Barbara Lubin Taking Medicine to Gaza

Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children's Alliance has been raising money and bringing medicine to the children of Palestine and Iraq for nearly two decades. I am proud to live in the same bioregion with Ms. Lubin and her organization. She and MECA are now bringing a special emergency shipment of medication to Gaza (I'm not clear on how they are going to get past the Israeli blockade). She writes the following letter. Read it and click through to donate:

"I will be leaving next week to meet our Gaza Director Dr. Mona El-Farra in Egypt to receive five tons of medicine for infants and children that we purchased and had shipped from Holland. We will also purchase emergency supplies from a Palestinian pharmaceutical company in Cairo to help treat the thousands who have been wounded in the horrific Israeli attacks.

"As soon as I return, I will begin working on another shipment of medical aid to Gaza.

"Please make a contribution now for the children of Gaza whose health and lives are at stake.

"While we watch in horror as Israel's bombs kill and maim children in their homes and their schools, we can do something that will truly make a difference.

"Dr. El-Farra, all the people she works with in Gaza, and the thousands of families they serve, join me in asking for your support at this terrible time to help save the lives and health of thousands of children."

Sincerely,
Barbara Lubin
MECA Founder and Director

Comments

[BetterIdeas]

Good decent constructive enlightened statesmen wanted.

In the interest of the Palestinians, find statesmen, who cut the ties to the papers of Sayyid Qtab, who end the revenge calls against Israel, who really lead the Palestinians to a reconciliation with themselves and Israel.

This battered and suffering nation needs more than symptomatic Advils, it needs a strong chemotherapy to recover from multiple cancers.

And forget my friend Philip Weiss. He is the Advil.

[Leila Abu-Saba]

If you use terms like "cancer" to refer to human beings then you are still stuck in the problem and you don't have a bead yet on workable solutions. Perhaps I misunderstand your argument.

[Molly Zee]

Self-responsible activism (rather than casting a stone for a stone)is required. Activism that comes from a simple place of anger or ethnocentrism must be questioned, no? With the New Year, let us emulate (unrelentingly) anyone who is a true soldier for peace. Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf died last week. From his obit in the New York Times: "In 1973, Rabbi Wolf helped found Breira, an organization of progressive American Jews that advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The organization, whose name means “alternative” in Hebrew, was a target of frequent, bitter public attacks by American Zionists. It disbanded in 1977."

[Sophia]

Hi Leila,

First of all: Happy New Year.
As for the aid to Gaza, the only route that was operating recently since the tightening of the blockade by Israel and Egypt was a ship operated by 'Free Gaza' that departs from Larnaca. You can visit their website. They made several successful deliveries since last spring and they even got out children and people from Gaza who needed medical treatment.
Their last voyage, on december 27th, was unsuccessful since it was attacked and rammed by the Israeli military in international waters before arriving to Gaza.