For Barbara Lubin, it’s always been about the children.

The children in the Dheisheh refugee camp who can’t sleep because of the shelling outside their windows.

The children of friends living in Gaza City who have seen enough of violence that they fear going to school.

And the countless Palestinian children she knows with the look of hunger in their eyes.

Lubin—Berkeley resident, civil rights activist, and crusader for Palestinian rights as director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance—brought her campaign to achieve peace in the Middle East to those gathered to hear her speak at St. Ignatius Parish in Sacramento May 15.

A Jewish mother of four, she has taken a different path than the one she walked as a child growing up in “a very right wing kind of Jewish home,” she said in an interview with The Herald.

“At the dinner table somebody would say, ‘Pass the salt’ and somebody else would say, ‘Is it good for Israel?’ I grew up believing we had to support the state of Israel no matter what.”

Two events reshaped that perspective and changed her life. The first occurred in 1968 when her son Charlie was born with Down’s Syndrome. Discovering the absence of laws defending the rights of children with disabilities, she waged a lengthy legal battle to ensure that all children have the right to be educated together in the least restrictive environment possible.

But fighting school districts and bureaucracies as a children’s right activist, Lubin said, was “a piece of cake” compared to the challenge she accepted during her tenure on the Berkeley Board of Education in the 1980s. Some students from San Francisco State University asked her why she was silent about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon when she had been so vocal about social injustice issues in Central America.

“I said, ‘I’m Jewish,’ and they said, ‘So?’” Lubin recalled.

Her response was to join a national delegation traveling to the Israeli-occupied territories in 1988 as the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, began.

“Everything that could happen to us other than being killed happened. We were shot at, tear gassed and chased out of villages by Israeli defense forces,” Lubin said of the trip.

The delegation included Father Bill O’Donnell, retired pastor of St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Berkeley. Father O’Donnell first met Lubin in the early 1980s when both were civil rights activists. He says both were appalled by what they witnessed on the trip.

“We saw conditions much worse than conditions suffered by farm workers in this country…and visited hospitals and saw the victims of violence,” he said. “For (Lubin), her humanity transcended her nationality and led her to condemn oppression of any kind.”

It was during the trip 13 years ago that Lubin paid her first visit to the Dheisheh refugee camp where 11,000 Palestinians live in what she describes as a “horrendous” environment.

“Dheisheh is dear to my heart,” Lubin said. “Those children call me mom.” Upon her return to Berkeley, she became determined to change those conditions by founding the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

Since then Lubin has worked tirelessly with supporters from various ethnic and religious backgrounds to improve life for Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi children by raising more than $7 million for humanitarian aid.

Jeanne Anderson-West, director of social ministries at St. Ignatius Parish, said Lubin was invited as one presenter in a nine-part global justice series because one of the goals of the series—an interfaith project—is to educate the community about a wide range of social justice concerns.

“The special viewpoint (Barbara) Lubin brings is that we’re more aware in our country about the plight of the Israeli people but don’t hear from the Palestinian people,” Anderson-West said. “We need to be very respectful of both views.”

Israelis and Palestinians have divergent views about what caused the Palestinians to become refugees in 1968. It is the Israelis’ view that most Palestinian refugees left their homes encouraged by Arab armies that invaded the state of Israel promising Palestinians a better living situation once the Jews were expelled from the country. Palestinians contend they were forced out by the Israeli army.

In October 2000, in response to e-mails from Palestinian friends about an escalation in violence and concern for the children of Dheisheh, Lubin spent two weeks traveling through Gaza, the West Bank and Arab towns within Israel. She attended seven funerals in 10 days and witnessed the shooting and killing of young Palestinians in the West Bank town of Ramallah. While staying with friends in lower Nazareth she was startled by a loud noise outside.

“There must have been 300 (Jewish) settlers coming down the street with pieces of wood, breaking car windows, announcing over loud speakers for people to leave their houses,” Lubin said.

The experience made her recall as a child listening to her grandmother tell stories about “pogroms,” the persecution of Jews in Russia.

She is quick to point out that she is deeply concerned for the Jewish people living in Israel.

“It frightens me too, as a Jew. Clearly I do not want anything to happen to anyone there, but this is not good for Jewish people anywhere in the world,” she contended.

It is Lubin’s view that the conflict in the Middle East is not about Jews and Arabs but about U.S. interests there.

“Each one of us is responsible for the deaths—every taxpayer who remains silent and allows $6 billion to go to Israel to buy tanks, helicopters and gas,” she said.

Her most recent trip to Palestine in January was bittersweet. Lubin found “a palpable anger” among the Palestinian people she visited. She was also able to visit the parks and playgrounds of the Middle East Children’s Alliance, built on the West Bank and Gaza, and viewed the rebuilt recreation center in the Dheisheh refugee camp complete with computers donated by MECA members. The center is now being used as an overflow facility for the local hospital.

Lubin sees two possible solutions to what seems an irresolvable Middle East conflict.

One is to create two democratic states side by side with borders as in 1967, the removal of all Jewish settlements from the West Bank and Gaza, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. The other option would be one state for both the Israelis and Palestinians that would be under democratic rule.

“Or there is a third solution: Israelis and Palestinians can keep on killing one another’s children,” Lubin contended.

While acknowledging that more blood will be shed before peace comes to the Middle East, Lubin does not believe the obstacles are as insurmountable as many believe.

“Many people say Jews and Arabs have been killing each other for thousands of years. Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said. “We lived together—Jews, Arabs and Christians—for thousands of years. This has been going on for 53 years.”

Lubin plans to return to the West Bank and Gaza with humanitarian supplies on June 17.

For more information on the Middle East Children’s Alliance call (510) 548-0542 or visit the Web site at www.mecaforpeace.org.

Copyright © 2001 Diocese of Sacramento - All Rights Reserved

[Catholic Herald - Cover Page]