Another Non-'Even-handedness'

Gee, you would think that Israel needs some aid, too. NO?

Private U.S. Groups Send Humanitarian Aid to Lebanon, Gaza

ANERA partners with American-Arab groups to send medical supplies

Washington – As the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza grind on, creating more casualties and displacing more people, private U.S. organizations are raising humanitarian relief funds and sending emergency medical supplies to the victims.

Philip Davies, vice president of Washington-based American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA,) told the Washington File August 4 that his organization has raised $200,000 for emergency relief to Lebanon to provide medical supplies, health and hygiene kits for infants and children and hot meals for refugees who have fled the fighting.

The medical supplies and health and hygiene kits of infant milk formula, diapers and other essential items such as soap and shampoo will be flown to Beirut in collaboration with AmeriCares, a Connecticut-based disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization.

ANERA also has agreed to help deliver medical supplies donated by the National Arab American Medical Association Michigan chapter (NAAMA). NAAMA and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) held a fund-raising dinner August 5 in Dearborn, Michigan, to raise money for the emergency medical supplies. The target is $10 million in medical supplies with every $7,500 raised by ACCESS being matched by $500,000 in supplies by NAAMA.

ANERA, which maintains an office in Gaza, in July shipped emergency medical supplies valued at $10 million, which arrived just before the fighting. Davies said a $250,000 consignment of powdered milk is now at the Israeli port of Ashdod waiting to be transported to Gaza.

Davies said he has requested additional funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development for relief efforts in the region.

ANERA was founded in 1968 in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War to help displaced Palestinians. Since then, it has created grassroots self-help community projects throughout the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan.

But, if you've gotten this far, the more important issue is how come official U.S. aid funds are going to Arab groups? Do Jewish groups benefit the same way?