible.

e US uses them. Most recently (as far as we know) in thety of Fallujah.

peech about possible US intervention in Syria, Obama said,

weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction be-soldier and infant.But drones, cruise missiles, and artillerydo not make this distinction either. Even economic sanc-he so-called diplomatic option, were responsible for theof 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of ve from 1991

3, and now deprive millions of I ranians of medicine and ba-essities.

int is not that US policy is completely hypocritical. Every-ows that.

ll, the US provided the white phosphorous Israel used onple of Gazacausing horri c, deadly burns and contami-scarce water sources.

s to public and congressional opposition, the Obama ad-ation hasat least, for nowagreed not to bomb Syria.l options are still on the table,and so the question is, canlitary intervention in Syria do anything to stop, reduce ort the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Syria?

swer is no.

25 years on the

on the groundstine, Lebanonq, MECA knowsthan most theost of war ones of children.ed warfare will

destroy theand well-beingldren through-Middle East.

MECA stands against any US bombardment of Syria and the on-going and overwhelming military presence that the US maintainsin the region.

An estimated one million Syrian children have been forced toleave their homes, becoming refugees in neighboring countries. Two million more are displaced inside Syria country, where theirlives are in constant danger.

I am so thankful for all the people who stood up to stop US inter-vention. We have to keep that pressure on and push for actionsthe will resolve the con ict and stop the terrible su ering, includ-ing:

The immediate cessation of all sales of weapons to theregion, most importantly by the US, France, UK, Russia and China,who produce and sell the vast majority of the worlds weapons. Increased humanitarian aid and medical care for peoplein the midst of the con ict and for refugees. The guaran tee of the r ight to return for a ll refugeesthroughout the Middle East

Last Spring, I visited the Shatila Refugee Camp in Lebanon, a six-ty- ve-year-old crowded, decrepit Palestinian refugee camp nearBeirut. It has now become home to tens of thousands of Syr-ians, Iraqis and Palestinians eeing Syria. I saw the long lines of desperate mothers trying to get milk for their children and otherbasic necessities.

The Middle East Childrens Alliance sent two emergency medicalshipments and provided direct support for programs for Syrianwomen and children who ed to Lebanon. We plan to send moreaid in the coming months, knowing that with or without US at-tacks, the humanitarian crisis will continue to grow. An immediate cease re, not US bombardment, is the only solu-tion.

Lets do all we can to make that happen and ease the su ering inthe meantime.

Sincerely,

Credit: Cynthia Marcopulos

A Syrian refugee father and daughter live in Shatila refugee campafter eeing a suburb of Aleppo. They brought nothing with them.Credit: Liam Maloney Photography

Credit: ystein Nedreb

gee camps close to checkpoints or Israeli settlements, settlersadd another layer of torture by harassing, dehumanizing, andeven shooting Palestinian children.

The Israelis use laws that target only Palestinian children to le -gitimize their actions. Youth are sent to military courts, whichoften convict and sentence them to prison, sometimes for years.

People who experience torture in Israeli prisons and jails con-tinue to feel the pain even after they are released. Especially for children, the pain and suffering of imprisonment doesnt end themoment you are released. It might continue to follow you therest of your life. One mother described the effect on her child:

My son is facing a hard time sleeping at night. He was a strong boy before. Right now at night he feels scared and sometimes hewakes up screaming because of his nightmares about the torture.The jailers, they dont just torture our kids, but they kill their spirit and they traumatize them. My child is changed totally.

According to Khader Rasras, executive director and cl inical psy-chologist at the Palestinian Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture, these children have often dif culty re -turning to school. Nightmares can lead to loss of concentrationand dif culty focusing and planning. He explained further:

Fear and anxiety make children who have experienced tortureand abuse in detention hyper-vigilant. They will constantly belooking over their shoulders, out the window, and around them worried that the soldiers will come for them again. At the Middle East Childrens Alliance, we urge the internation -al community and organizations to put an end to the suffering of Palestinian children. In addition, we act by supporting organiza -tions on the ground that try to reduce the impact of jail.

For more about the arrest and abuse of Palestinian children, comehear representatives from Defense of International-Palestine inBerkeley on October 17 see back page for details.

