Please: Some Awful Aid for Palestine

People like to crap on the website SomethingAwful.com because — heh — it can really be something awful. The non-witticism is neither uncommon nor, upon occasion, inapt. This is, after all, the website that told one of those nuttily self-absorbed ladies who make fake biography pages for their precious-angel stillborn fetuses (in this case, four of them) that her "poison womb [was] making heaven too fucking crowded."

Still, despite the name and the cruel satire, it's a decent place. It's outed probably half a dozen internet pedophiles. When news reports in 2003 or 2004 disclosed that we were sending troops to Iraq without sufficient body armor, message board members — who have to pay $10 to join and, if they choose, $5 per avatar, $10 to be able to use the search and private message functions and $10 to view the inactive/archive section of the forums — donated over $20,000 to protect our troops. Racists are banned, costing them their registration fees and whatever bonuses they added to their accounts. They're also internet-detectived and mocked on other sites, exposed for their virulent and disgusting opinions.

Lately, members of the site have been doing something singularly generous and creditable. In seven days, they have raised $20,273 for the victims in Gaza. These are mostly high school and college students and young professionals without large salaries. Granted, there have been one or two magnanimous $500 donations here or there, but the rest of it has been collected from hundreds of $10 or $25 donations.

These donations have gone to:

Oxfam International
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Amnesty International
Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP)
UNRWA
Doctors Without Borders/Médicins Sans Frontières
ANERA
Norwegian Aid Commitee
Knitters Without Borders
Bristol Computers 4 Palestine Project
United Palestinian Appeal
Electronic Intifada (click the link; don't let the name deter you!)
and
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

All this was done by reprobates who love mockery and live on tiny incomes. Given how much they are capable of, surely you are capable of joining them.

Whatever you think of the current conflict in Gaza, the territory is an unqualified and undeniable humanitarian disaster. The recent months-long Israeli blockade has prevented food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza. Worse, the current IDF actions have destroyed sewers and water treatment plants. Without fuel to boil the water, with untreated sewage commingling with the water supply, the area is ripe for the spread of water-borne infectious disease and a catastrophically deadly epidemic. With so many children and adults already desperately malnourished from the blockade, any onset of infection that otherwise might be insufferable could prove unlivable — even before taking into account the lack of treatment available.

Don't let antipathy for Hamas and their aims dissuade you from helping. Hamas is a political party, not a terrorist party. It is unfortunate that their party includes a militant wing, and that wing's actions are reprehensible. But don't buy into the red herring that your aid will only go toward building rockets. First of all, the aid those agencies provide will not simply be handed over. Click the links. It will go toward medical care, food and other quality-of-life essentials. But even if it somehow falls into Hamas' hands, could that be so bad? Consider, even The Council on Foreign Relations has this to say about Hamas:

"Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services, and Hamas's efforts in this area—as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption—help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA's recent elections.

You may not agree with their politics, but the Palestinian people need and deserve aid, and their need is critical and unambiguous.

Here is my donation to Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP)*:
Please join me.

Thank you.


* — Technically, this is not a screenshot of my donation. Like a dingbat, I didn't take one. This is actually a screenshot of my friend Devri's donation. She generously matched mine.