ANERA takes action to remove name of terrorist from school it is funding

[IMRA: Matthew A. Levitt, Senior Fellow in Terrorism Studies at The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy contacted Peter Gubser of ANERA
(American Near East Refugee Aid) to bring to his attention the Palestinian
Media Watch Bulletin
of August 7 (forwarded to him by IMRA) that "Dalal Mughrabi is the woman
terrorist who participated in the murder of 36 Israelis and an American
nature photographer, Gail Ruban, in 1978. A girls' high school named for the
terrorist - "The Dalal Mughrabi School" - is now being renovated with money
from USAID - through ANERA."

The following is the follow up message from ANERA
===

Dear Matt:
Thanks. The problem is solved. The following describes what
happened. The message is addressed to the head of USAID in Tel Aviv.
Thanks again for flagging it.
Peter

Dear Larry,

Follow up on our telephone conversations yesterday and today and my
discussions at ANERA with Peter and Adnan at the Halhoul office, I am
writing this email in order to document for the record the events from
their start to end.

The school.
The school's original name was Hajj Issa Al Mashni Secondary Girls
school. This is how ANERA reported the name of the school in its
proposal to USAID and this is how the name of the school appears on
ANERA's grant agreement with the Shuyyukh town council.

Several months ago, the ministry of education decided to change the name
of the school to Dalal Al Moghrabi school simply because they wanted to
give a woman's name to the girls school. Actually the original name was
chosen because Hajj Issa has been the donor who started the school
building.

The project entails constructing additional 8 classrooms to the existing
school (some of the space will be used for administration, laboratory,
library and the rest as classrooms).

The stage where we are in: tenders for construction have been issued.
They are expected to be received by close of business on Sunday August
11, 2002.

ANERA's response
Based on discussions that I had yesterday with Peter in Washington and
Adnan Obeidat in Halhoul, ANERA's position was as follows:

i. ANERA will put all its activities regarding the
above project on hold. This is possible because so far no activities on
the school site have been started.

ii. ANERA will only resume work on this project only
if a neutral name is given back to the school.

The present situation
ANERA started immediately, this morning, through its director in the
Halhoul office, a discussion about the issue raised and how this can be
resolved with the least damages possible. ANERA was successful in
obtaining the Ministry of Education's commitment in writing that they
are reverting, immediately, to the old name for the school which
glorifies the person who contributed to the construction of the initial
classrooms for the girls school. The letter is in Arabic and ANERA
Jerusalem office is keeping a copy for further reference. The Shuyyukh
town council called ANERA and expressed their intention to change the
plaque at the school to reflect the original name of the school.

ANERA's future steps
ANERA will carry out all the necessary steps in the future to make sure
that such incidents do not occur. We all understand that we live in a
highly sensitive environment that could damage a lot of the
good-intended works.

Also ANERA will adjust all internal records to reflect the original name
of the school (i.e. on the contracts documents, the construction plaque
on site, .) as was mentioned in the proposal. Moreover, when the time
comes and the contract is signed with a specific contractor, ANERA will
make sure that this event gets maximum publicity in all the local
newspaper with an emphasis that the true and correct name of the school
is mentioned.

We hope that this is satisfactory to all concerned and that it
eliminates any inconvenience that may have been caused.

Best regards,

Jamal Al Aref

Acting Middle East Representative