My HomeIs Nowmy Jail

Silwan partnerbrings school andsupport tochildren underhouse arrest

The number of Palestin -ian children under housearrest has increased in the

past few years, especiallyin East Jerusalem and theneighborhood of Silwan, where MECA has been w

partnership with the Madaa Creative Center for severa

Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 and evariety of ways to terrorize Palestinian residents and fout as part of a plan to Judaize the city. In Silwan, Ilice, security forces and border agents use laws, regulatmilitary orders to con scate homes, destroy businesses

people almost daily. Meanwhile, nearby settlers andvate security personnel attack and harass residents as tChildren in Silwan are especially vulnerable. Hundredchildren, some as young as six, and teenagers have been interrogated without a parent or lawyer present; detainand sent to prison or placed on house arrest.

Children under house arrest are forbidden from steppingtheir homes, even to attend school (another violation oftional law). Suhaib, 14, under house arrest for six mon

Its worse than jail. In jail you are far away from your regular life, but at home you can look out the window ansee other children playing but you cant go. You cant go

your family to shop or for a holiday celebration. You see freedom but you are not allowed to access it. It is very hand very painful to be jailed in your home.

The whole family is punished with house arrest. Ifviolates the rules, the family has to pay a very higequivalent of $3,000-5,000. In other words, the Israelis

parents the jailers and the child a prisoner of the home, aa collective punishment policy.

The Madaa Silwan Creative Center in the Silwan hasinitiative to organize educational and psychologicfor children who are under house arrest or who misse

because th ey were in jail. For almost a year, MECAsupporting Madaas tutors who visit children every da

Torture & Jailing of Palestinian Children,Continued from page 1

My Home is Now My Jail,Continued on page 6

l

Credit: yste


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Barbara Lubin and Danny Muller

the news spread through Washington this past July thatwavering, pioneering journalist Helen Thomas had died,must have been a collective sigh of relief throughout thef Washington.

articles and obituaries are ob-ily mentioning her retirementolitical remarks about Palestinerael. They all will and shouldate her trail-blazing career as alist and autho r. And now th ats died, it has become politicallyt to re-embrace her, because nowis safe. She will not be asking

comfortable questions any more,ons that made lying politicians

m, as they stared dumbfoundedt her, always surprised at free -f the press in action, at a womanid not know her place.

Helens nal years, there waselebration of her career and her

ge, as former friends, coworkersany in Washington jumped onndwagon resolutely condemningr comments made in a hit pieceok brief comments out of con -

Perhaps most appallingly, Presi -Obama took time from spying on

lf of the world and bombing thehalf to state that her resignationhe right decision.

orld where politicians like Geo rge Bush, Dick Cheney andEmmanuel are celebrated for their reputations for exple-den tirades, can we really pretend that Helens commentso shocking or offensive that they were worthy of forced

ment? In a world where we hear the daily drivel from pres-promoting wars of madness with lies and straight faces,id we let such vitriol rain down on her?

Thomas did more to challenge the war from the back rowWhite House press corps (where she was relegated for

years after criticizing George Bush in 2003) than any em -d journalist did on the front lines who lay in bed with they in Iraq. She stood for a journalistic integrity that waslcome in an all- encompassing corporate- media-congres-complex. In the beginning of her career, she was red

ECA NEWS

Helen Thomas, UPI Washington Reporter,at work in the White HouseCredit: Bettmann/Corbis

for going on strike with her colleagues at the Washington Daily News. She faced decades of abuse because she was opinionated,she would not back down, and she was a woman. In later years,

it was shocking to see how GeorgeBush and Barrack Obama addressedher, ageism in presidential clothing, asif she was a child to be tolerated butdismissed and chuckled at; a minor nuisance who did not know her place,a relic that they just needed to pander to for a minute, so they could get back to the Big Lie.

