Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA)

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited States
Websitewww.mecaforpeace.org
Founded1988
In their own words“We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives.”

Funding

  • In FY 2020-2021, total income was $8.5 million; total expenses were $5.6 million.
  • Donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Open Society Foundation.
  • In 2016-2023, MECA received $430,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for its “Creative Palestinian Communities Fund,” a “funding and support model that incentivizes civic engagement, funds creative solutions, and raises social capital among communities and grassroots organizations across Palestine.”
  • In 2020-2022, MECA received $400,000 from Open Society Foundation to “support artistic, cultural, and agricultural projects that will incentivize civic engagement and generate local development solutions which will advance education and promote social welfare in communities across Palestine.”
  • MECA was the fiscal sponsor for International Solidarity Movement -USA. In 2009, donations for ISM’s campaign to “interfere with the construction of the annexation barrier” were to be made to “MECA (ISM-USA Fund).”

Activities

  • The Middle East Children’s Alliance’s (MECA) stated goal is to “educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives.”
  • MECA organizes delegations to “Palestine/Israel” where participants can “witness the impact of the Israeli occupation and…learn about refugees, land confiscation, political prisoners…” Trip highlights include learning “about the origins of the Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, and how it can be implemented.”
  • In June 2009, MECA raised $75,000 for British MP George Galloway’s “Viva Palestina” convoy “following the massacre in Gaza.” Viva Palestina was shut down by the UK Charity Commission in 2012 due to the Commission’s “continuing concerns about the charity’s financial management and its outstanding annual accounts and returns” and eventually ceased to exist in September 2016.

Demonization of Israel

BDS Activities

  • In February 2023, MECA, as part of the “Plant a Tree” campaign, called for “exposing the JNF propaganda as greenwash for ethnic cleansing.”
  • In January 2023, MECA was a joint signatory on a call to Congress to “take immediate policy action towards accountability: Stop arming Israel’s massacres against the Palestinian people by ending U.S. military funding to Israel.”
  • In July 2021, MECA was a sponsor of a rally calling to “End US Aid to Israel… [and] End the Apartheid State of Israel.”
  • In July 2021, MECA was a signatory on a letter to President Biden to “Halt Weapons Sales to Israel.”
  • In June 2020, MECA was a signatory on a letter to then Presidential candidate Joe Biden calling for “support for conditioning U.S. military funding to Israel on an end to Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and adherence to all relevant U.S. laws, including the Arms Export Control Act and the Leahy Law.” The letter further called for Biden to “promise to provide full U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed by all sides in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”
  • In March 2019, MECA was a signatory on a letter to the UN High Commission for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet advocating for the UN BDS “blacklist” of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line. The letter called for the database to be published without delay as it will “serv[e] as a practical tool to end business support for illegal settlements…[and] will also constitute an important example of a measure for advancing normative clarity around the responsibilities of businesses operating in other areas under occupation.”
  • In February 2018, MECA hosted Ann Wright, an activist with CODEPINK, for a lecture titled “Gaza Freedom Flotilla, BDS, Banned from Israel.” Wright “was a boat leader on the 2015 Gaza Freedom Flotilla and…the Zaytouna, the Women’s Boat to Gaza in 2016.”
  • On June 28, 2016, MECA and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) “attempted to deliver a petition signed by 25,000 people urging musician Carlos Santana to respect the call for a cultural boycott of Israel in support of Palestinian human rights and cancel his upcoming concert in Tel Aviv.” However, the petition was ignored by the staff at Santana’s Milagro Foundation, who “refused to open the door when the delegation arrived, and closed the blinds.”
  • In September 2015, MECA signed on a letter to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urging the UN to terminate its contracts with international security company G4S, as the company is allegedly “complicit with Israel’s human rights violations.”
  • In August 2014, MECA endorsed a protest titled “Block the Boat, End Israeli Apartheid” to block the Israeli owned ZIM shipping line from reaching the Port of Oakland in order to “refuse to allow Israel to conduct its business as usual.” The protest called to “end the colonial occupation of Palestine,” and “just as apartheid fell in South Africa, so too it will fall in Israel!”
  • In July 2011, MECA was a signatory on a petition urging the National Building Museum to rescind their annual Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology granted to Caterpillar as “Caterpillar Inc. has a long history of complicity in extensive human rights abuses and violations of international law within the Occupied Palestinian Territory…Caterpillar long has been on notice about the pattern of Israeli human rights violations committed with its equipment, yet it continues to sell to the Israeli government, putting corporate profit before human rights.”
  • In March 2011, MECA signed a “Statement by Jewish Activists and Organizations active in BDS against Israel” stating that BDS “rightfully place accountability on Israeli institutions (and their allies and partners) that use business, cultural, and academic ties to white-wash Israel’s responsibility for continuing crimes against humanity,” and defined BDS as an “anti-racist movement against the daily, brutal occupation of Palestine and military threat to the region by the State of Israel.”

Ties to Union of Health Work Committees

Partners

  • Partners include Ard Al-Insan, Civic Coalition for Palestinian Residency Rights in Jerusalem, Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and The Freedom Theatre.
  • MECA also partners with the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee (UPWC).
  • MECA is a member of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a “national coalition of hundreds of groups working to advocate for Palestinian rights and a shift in US policy.”
    • Accuses Israel of maintaining a “matrix of control” over the Palestinian population and enacting “laws that discriminate against [Palestinians], much as Black Americans had been treated during the Jim Crow era.”
    • In May 2017, USCPR published “50 Years of Israeli Military Occupation – FAQs” accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” and stating that “Even  though the  United  States has consistently opposed Israel’s building of settlements for the past fifty years…the United States has worked to ensure that   the   international   community   does   not impose sanctions  on Israel  for  its  continued  illegal  colonization of Palestinian land.”

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