Helen Thomas was ambushed for be -ing Anti Zionist, and as Ralph Nader

wrote, the evisceration was launched by two pro-Israeli war hawks, AriFleischer and Lanny Davis. Fleischer was George W. Bushs press secretarywho bridled under Helen Thomassquestioning regarding the horrors of the Bush-Cheney war crimes and ille -gal torture. His job was not to answer this uppity woman but to de ect, avoidand cover up for his bosses. Davi s wasthe designated defender whenever Clinton got into hot water. As journal -ist Paul Jay pointed out, he is now aWashington lobbyist whose clientsinclude the cruel corporate junta thatoverthrew the elected president of Honduras. If one followed her ca -reer, especially in the last decade, shehad upset the status quo repeatedly

by aski ng abou t the deaths of civilians in Americas wars, theunholy alliance with Israel and their unspoken nuclear arsenal,and the way we hide the face of war. Powerful people wantedher silenced and used a 30-second video snippet to try and erase

seven decades of integrity and public service.

So you can imagine how honored we were when in the fall of 2010, we were invited to meet at length with Helen. Mutualfriends had put us in touch and she welcomed us to join her ather home. She graciously received us, and spoke for hours abouta dizzying array of topics. Her mind was incredibly sharp, hav -ing absorbed a number of daily papers that day, and numerous

books on current events were neatly stacked, boo kmarked andreferenced throughout our conversation. Incredibly open to anyquestion, (Who was the best president? It would have been

he Betrayal of Helen Thomas

MECA N

Lyndon Johnson, if it wasnt for the Vietnam War. His War onPoverty was an incredible achievement. But the Vietnam war haunted him.) Helen was the consummate journalist even inher own living room, peppering us both with questions, un inch -ingly taking it all in. She moved seamlessly from talking abouther Detroit childhood to her trip to China on Air Force One withRichard Nixon, always seeing the interconnectedness of the pastand how it in uences the present. When asked about our work inthe Middle East, we hesitated at rst to answer fully about whatwe witnessed during the ongoing Israeli occupation, and the Iraqwars. She appeared so very concerned about the experiences of children in these places, and was visibly troubled by what sheknew. Helen was so clearly empathetic to the plight of children,those living in refugee camps, those incarcerated, those who aresuffering, that it seemed unfair to burden her further with eyewit-ness accounts after all she had recently been through. But her curiosity and questions were no match for us, and like always,Helen asked the questions she wanted.

A few nights later, over tea, apple martinis and a full-course din-ner, Helen continued her line of questioning. She was very inter -ested in the work of the organization we work with, the MiddleEast Childrens Alliance, and pledged to speak in San Franciscoat a bene t for humanitarian aid for children in Palestine. U nfor -tunately, Helens physical health soon deteriorated further, pre -venting her from making the 3000-mile ight. But the time wespent with Helen Thomas stayed with us, and we were troubledthat she was never able to come speak at an event, because wewanted to see her celebrated by the thou sands of people we knewwho respected her, loved her, and were horri ed by how she had

been treated and forced into exi le; even by some close friendsand MECA supporters.

Two years later, immediately after the Operation Pillar of De -fense the eight day bombing of Gaza by Israel where 158 Pal -estinians were killed, 30 of them children, we crossed the Erezcrossing from Israel into Gaza City. A week after we had arrived,we were out in the early morning hours conversing with journal-ists and other internationals. The topic of the Arab Spring andthe role of social media were hot topics of discussion. A youngPalestinian journalist, who had recently completed her studies inLondon, returned to Gaza months earlier to cover human rightsissues for an online news website written in English, and statedto us that she wanted to be the next Helen Thomas.

Another journalist responded to her by saying, Oh, you mean because of her comments on Palestine.

No, that is not why. There are two things that will change theworld, she said, Media and women, and I am both.

This is Helen Thomas legacy. This is proof that the uncomfort -able questions will continue to be asked. That is what Helenwanted. Accountability of the powerful, and a fearless press insearch of the truth.

This is why we have created The First Annual Helen Scholarship to be awarded to a Palestinian woman

journalism. And to honor w omen like Helen Thomaswomen who challenge empire and live life unintimidatethority and power.

Barbara Lubin is the founder and Executive Direc Middle East Childrens Alliance. Danny Muller has worked with th e Middle East Childance in Iraq and Palestine since MECA and Voices in theness were breaking the economic sanctions against Ira1990s. He is a war tax resister and war abolitionist.

The Middle East Childrens Alliance wthe legacy of Helen Thomas through thAnnual Helen Thomas Memorial Schoprovide a full university scholarship toin Palestine to pursue a career in journ

You can make a contribution, go to:www.mecaforpeace.org/helen

I dont think a tough question is disrespectful. I say. Mdent... I say, Thank you. What else do you want? The ptial news conference is the only forum in our society wpresident can be questioned. If hes not questioned, he caby edict; by government order. He can be a monarch. He a dictator, and who is to nd out? No. He should be queand he should always be able to willingly reply and anall questions because these arent our questions. Theypeoples questions.Credit: americanswhotellthetruth.org


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www.mecaforpeace.org/shop

to teach reading, math, and other s.

workers and psychologists also visitildren regularly because they feelabout being trapped in their house.arrest is particularly hard on family relationships because

rents have been forced to play the role of jailer to their n. Children under house arrest often have trouble focus -

cause they cant go outside or get any exercise.

rst time Ali was arrested, he was 11 years old. He wasn by the soldiers and held for hours. Later, when he3, he was arrested and put under house arrest, where

mains today. The soldiers or the police come to check dom hours of night or in the morning.

ed to be a soccer player. He loves the game. Stuck athe fears hes losing his ability to play. He ghts with

others and parents, and hes angry most of the time.ord he hates now is haram [forbidden in Arabic].mily uses this word a lot because he is forbidden tochool, forbidden to go the cultural center, forbidden

me Is Now my Jailinued from page 3

13: Wadi Hilweh Information Centeran, in occupied East Jerusalem,d that the Israeli Police placed-old Saif Roweidi under house arrestolently interrogating him for several

Saed Bannourato go to the soccer eld.

Fortunately, Madaas programhas resulted in improvementwhen children have regular classes at home and regular vis-its from mental health workers.These students, when they are

off house arrest and return to school, are usually able tocatch up. This compares with last year, when many chil -dren under house arrest didnt return to school afterwards.Ali says he was about to leave school because of the trouble

he was facing in most subjects and because he was trau-matized. But the program helped him catch up and stay inschool. His parents dont feel alonethey feel supported

by the community because of Madaas involvement.

Despite this success, Madaa faces challenges. The number of children on house arrest is increasing and the organiza -tions capacity is limited. Ideally, the program would con -tinue even after the children are off house arrest; the Israe -lis still harass the children afterwards and many of themhave ongoing psychological and educational issues as well.MECA is currently the only funder for this project.

Yes! I want to help protect the health, livesand future of children in the Middle East.Here is my tax-deductible contribution toMECAs 25th Anniversary Campaign: ______ $25 ______ $50 ______ $100

______ $250 ______ $____________

Id like to join MECAs Childrens Circle with a monthly gift of $ ____________

[ ] A check payable to MECA is enclosed. [ ] Please charge this credit card in the amount indicated above.

Card Number: ________________________________________Expiration Date: ________________Security code____

Signature: ________________________________________________

Email: ____________________________________________________

Name: ____________________________________________________

Address: __________________________________________________

City, ST, Zip: _______________________________________________

To make a donation online, go to: www.mecaforpeace.org/donateMECA is a 501(c)3 exempt organization. Your gift is tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.

New Playgrounds in Old VillagesMECA is very excited to continue our work with Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation and their 50 Villages Project torestore historic buildings and revitalize public spaces in Pales -tine. This year, we helped Riwaq build three new playgroundsserving children in West Bank villages. And we are alreadyworking on plans for two more in villages wherefamilies are ghting to stay on their lands in theface of illegal Israeli settlement expansion.

The rst new playground in Abwein village, out -side of Ramallah, is a fun and enchanting mazeof playground structures nestled into some of theruins from Abweins historic center. Many fami -lies have moved out of this area of the village inrecent years and Riwaqs rehabilitation work onhomes and community centersalong with thesegreat play areasare part of bringing life back tothe neighborhood.

The second playground is in a small village called Nclose to Nablus and is part of the villages rst kindergarkindergarten will be run by a local fair trade womens ctive. In the afternoons and weekends, when the kinderclosed, all the children of the village can come to clim

and swing. The third playground in Beit URamallah, is also part of a local kindergarta womens organization.

In all of its projects, Riwaq emphasizes terials and trains workers in both restornew building. Each project creates immopportunities as well as the possibility of employment. For Riwaq, conservation anrestoration are not about creating museumthey are tools for social and economic advcreating spaces where contemporary comcan thrive.

Your MECA Dollars at Work


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